What HVAC leads actually cost in 2026, channel by channel
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Current lead prices for repair and replacement across Local Services Ads, search, Meta and shared lead sellers, and how to work out what you can afford to pay
Every contractor asks the same question and almost nobody gets a straight answer: what should a lead cost?
The answer is slippery because "lead" means five different things depending on who is selling it. A Local Services Ads lead is a phone call from someone in your service area who tapped your listing. A shared lead from an aggregator is your phone number handed to a homeowner alongside three competitors. Not the same product, and they should not carry the same price.
Here is what the channels run right now in most US metros, and more importantly, how to decide what you can afford.
Start with what a lead is worth to you
Before comparing prices, work out your own ceiling. Three numbers:
- Average ticket. Say $650 on a service call, $10,500 on a replacement.
- Close rate on that lead type. Repair calls close at 75% to 85% because the homeowner already decided. Replacement leads close at 25% to 40% after an in-home visit.
- Gross margin. Roughly 45% to 55% on service, 30% to 40% on installs.
Repair: $650 ticket times 80% close times 50% margin is $260 of gross profit per lead. If you are willing to spend a third of gross profit on acquisition, your ceiling is about $85, and you can defend $130 on a lead source that reliably converts.
Replacement: $10,500 times 30% close times 35% margin is $1,100 of gross profit per lead. A $350 lead is fine. A $150 lead is excellent. Contractors who refuse to pay over $100 for a replacement lead are turning down profitable volume out of habit.
Do this with your own numbers before taking anyone's word on what is expensive.
Local Services Ads
Repair leads: $35 to $90. Replacement leads: $90 to $220.
Still the best first dollar for most residential contractors. You pay per lead rather than per click, the listing sits above the text ads, and Google requires license, insurance and background checks, which thins the field.
The part contractors underuse is disputes. Wrong service, outside your area, a solicitor, a customer who called about a warranty on a system you did not install: all disputable within 30 days, and Google credits most legitimate ones. Contractors who never dispute run 10% to 15% over what they should be paying.
The part contractors get wrong is fuel. Placement is driven by proximity, review count and rating, and response time. A profile with a dozen reviews cannot spend a real budget. Across 46,610 HVAC listings the median is 30 reviews and 27% have fewer than 10, which means a large slice of the trade is trying to buy LSA volume with an empty tank.
Google search ads
Repair leads: $45 to $130. Replacement leads: $120 to $350.
More expensive than LSAs and more controllable. You choose the keywords, the schedule, the landing page and the message, which matters most on replacement where the copy does real work.
Two things drive the spread. The first is whether you split repair and replacement into separate campaigns; running them together lets the algorithm chase cheap repair clicks and starve your install pipeline. The second is heat waves, which can double repair click costs for a week as every contractor in the county bids up at once. Details in the Google Ads guide.
Meta ads
Tune-up leads: $12 to $35. Indoor air quality: $25 to $60. Replacement: $45 to $140.
Cheapest per lead and coldest. These people were not searching, so expect to call three replacement leads to book one appointment against roughly one and a half on search.
That is the trade, not a flaw. Meta buys demand in April and October when search demand does not exist. Judge it on booked appointments, never on cost per lead, or you will conclude it is your best channel and wonder why the board is still empty.
Shared and sold leads
$25 to $120 depending on the seller, sold to three or four contractors simultaneously.
Cheap on the invoice, expensive in reality. You are in a speed race for a homeowner already annoyed by the fourth call. Close rates run well below every other channel and your CSR burns real time on calls lost before the phone rang.
They have one legitimate use: filling capacity in a genuinely slow week when the marginal cost of an idle tech exceeds the cost of a bad lead. Treat them as overflow, never as a foundation, and never build your capacity plan on them.
Reviews and referrals
Nearly free per lead, and the highest close rate you will ever see.
A referral closes at 60% or better on replacement. The cost is a review process and an agreement base, both of which take a season to build and then compound. This is the reason the reviews guide matters more than the ad budget conversation.
What to do with these numbers
- Calculate your own ceiling per lead type. Do not skip this. Most contractors have never done it and are guessing at what is expensive.
- Track cost per booked call, not cost per lead. A $35 lead that never books is worse than a $200 lead that does.
- Fund your review count first, because it lowers the price of everything else. Two contractors bidding the same amount on LSAs do not get the same placement.
- Split the budget by season, not evenly. Heavy on search in July, heavy on Meta in April and October.
- Ask your distributor about co-op reimbursement before setting the budget. Half of qualifying spend rebated changes every number above.
Compare your own profile against the benchmark report before deciding what to spend. If your review count is in the bottom half, that is the cheaper problem to fix first. If you want a channel run and measured properly, every service is available as a free 14-day trial, no card. Text or call (385) 832-6175.