How Much Do Google Ads Cost for HVAC Companies? (2027)

By Corey Frankosky · Last Updated October 26, 2026

Google Ads for HVAC companies cost a median of $8.33 per click and $90.92 per lead for the Home & Home Improvement category in WordStream's 2026 benchmark report, covering April 2025 to March 2026. HVAC-specific data runs higher. LocaliQ trade data from April 2024 to March 2025 put AC repair at $9.68 per click and $127.74 per lead.

This guide covers what HVAC Google Ads cost going into 2027: home services benchmarks, HVAC trade data, Local Services Ads costs as of September 2026, brand vs non-brand, seasonality, an example budget and how to lower your cost per booked job. For every industry side by side, see my Google Ads benchmarks by industry.

1HVAC Google Ads Costs at a Glance

The most recent broad benchmark is the Home & Home Improvement row in WordStream's 2026 report. It is based on 13,474 US search campaigns running from April 2025 to March 2026, and it blends Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. The figures are medians, which the report labels as "averages."

Source: WordStream Google Ads Benchmarks 2026, April 2025 to March 2026, medians.

Home & Home Improvement had the second highest median cost per click of 23 industries, behind only attorneys. For context, the 2025 report, covering April 2024 to March 2025, put the same category at a $7.85 median cost per click and a 7.33% median conversion rate. Keep in mind that this row covers every home business, from handymen to roofers. It is a starting point, not an HVAC number.

Question to Answer:

What were your actual cost per click and cost per lead over the last 90 days, and how do they compare to $8.33 and $90.92?

2HVAC Trade-Level Google Ads Data

The newest public breakdown by trade comes from LocaliQ's home services search ad benchmarks. The page was updated in July 2026, but the data is older. It covers 3,211 US search campaigns from April 1, 2024 to March 21, 2025, so treat it as the most recent trade split available, not as current pricing.

Both HVAC categories sat well above the home services median for cost per lead.

For a more recent look by service line, SearchLight published January 2026 data from 816 HVAC and plumbing contractors. This is one vendor's client data from a single winter month, spend-weighted rather than a median. Non-branded campaigns came in at:

• AC maintenance: $86 per lead.
• Heating repair: $144 per lead, with a 38.2% book rate and a $3,225 average ticket.
• AC install: $157 per lead.
• General HVAC campaigns: $198 per lead when not split by service line.
• AC repair: $231 per lead, with a 37.0% book rate.
• Heating install: $354 per lead.

The spread is the useful part. A maintenance lead and an install lead price very differently.

Question to Answer:

Are your campaigns split by service line, so you can see what a repair lead costs compared with an install lead?

3Local Services Ads Cost per Lead for HVAC

Local Services Ads charge per lead, not per click. Google says you only pay when you get a lead, and the price is set by an auction among similar local businesses. Google publishes no HVAC price list, so these numbers come from contractor datasets.

The most recent figures are from The Data-Driven Trades September 2026 LSA benchmark, which covers 948 contractors and $11.08M in LSA spend:

• HVAC cost per lead: $60.66, with a 41.4% book rate.
• All home services: $62.88 per unique lead, the lowest of the four months tracked.
• Top quarter of contractors: under $44 per lead.
• Spend tier: contractors under $2K a month paid $42.73 a lead, while those over $50K a month paid $75.84.
• Lead quality: 41% of LSA conversions were unbookable across 121 graded contractors.

Earlier in 2026, SearchLight reported an HVAC LSA cost per lead of $51 in February, with a 44.0% book rate and a $2,110 average ticket. In March 1 to 25, 2026, HVAC ran $56.39 per unique lead and $288.29 per paying customer. An older agency figure from The Media Captain, published August 2025 with no stated data period, put HVAC LSA leads at $80.

Going into 2027, Google is moving Local Services Ads into Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals, starting August 2026 for select home and storefront service advertisers. You still only pay for valid leads, but manual max cost-per-lead bidding goes away. My Local Services Ads guide covers the setup.

Question to Answer:

What did you pay per LSA lead last month, and what share of those leads actually booked?

4Search Ads vs Local Services Ads for HVAC

On cost per lead alone, LSA usually wins. SearchLight found that LSA was 49% less expensive than Google Ads for home services, at $53 per lead in February 2026 compared with a $104 blended Google Ads cost per lead in January 2026. Those are two different months, so read the gap as directional.

Sources: SearchLight HVAC and plumbing Google Ads data (January 2026, HVAC and plumbing combined) and The Data-Driven Trades LSA benchmark (September 2026).

Search ads still earn their place. You choose the keywords and the landing page, and you can push budget toward high-ticket installs. For most HVAC companies, the answer is to run both and compare them by cost per booked job, not cost per lead.

Question to Answer:

Do you know your cost per booked job from LSA and from search ads separately?

5How Seasonality Changes HVAC Ad Costs

HVAC demand follows the weather, and your ad costs move with it. Here is what the 2026 data shows:

• Winter favors heating. In January 2026, heating repair campaigns returned a 3.69x closed ROAS and a $3,225 average ticket, which SearchLight called seasonally expected.
• Summer pushes LSA costs up. From June to August 2026, LSA leads got 5.7% more expensive across home services.
• Fall brings cheaper leads and less volume. In September 2026, cost per unique lead dropped from $65.70 to $62.88, while LSA spend fell 20% and unique leads fell 16.5%.
• Return stays fairly steady. SearchLight's 2025 data found monthly LSA ROAS stayed in a narrow range, with no material spike in peak summer.

Plan your budget by month, not as one flat number. Shift money toward AC as the heat arrives, toward heating in the fall, and keep maintenance campaigns running in the shoulder seasons.

Question to Answer:

Does your monthly budget change with the seasons, or does it stay flat all year?

6Brand vs Non-Brand Cost per Booked Lead

This is the number most HVAC owners never see. When people searching your company name share a campaign with new customers, your blended cost per lead looks far better than it is.

The September 2026 Data-Driven Trades benchmark of 322 home services accounts found that a booked lead from a brand campaign cost $55, while a booked lead from unbranded search cost $389, seven times more. Blended closed ROAS was 5.8x, but without brand everything else returned 3.3x. For the median account, brand was 9% of Google Ads spend and 47% of closed revenue.

SearchLight's January 2026 data for HVAC and plumbing points the same way:

SearchLight also estimated that it takes roughly $804 in non-branded spend to acquire one paying customer. Keep brand in its own campaign so you can see the real cost of a new customer. My post on using branded keywords in Google Ads covers how to set that up.

Question to Answer:

If you removed brand searches from your reports, what would your cost per booked job be?

7Example HVAC Google Ads Budget

No credible survey of HVAC Google Ads budgets exists. The closest figure is general: WordStream says the average small business spends about $3,000 per month, with no source or sample stated, and its experts suggest starting with at least $1,000 to $2,500 a month.

A better approach is to work backward from the jobs you need. This illustration uses the September 2026 HVAC LSA and January 2026 non-branded search figures. It shows the method, not a forecast.

1. Start with LSA. Google recommends a minimum budget of 10 leads per week. Call it 40 leads a month. At $60.66 per lead, that is $2,426.40 a month.
2. Estimate booked jobs. At a 41.4% book rate, 40 LSA leads becomes about 17 booked jobs.
3. Add non-branded search. Say you add $1,500 a month. At $149 per lead, that buys about 10 leads, and at a 37.6% book rate, about 4 booked jobs.
4. Convert to a daily budget. Google charges no more than 30.4 times your average daily budget in a month, so $1,500 divided by 30.4 is about $49.34 a day for search.
5. Add it up. That is $3,926.40 in ad spend for roughly 20 booked jobs, or about $196.32 per booked job, before management.

Your market, your season and your book rate will change every line. To run the math with your own numbers, use the Google Ads budget calculator.

Question to Answer:

How many booked jobs do you need each month, and what budget does that require at your own book rate?

8How to Lower Your Cost per Booked Job

The metric that matters is cost per booked job. These areas move it the most.

1. Split brand from non-brand. Mixing them hides what new customers really cost.
2. Build campaigns by service line. SearchLight's data shows general HVAC campaigns at $198 per lead. Separate repair, maintenance and install so you can fund what books.
3. Answer the phone. With 41% of LSA conversions graded unbookable in September 2026, a missed call or a slow callback is money you already spent.
4. Dispute bad LSA leads. Google says invalid or low quality leads are not charged. The Media Captain reports clients typically get 6-7% of LSA spend back in credits.
5. Use negative keywords. Cut job seekers and DIY searches. My guide on using the search terms report for negative keywords walks through it.
6. Track calls. Set up phone call tracking so Smart Bidding learns from real calls.
7. Fix the landing page. Send each service to its own page. Google says higher quality ads can often lead to lower CPCs. If your site is the problem, see HVAC website design.

If you would rather hand the account off, see Google Ads for HVAC companies, HVAC PPC advertising, Local Services Ads management or the full HVAC marketing agency page. Other trades can see the local business marketing agency page. Management starts at $750 a month, the first month includes setup, your ad spend is paid directly to Google, and I manage every account personally. Details are on the pricing page.

Question to Answer:

Do you know how many of last month's Google Ads leads turned into booked jobs?

9Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• WordStream by LocaliQ, "Google Ads Benchmarks 2026". Last updated September 16, 2026. Data from April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026, 13,474 US search campaigns (Google Ads and Microsoft Ads). Medians.
• WordStream by LocaliQ, "Google Ads Benchmarks 2025". Data from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2025. Medians.
• LocaliQ, "2025 Search Ad Benchmarks for Home Services". Last updated July 15, 2026. Data from April 1, 2024 to March 21, 2025, 3,211 US search campaigns. Medians.
• SearchLight, "What Is a Good Cost Per Lead for HVAC Google Ads? (2026 Benchmarks)". Data from January 2026, 816 HVAC and plumbing contractors. Vendor client data, spend-weighted.
• The Data-Driven Trades, "Google Ads Unbranded Benchmarks: September 2026". Published October 20, 2026. 322 home services accounts.
• The Data-Driven Trades, "Google LSA Benchmarks: September 2026". Published October 6, 2026. 948 contractors.
• The Data-Driven Trades, "Google LSA Benchmarks: August 2026 and Summer Trends". June to August 2026.
• The Data-Driven Trades, "Google Local Service Ads Benchmark: March 2026 (By Trade)". March 1 to 25, 2026, 760 businesses.
• SearchLight, "Google Local Service Ads Cost Per Lead by Trade (2026)". Data from February 2026, 888 contractors. Spend-weighted, gross of credits.
• SearchLight, "What Is a Good ROAS for HVAC Local Services Ads?". 2025 data.
• The Media Captain, "Local Services Ads Stats & Cost Per Lead Data for 11 Industries". August 26, 2025. One agency's client data, no data period stated.
• WordStream by LocaliQ, "The Comprehensive Guide to Online Advertising Costs for 2026". Last updated July 13, 2026.
• Google help pages: How bidding works for Local Services Ads, How leads work, Local Services Ads transition to Performance Max, Manage your spend and About Ad Rank. Accessed October 26, 2026.