What is a good cost per lead for a local service business?

A useful ceiling is 5% of your average job. A $400 windshield can carry a $20 lead; a $10,000 roof can carry far more. Below that, the question is whether the lead is shared with other businesses and whether you can reject the bad ones.

Why are marketplace prices a range?

Service Direct lets each business set its own price per call inside a range for the trade; a higher price wins more of the calls. The range on this page is the one it published when we checked.

Are shared leads cheaper?

Per lead, often yes. Per job, often not: a lead sold to several businesses is won by whoever calls first, so the cost per booked job rises with the number of buyers.

Where do these prices come from?

Each provider's public pricing page, read on 27 September 2026 unless another date is shown. We re-check them every quarter and change the date when we do.

Price benchmark · checked 27 September 2026

What a lead costs in your trade, from prices people actually publish.

Marketplace ranges, pay-per-lead agencies and our own rates side by side, each with its source and the date we read it.

Get my per-lead price How pay-per-lead works

$20 to $85
our published price per approved lead across seven trades
RankMeHi partner terms, 27 September 2026
$15 to $550
the widest marketplace range per call we found, from locksmiths to roofing
Service Direct pricing page, read 27 September 2026
5%
of the average job: the ceiling we use to set a lead price
RankMeHi pricing rule

By trade

Price per lead, trade by trade.

Our price next to the lowest public marketplace price for the same trade, where one is published.

Cost per lead by trade
Trade	RankMeHi, per approved lead	Marketplace, per call	How we set it
Plumbing	$55	$60 to $255 per call (Service Direct, client sets it)	It sits below the lowest price the largest pay-per-call marketplace publishes for plumbing.
HVAC	$65	$65 to $325 per call (Service Direct)	It equals the lowest price the largest pay-per-call marketplace publishes for HVAC, and the lead is not shared.
Electrical	$50	$55 to $175 per call (Service Direct)	It sits below the lowest price the largest pay-per-call marketplace publishes for electricians.
Roofing	$85	$85 to $550 per call (Service Direct)	It equals the lowest price the largest pay-per-call marketplace publishes for roofing, and the lead is not shared.
Auto Glass	$25	No public price found	A typical windshield job is $300 to $600, so the lead is about 5% of the job.
Collision Repair	$45	No public price found	A collision repair is usually $2,500 or more and often paid by insurance, so the lead is under 2% of the job.
Cleaning	$20	No public price found	A first clean is $150 to $250 and a good customer books again every two weeks, so one lead can pay back many times.
Locksmiths	Set by the 5% rule	$15 to $75 per call (Service Direct)	Lowest published range of any trade we checked.

Sources: Service Direct public pricing page and RankMeHi partner terms, read 27 September 2026. Every other trade is priced by the 5% rule before signing.

By model

Setup, monthly and per lead, side by side.

What each model charges before the first lead, and what you keep when you stop.

Pay-per-lead models compared
Model	Setup	Monthly	Per lead	Site	Exclusive
Service Direct	$0	$0	Client sets a price per call inside a published range	No site built	Calls only
99 Calls Essentials	$249	$99	Table not public; $25 to $55 seen on 20 Sep 2026	Template site they own	Yes
99 Calls Growth	$399	$399	Described as below market	Template site they own	Yes
Top Organic Leads	$1,000	$200	Not published	Theirs	One per industry per area
RankMeHi partner	$490	$99	Published per trade, from $20; first three free	Custom site, yours after 12 months	One per trade per city

Public pricing pages read 27 September 2026; Top Organic Leads figures from its own published case study, read 20 Sep 2026.

How to read this

The cheapest lead is not the cheapest job.

In one lineCompare cost per booked job, not cost per lead: exclusivity and the right to reject bad leads matter more than the sticker price.

A lead price only means something next to two other numbers: how many other businesses received the same enquiry, and how many of the leads you can refuse to pay for.

A $40 lead sold to four shops is a race; the business that calls first wins, and the other three paid for nothing. A $55 lead that only you receive, with a recording you can check before it is billed, usually costs less per booked job.

The second thing to compare is what remains when you stop. A marketplace leaves nothing behind. A site that ranks in your city keeps producing enquiries for as long as it stays up.

Questions

Questions about lead prices.

: A useful ceiling is 5% of your average job. A $400 windshield can carry a $20 lead; a $10,000 roof can carry far more. Below that, the question is whether the lead is shared with other businesses and whether you can reject the bad ones.
: Service Direct lets each business set its own price per call inside a range for the trade; a higher price wins more of the calls. The range on this page is the one it published when we checked.
: Per lead, often yes. Per job, often not: a lead sold to several businesses is won by whoever calls first, so the cost per booked job rises with the number of buyers.
: Each provider's public pricing page, read on 27 September 2026 unless another date is shown. We re-check them every quarter and change the date when we do.