Google Ads for trades and practices
Google Ads or Local Services Ads for a Plumber or HVAC Company
Search ads charge per click and Local Services Ads per lead. Side by side: charge, placement, control, tracking, and a test budget for a plumber or HVAC firm.
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko on Pexels
In short
Google Ads search campaigns charge you for each click and give you control over the words, the page and the area; Local Services Ads charge you for each lead and give you a fixed format at the top of the results, after a screening of your licenses and insurance. For a plumber or an HVAC company, we usually start with Local Services Ads, because the price is per call and the format is built for it, and add search ads when you need control over what you advertise. Either way, the number to measure is the cost per booked job, not the cost per click or per lead.
- Housecall Pro’s tables list search ads as pay per click and Local Services Ads as pay per lead, with Local Services Ads shown above other Google Ads and offering limited control over the message.
- Housecall Pro (March 2026) puts plumbing search leads at $50 to $100+ and Local Services Ads leads at $25 to $80+; its HVAC page puts them at $100 to $150 and $50 to $8012.
- Housecall Pro suggests at least $500 to $1,000 a month to test whether Google Ads can bring in jobs consistently1.
- Google’s help page says a search campaign might spend up to twice its average daily budget on a given day and no more than 30.4 times that budget in a month3.
- Google Ads can count a phone call as a conversion only when it lasts longer than a minimum length you set.
Most of the plumbers and HVAC owners who ask us this have already been told one of two things: that search ads are a money pit, or that Local Services Ads are the only product worth buying. Both are claims about a number, and the number is cost per booked job, which we work out in What Local Services Ads Really Cost per Booked Job. This page sets the two products next to each other, says when each fits, and lists what to track so the comparison is made on your own data.
The two products side by side
Each row carries the source of its description; the last row is a published test figure, not a rule.
| Google Ads (search) | Local Services Ads | |
|---|---|---|
| How you are charged | Per click | Per lead: a call, a message or a booking request |
| Typical price, plumbing | $5 to $30+ a click; $50 to $100+ a lead1 | $25 to $80+ a lead1 |
| Typical price, HVAC | $8 to $50+ a click; about $100 to $150 a lead2 | $50 to $80 a lead2 |
| Where it shows | Top of the standard results | The very top of the page, above other Google Ads |
| What the customer sees | Your text and your keywords | An automated format, with the Google Verified badge after screening |
| Control over the message | High | Limited |
| Time to start | Fast | Slower, after the screening and background check |
| Budget | A daily budget, which Google may overspend on a given day up to twice3 | An average weekly budget with a monthly maximum |
| Tracking | Conversion actions you define, including calls | The Leads page, with a charge status for each lead |
| Test budget suggested | At least $500 to $1,000 a month1; $900 to $1,500 for HVAC2 | Set from a lead target, not a click budget |
Sources disagree Housecall Pro’s own two pages give different ranges for the same products, and both say the figures come from benchmarks of other firms. Contractor Magazine’s August 2026 benchmark, $25 to $75 a lead for plumbing and $30 to $90 for HVAC, covers high-intent search ads and Local Services Ads together and is labeled directional by its author4. Use all of them as the outer edges of a range, not as a price list.
Where the two products differ in practice
Who decides what the customer reads
With search ads, you write the ad, choose the keywords and send the click to a page you control, so a page that matches the search is your job. With Local Services Ads, the format is automated and the control is limited; what you control is the screening, the budget, the service area and how fast the phone is answered. If you want to promote one service or an offer, search ads are the way to do it; Housecall Pro lists them as best for targeted services and promotions.
Who has to pass a screening
Local Services Ads begin with a screening of business registration, licenses, insurance and, in the United States for select categories, a criminal background check of owners and service professionals. The steps are in the pillar page; the point here is that they take time, which is why Housecall Pro lists the setup as slower. Search ads can start fast.
How the budget behaves
A search campaign works to an average daily budget. Google’s help page says that on a given day it might spend up to twice that budget, and that by month’s end it will not spend more than 30.4 times it3. A $20 daily budget therefore means a ceiling of $608 a month (our arithmetic on Google’s figure). Housecall Pro’s $500 to $1,000 a month test figure for plumbers1 is about $16 to $33 a day on the same arithmetic. Local Services Ads work the other way round: you set an average weekly budget from the number of leads you want, you can spend more than that in a week but not more than the monthly maximum, and the ad stops for the month when the maximum is reached.
When each fits
These are our judgments from the sources above, not rules.
- Local Services Ads fit when you are licensed and insured with the documents at hand, a call is the sale, the phone is answered in business hours, and you want to pay for a contact rather than a click. The price per lead is in the same range as or below the search price per lead in the tables above.
- Search ads fit when you need to advertise a specific service, area or offer that the Local Services format does not carry, when you have a landing page built for the call, and when you will set up call tracking before spending.
- Running both is reasonable once one of them has a measured cost per booked job. Local Services Ads appear above other Google Ads, so the two compete for the same customer’s attention on the same search, and the only way to know whether the second one adds jobs is to count them separately.
What to measure
The four numbers are the same for both products: leads, answered leads, booked jobs and money spent. From them come cost per lead and cost per booked job.
| Ad type | Cost per lead (published) | Lead-to-job close rate (published) | Cost per booked job (our arithmetic) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing search ads | $50 to $100+1 | 25% to 40% as a target1 | $125 to $400 |
| Plumbing Local Services Ads | $25 to $80+1 | 25% to 40% as a target1 | $63 to $320 |
The arithmetic pairs the low price with the high close rate and the high price with the low close rate: $50 ÷ 0.40 is $125, $100 ÷ 0.25 is $400, $25 ÷ 0.40 is about $63 and $80 ÷ 0.25 is $320. The ranges are wide and they overlap; the table says that the cheaper product is not guaranteed to be cheaper in your market, which is the reason to count.
To count search leads you need conversion tracking. Google Ads defines a conversion as an action you choose as valuable, and lists calls directly from your ads, calls to a number on your website and clicks on a number on a mobile site among the phone conversions. For calls to a number on your site, Google’s setup page says a call counts only when it lasts longer than a minimum length you set, that Google forwarding numbers show which keywords and ads drove the calls, that only one number per page can be tracked with the default tag, and that it can take up to an hour before ads are enabled for the conversion action5. For Local Services Ads, the Leads page records each lead and its charge status; the job outcome you add yourself.
What we do about it
We start most trade clients with the question of whether any paid product is worth running at all, and the answer comes from the cost per booked job on a short, capped test, not from the vendor tables above. Where Local Services Ads are available for the trade, they are usually first, for the reasons given. We never hold a client’s ad money, because spend goes to Google from the client’s own card, and we state the minimum test budget before anything is spent. If search ads follow, they go to a page built for the call, with call tracking in place before the first dollar. The service page is PPC management.
When to get help
The part that costs owners money is usually not the choice of product but the missing tracking: calls that nobody logs and a budget that nobody capped. If you are already running one of the two and cannot say what a booked job costs, that is worth an hour. The consultation is free, and the answer can be to stop.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Local Services Ads cheaper than Google Ads for a plumber?
Per lead, the Housecall Pro tables list Local Services Ads at $25 to $80+ and search ads at $50 to $100+ for plumbing1. Per booked job the ranges overlap, so it depends on your close rate.
Do Local Services Ads show above Google Ads?
Yes. Housecall Pro’s comparison tables place them at the very top of the page, above other Google Ads.
How much should a plumber spend to test Google Ads?
Can I track phone calls from Google Ads?
Yes. Google Ads counts calls directly from your ads, calls to a number on your website and taps on a number on a mobile page as phone conversions. A call to a website number counts only when it lasts longer than a minimum length you set.
Can I run both at once?
Yes, and Local Services Ads appear above other Google Ads when both show. We would add the second only when the first has a measured cost per booked job.
Is Local Services Ads pay per click?
No. Google describes the charge as per lead, and a lead is a call, a message or a booking request.
Sources
- Google Ads for Plumbers — Housecall Pro (a software vendor’s article), posted March 23, 2026.
- Google Ads for HVAC — Housecall Pro (a software vendor’s article), March 21, 2026.
- About overdelivery and your average daily budget — Google Ads Help.
- Mastering Lead Cost Benchmarks for Plumbing and HVAC Success — Theo Prada, Contractor Magazine, August 4, 2026.
- Set up tracking calls to a phone number on a website — Google Ads Help.
Research and drafting assisted by AI, reviewed before publication. Editorial policy.