What a plumbing lead really costs: lead apps vs your own Google listing.

Lead apps sell a simple idea: pay a little per lead, get jobs without marketing. The price per lead looks small. The price per job is what matters, and it's usually several times bigger.

A lead is not a job

Published contractor-marketing guides put home-service leads at roughly $15 to $85 each, often with an annual membership fee of around $300 on top. The catch is that a lead is a person who filled in a form, and on most marketplaces that same person is offered to several pros at once. One roofer's review of a lead marketplace puts it bluntly: it "sells the lead to as many contractors as they can."

So you're not buying a customer. You're buying a place in a race. Whoever calls back first, and cheapest, usually wins.

The math: cost per job won

Divide what you spend on leads by the jobs you actually win from them:

Cost per job = price per lead ÷ close rate

At $40 a lead:

You win	Leads per job	Cost per job won
1 in 4 leads (25%)	4	$160
1 in 7 leads (15%)	about 7	about $267
1 in 10 leads (10%)	10	$400

Add the yearly fee and any leads you're charged for but can't reach, and the real number climbs. On a $150 drain clear, a $267 lead cost means you paid to work. On a $2,500 water heater it's fine. The trouble is that you don't get to choose which kind you're buying.

Lead quality is a real risk, not just a complaint. In April 2023 the Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring HomeAdvisor to pay up to $7.2 million over false or unsupported claims about the leads it sold to service providers.

What your own Google listing costs

Your Google Business Profile is free. When someone finds you on the map and taps your number, they're calling you, not five shops at once, and there's no fee per call. That's the whole difference.

It isn't free in time, and it isn't instant. A listing that brings in calls needs:

• The right main category (Plumber) and the extra ones you actually do
• Your real service area and hours you actually answer
• A steady trickle of new reviews, and replies to them
• Recent photos of real jobs
• A website with your services and cities, and a tap-to-call button

Be honest with yourself about one thing: distance from the searcher is a big part of how Google ranks the map, and nobody can change it. Your listing will be strongest near your shop. Reviews and a complete profile widen the area you show up in, but nobody can make you #1 across the whole valley, and anyone who promises that is guessing.

Google also sells Local Services Ads, the sponsored listings with a verified badge at the very top. Those charge per lead too, but the customer picked your business, so you're not racing four other shops for the same person. Some plumbers use both.

When lead apps make sense

• You're brand new, with no reviews yet, and need work this month.
• You want to fill a slow week and can call back within minutes.
• You only accept leads for the high-ticket work where the math holds up.

The problem is staying on them forever. Every month you pay for leads is a month you didn't build something you own. Reviews you collect on your own Google listing keep working next year. Leads you bought don't.

A simple test for your shop

1. Add up last month's lead spend, including fees.
2. Count the jobs those leads actually turned into.
3. Divide. That's your cost per job.
4. Then look up your own business on Google Maps from a customer's phone, a few miles from your shop. If you're hard to find there, that's the cheaper fix.