Every lead platform will tell you what a lead costs after you've handed over a credit card. Almost none of them will tell you before. So contractors end up comparing prices the hard way — by burning a few hundred dollars in each place and seeing what comes back.
This page is the shortcut. Below you'll find the national baseline for what leads cost by trade, then a table covering all 50 states, so you can see roughly what a shared or exclusive lead should run in your market before anyone gets your card number.
One ground rule up front: these are planning benchmarks, not quotes. Lead prices move with season, trade, and even ZIP code. But if a platform quotes you double the range for your state, you should know it — and now you will.
The national baseline: what leads cost by trade
These ranges are compiled from published platform pricing and ad benchmarks across the major lead sellers and Google Ads. "Shared" means the lead is sold to multiple contractors (usually up to three or four). "Exclusive" means you're the only one who gets it.
| Trade | Shared lead | Exclusive lead | Google Ads cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | $12–80 | $75–150 | $60–200 |
| Plumbing | $15–60 | $75–150 | $90–180 |
| Roofing | $25–100 | $100–300 | $150–300 |
| Electrical | $15–70 | $60–150 | varies widely |
| House cleaning | $10–40 | $30–80 | varies widely |
| Landscaping | $10–50 | $40–100 | varies widely |
| Water damage restoration | pay-per-call $70–300+ | pay-per-call $70–300+ | $200–400 |
A few patterns worth noticing:
- Exclusive leads cost 3–5x more than shared leads — and they're usually worth it. A shared lead sold to four contractors turns into a speed-dial contest. Your real cost per job on shared leads is often higher than it looks, because you close so few of them.
- Job value drives lead price. Roofing and water damage restoration leads cost the most because the jobs are worth $8,000–50,000+. House cleaning leads are cheap because the ticket is small. Nobody's doing you a favor either way — the market prices leads at a rough fraction of expected job value.
- Google Ads sits at the top of the price range but at the top of the quality range too. A Google Ads lead called you, alone, from your ad. For the math on whether that trade-off works in your business, run your numbers through our lead ROI calculator.
For context on the ad-cost side: LocaliQ's 2025 search advertising benchmarks put the average home services cost per click at $7.85, with roofing and electrical among the most expensive categories — see the LocaliQ home services benchmarks and WordStream's Google Ads benchmarks for the full industry tables.
What contractor leads cost in every state
The table below shows a typical range for a representative mix of trades (HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing) in each state. States are grouped into three cost tiers based on relative advertising and labor costs. Click your state for the local detail.
| State | Cost tier | Typical shared lead | Typical exclusive lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Alaska | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Arizona | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Arkansas | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| California | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Colorado | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Connecticut | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Delaware | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Florida | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Georgia | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Hawaii | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Idaho | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Illinois | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Indiana | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Iowa | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Kansas | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Kentucky | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Louisiana | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Maine | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Maryland | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Massachusetts | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Michigan | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Minnesota | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Mississippi | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Missouri | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Montana | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Nebraska | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Nevada | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| New Hampshire | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| New Jersey | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| New Mexico | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| New York | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| North Carolina | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| North Dakota | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Ohio | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Oklahoma | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Oregon | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Pennsylvania | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Rhode Island | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| South Carolina | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| South Dakota | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Tennessee | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Texas | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Utah | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Vermont | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Virginia | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| Washington | High | $15–95 | $90–190 |
| West Virginia | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
| Wisconsin | Mid | $15–70 | $75–150 |
| Wyoming | Low | $10–65 | $55–135 |
Each state page breaks these numbers down further by trade and covers what's actually driving lead costs in that market. If you want the detail behind your row — which metros run hot, which trades are underpriced locally — your state page is the place to go.
How to read this table (the honest methodology)
Here's exactly how these numbers were built, so you know what they are and what they aren't:
- The ranges are modeled estimates. We started from national published platform pricing — the by-trade table above — and adjusted it by the relative advertising-cost and labor-cost differences between states. High-tier states run roughly 15–35 percent above the top of the national range; low-tier states run roughly 10–30 percent below it.
- They are planning benchmarks, not quotes. No platform prices by state line on a map. They price by ZIP code, trade, and demand in real time. Use these ranges to sanity-check a quote and set a budget, not to argue with a sales rep.
- Metro vs. rural inside a state varies more than state vs. state. A plumbing lead in downtown Denver and one in rural eastern Colorado can differ more than Colorado vs. Kansas. If you serve a major metro in a "low" state, expect to pay closer to mid or high-tier numbers.
- Trade mix matters. The state ranges reflect a representative mix. If you're a roofer, read your state's range toward the top and beyond. If you clean houses, read it well below the bottom.
Why lead costs vary this much by state
Three forces set the price of a lead in your market, and none of them are about you:
- What competitors will pay. Lead prices in auction-driven systems (Google Ads, and the platforms that resell those clicks) are set by the most aggressive bidder in your area. California has more well-funded home-service companies per square mile than Mississippi, so everything costs more.
- What the job is worth locally. Labor rates and job tickets run higher in high-cost states, so contractors there can rationally pay more per lead. A $250 exclusive roofing lead is cheap against a $28,000 replacement in New Jersey and expensive against a $12,000 one in Arkansas.
- Population density. Dense markets generate more searches, which attracts more platforms and more bidders. Rural markets are cheaper per lead but thinner on volume — you can't buy 50 water heater leads a month in a county with 9,000 people.
How to pay less per lead
You can't change your state. You can change almost everything else about what a lead costs you.
- Buy exclusivity, or create it. Stop comparing shared and exclusive leads by sticker price. Compare cost per booked job. A $30 shared lead you close 1 in 8 times costs $240 per job. A $120 exclusive lead you close 1 in 3 times costs $360 — closer than it looked, and the exclusive route didn't train four competitors on your market. Best of all is a lead that was never for sale: a call from your own Google Business Profile or website costs you nothing per unit once the asset ranks. That's the entire argument in our breakdown of Angi vs. Thumbtack vs. your own leads.
- Answer in under five minutes. Speed-to-lead is the cheapest cost-per-lead reduction available, because it doesn't lower the price — it raises the yield. The same spend closes more jobs.
- Tighten your geography. Most contractors set their service radius too wide and pay big-metro prices for leads they'd rather not drive to. Cutting the outer ring of your radius often cuts average lead cost immediately.
- Run your own ads with real conversion tracking. Platforms mark up the clicks they buy. Running Google Ads under your own account means you pay the auction price directly, keep the data, and build an asset — negative keyword lists, proven ad copy, conversion history — that gets cheaper over time instead of staying rented.
- Budget from the job backward, not the lead forward. Decide your allowable cost per booked job first, then work backward through your close rate to a maximum lead price. Our marketing budget planner does this arithmetic for you.
Do lead costs keep going up?
Broadly, yes. Ad benchmarks have shown home-services costs per lead rising for several years running — LocaliQ's 2025 data showed cost per lead up year-over-year for most home services categories. More private-equity-backed consolidators are bidding in more markets every year, and they have patient money. The practical takeaway isn't despair; it's that the gap between renting leads and owning your lead flow widens every year. The sooner your own website, profile, and ad account carry more of the load, the less these tables matter to you.
Should I buy leads at all?
If your trucks are sitting, yes — bought leads are the fastest oxygen available, and paying $75–150 for an exclusive lead that turns into a $6,000 job is fine math. The trap is treating bought leads as a permanent strategy instead of a bridge. Every dollar that goes to a lead platform builds their asset. The businesses that win their market long-term run both tracks at once: buy leads to fill this month, build owned channels to shrink next year's dependence. The full playbook for that transition is in our marketing guide for the trades.
If you'd rather not guess where your market sits inside these ranges, Founders Resource runs a growth checkup that benchmarks your actual cost per lead and cost per job against your local market — so you know whether you have a pricing problem, a close-rate problem, or no problem at all.