The price on the lead is not the cost. Enter your trade, job value and close rate, and see your real cost per job across shared leads, Google Ads and owned search, in about 30 seconds.
The short answer
A shared lead priced at a few tens of dollars can cost you several hundred dollars per job, because the same lead is sold to multiple contractors and only a fraction close. Your true number is the lead price times how many contractors share it, divided by your close rate. The calculator below turns your own numbers into that figure, and shows when owned search becomes the cheapest lead you have.
Contractors usually think about the sticker price of a lead: the twenty, forty or eighty dollars a platform charges when a homeowner request lands in the app. That number is real, but it is not what a job costs you. Two things sit between a lead and a job. First, close rate: if you close one qualified lead in four, three out of four leads cost you money and return nothing. Second, sharing: most lead platforms sell the same homeowner request to several contractors at once, so you are not buying a customer, you are buying a race. Multiply those together and the honest figure, cost per job, is often five to fifteen times the lead price. The calculator above does that math with your own numbers so you can stop guessing.
Advertiser demand is a fair proxy for how competitive a trade is. In 2026, US advertisers pay roughly eleven dollars for a click on contractor leads, ten dollars on remodeling leads and ten on home improvement leads, while a broad handyman click runs closer to three (Ahrefs, US, 2026). A click is not a lead and a lead is not a job, which is exactly why a raw price tag is misleading. What matters is the chain: clicks or shared requests become leads, leads become jobs at your close rate, and the spend divides across the jobs you actually win. Run the chain and a remodeler paying sixty dollars a shared lead, sold four ways, closing one in four, is really paying around nine hundred and sixty dollars per job. Change any input and watch the number move.
Each channel has a different shape, and the shape matters more than the sticker price. Shared-lead platforms are pay-per-lead and exclusive to nobody, so the cost per job is flat and you compete every time. Google Ads is pay-per-click and exclusive, fast to switch on, but the cost per job also stays flat for as long as you pay. Owned search, meaning your Google Business Profile, reviews and local pages, is a fixed monthly cost that produces exclusive leads, and because the spend is fixed while the leads grow, the cost per lead falls month over month and keeps working after you stop paying. The table is the ninety-second version.
| Channel | Pricing | Exclusive? | Cost per job over time | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared leads (Angi, Thumbtack) | Per lead | No, shared | Flat, and rises as more share each lead | Filling gaps fast |
| Google Ads (PPC) | Per click | Yes | Flat while you pay; stops when you stop | Speed and control |
| Local SEO + GBP (owned) | Fixed monthly | Yes | Falls over time, compounds, outlives spend | Lowest long-run cost per job |
| AI search / GEO | Earned | Yes | Approaches zero per lead once you are the cited source | The 2026 hedge |
If your paid leads feel twice as expensive as they did a couple of years ago, three forces are stacking. More contractors are bidding on the same finite clicks, so auction prices rise. AI Overviews and AI Mode now answer many searches on the results page, so fewer people click through and the clicks that remain cost more. And shared-lead platforms have quietly increased how many contractors each lead is sold to, which raises your cost per job even when the lead price looks unchanged. You cannot control the auction or the AI layer, but you can own a presence that does not reset to zero every month, which is the case for building the owned column in the calculator.
Sometimes, and the calculator tells you when. Shared-lead services earn their keep when you have idle capacity and need work this week, because you only pay when a request arrives and the cost per job, however high, still beats an empty calendar. They stop being worth it when your cost per job approaches your margin, or when you could reinvest the same money into an owned presence that lowers the cost every month instead of holding it flat. The honest answer for most contractors is a blend: paid and shared leads to cover the short term, owned search to bring the long-run number down. If your owned column is already the cheapest in the calculator, you are leaving jobs on the table by not funding it.
Owned search looks expensive on day one because you pay the full monthly cost before the leads ramp. But the leads are exclusive and the spend is fixed, so as the volume climbs the cost per lead falls, and unlike paid, the presence you build keeps producing after the invoice stops. The month your owned cost per job drops below your shared-lead cost per job is your crossover point, and everything after it is compounding. For most local service businesses that crossover lands somewhere in the first two quarters, which is why the smart play is to start owned early and let paid carry you until it takes over.
The lead price is the small number; the cost per job is the real one. Because shared leads go to several contractors and only some close, your true cost is the lead price times the share count divided by your close rate. Enter your figures above to see yours.
There is no universal number because it depends on your job value and margin. A useful rule is that your cost per job should stay well under your gross profit per job. The calculator shows cost per job directly so you can compare it to your margin rather than to someone else’s benchmark.
Angi-style shared leads are cheaper to start and need no setup, but you compete on every lead and the cost per job is flat. Google Ads gives exclusive leads and control, also at a flat cost per job. Neither lowers your cost over time, which is what owned local SEO does.
Yes. Reviews and a complete Google Business Profile remain central to the local pack, and brand mentions across the web increasingly influence whether AI answers recommend you. Owned reputation is what makes the cheapest column in this calculator possible.
There's no universal figure, it depends on your average job value and margin, not a industry benchmark. A useful rule: your cost per job should stay comfortably under your gross profit per job. Run your own numbers in the calculator above rather than comparing to someone else's quoted "good" number, which usually isn't apples-to-apples with your trade or market.
AI Overviews and AI Mode now answer many searches directly on the results page, so fewer people click through to paid or organic listings. That shrinks the pool of clicks, which pushes up what advertisers pay per click and raises cost per lead across the board. It's one more reason owned search, including being cited inside AI answers, matters more than it used to.
Not immediately. Keep shared leads and Google Ads running until your owned-search cost per job is consistently the cheapest column in the calculator for at least a couple of months. Then shift budget gradually rather than cutting paid channels cold, since owned search takes time to fully ramp and you don't want a gap in lead flow while it does.
Over time, yes. Being the business an AI model cites when someone asks for a contractor in your city is functionally a free, exclusive lead, no click cost, no shared-lead fee. It takes the same inputs as local SEO (complete profile, real reviews, clear content) and compounds the same way, which is why it belongs in the same cost-per-job conversation as SEO and paid.
We will run these numbers for your exact trade and city, show where you are overpaying, and build the plan to make owned search your cheapest lead source. No obligation.
Email me my channel planThis tool is provided for planning and is not a guarantee of specific costs or results, which vary by trade, market and execution. Digital Success is the AI-era growth marketing arm of ISHIR.