Google Local Services Ads cost you nothing per click. You pay per lead: a phone call, a message, a voicemail or a booking request that comes through the ad. Google does not publish a price list. What you pay for each lead depends on your trade, your service area, the type of lead and how you bid, and you only see real prices once your account is set up.
So the useful question is what Google counts as a charged lead, and that rulebook changed in the last year. Google retired the Google Guaranteed money-back promise, renamed the badge, and stopped crediting two kinds of leads it used to refund. Below are the rules as of November 2026, set next to what a regular search ad click costs in San Jose.
How Google charges for a Local Services lead
You set an average weekly budget. Google can spend more than that in a busy week, but according to Google’s page on how Local Services leads work, you never spend more than your monthly max, which is the weekly budget times the average number of weeks in a month. Once you hit it, your ad stops showing until the next month.
What counts as a lead matters more than the budget:
| What happens | Charged? |
|---|---|
| You answer the call, or call back and talk to the customer | Yes, if Google judges it a valid lead |
| You miss a call during business hours and the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds | Yes |
| The call goes to voicemail during business hours and the caller stays more than 20 seconds | Yes, even if they leave no message |
| The caller hangs up on your phone menu without pressing a key | No |
| A text, an email, a voicemail or a booking request | Yes |
| The same customer contacts you again within 15 days from the same number or email | No |
| Spam, duplicates and leads Google later rates as poor quality | Not charged, or credited back within about 30 days |
Two rows catch contractors out. “Business hours” means the hours on your Google Business Profile, so a profile that says you open at 7 am while the crew is on a roof until noon turns every unanswered morning call into a charge. And voicemail does not protect you: a caller who listens past 20 seconds costs you a lead.
Message leads usually cost less than phone leads, though Google says that is “not always the case”.
Why nobody can quote you a lead price
Google states that lead prices “may vary depending on your location, the job type, the type of lead, or your bidding mode.” Prices come out of an auction, so a water heater lead in Palo Alto and a drain cleaning lead in Hayward can differ a lot in the same week. The per-trade averages you find online, including the ones in Google’s own AI answer, come from agencies averaging their clients’ accounts with no published method. We do not repeat them. The numbers that count are the estimates your account shows for your job types and ZIP codes.
You pick one of three bid modes: Maximize leads (Google sets the bid), Target cost per lead (you set the average) or Max per lead (a hard ceiling). Google says the system takes about two weeks to settle after a change, and recommends a budget of at least 10 leads a week for Maximize leads. A shop that can take four new jobs a week should think twice before handing Google the wheel.
A lead against a click: what Bay Area search ads cost
The fair comparison is the other way to buy your way to the top of Google: a regular search ad, where you pay for every click whether or not the person calls. Here is what a click cost in San Jose over the last year.
Average cost per click for a Google search ad in San Jose
Regular search ads, not Local Services Ads. Google Ads keyword data, Oct 2025 to Sep 2026.
A click is not a call. To turn a click price into a lead price, divide it by the share of clicks that end in a call or a form. Say one in ten clicks calls you. That is an example, not a measured rate, and your own call tracking will give you the real one. At one in ten, a “plumber near me” call from a search ad costs about $489, an “ac repair” call about $820, and a “landscaper near me” call about $70.
Put your own version of that number next to the lead prices in your Local Services dashboard. Where clicks are expensive, paying per lead often looks better on paper. Where they are cheap, it may not. And a charged lead is a contact, not a booked job.
How we got these numbers: average cost per click for each search, location set to San Jose, pulled from Google Ads keyword data on November 6, 2026 for October 2025 to September 2026. These are averages of a volatile auction and move between pulls. They are click prices for regular search ads. Google publishes no Local Services lead prices, so none appear here.
Google Guaranteed is now Google Verified, and the refund is gone
For years the selling point of Local Services Ads was the Google Guaranteed badge and the money-back promise behind it. Google has replaced it with a single Google Verified badge. Its page about the Google Verified badge says Google discontinued the Money Back Guarantee, and customers had to file reimbursement requests for jobs booked through the ads before December 7, 2025. Advertisers who had already passed verification moved to the new badge automatically, and Google says the change does not affect ranking.
If your website still tells homeowners that Google backs your work with a refund, take that line down.
The screening still takes work. Google checks your license against the state register, which for California contractors means the Contractors State License Board. Some businesses also get background checks on the owner and crew, or an insurance check, where the certificate must match the name you advertise under and stay valid at least 14 days after upload. You need a verified, public Google Business Profile too. Google puts the average at three to four weeks. “Pre-badge” ads can run once the first checks pass, but they show below every provider who has finished.
What decides where your ad shows
The bid is only part of the auction. Google’s page about Local Services ad rankings lists the rest: how likely your ad is to produce a lead, starting with how fast you respond, and profile quality, meaning your rating, your number of reviews, your average response time, your photos and the checks you have completed. Google adds that higher quality profiles “may rank higher and may also pay lower costs per lead.”
Two things follow for a contractor. First, missed calls cost you twice: Google says they “may negatively affect your responsiveness”, which pushes your ad down, and a missed call is still a charge if the caller hangs on past 20 seconds. We went through the research on reply times in what the speed to lead statistics really say. Second, reviews do double duty. The same stars that help you win the map pack can lower what you pay per lead, which is why review management for contractors belongs ahead of a bigger ad budget.
To see how your profile, reviews and response time stack up against the contractors above you, our free marketing audit checks all three for your service area.
Disputes changed too: set your job types tight
Google now handles most bad leads itself. It reviews charged leads for about 30 days and credits spam, duplicates and poor quality leads to your balance.
The catch is in Google’s page on automated lead credits: Google “no longer supports credits for ‘job type not serviced’ and ‘geo not serviced’ leads.” A call for a job you do not do, from a city you do not drive to, used to come back as a credit. Now you pay for it. Before the ads go live, remove every job type you do not want and draw the service area around the cities your trucks actually reach. Use the “Rate this lead” survey for anything else that looks wrong.
Where Local Services Ads fit next to the map pack
Local Services Ads rent you the top of the page for as long as you pay. The map pack below them is earned, and it keeps sending calls in the month you cut the budget. Both run on the same profile, reviews and habit of answering the phone.
For most Bay Area contractors the order that makes sense is the profile and reviews first, then local SEO for contractors so the map pack carries the steady work, then Local Services Ads to fill the gaps in a slow season or a new service area. If you are comparing lead sources, the arithmetic in our Angi leads breakdown works the same way for Google’s leads: count what you paid per booked job, not per lead.
Nobody can promise you a fixed lead price or the top slot, Google included. You can control the parts the auction rewards. If you want a second pair of eyes on your settings before you spend, request a free marketing audit.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Google Local Services Ads cost per lead?
Google does not publish a price. Lead prices vary by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode, and your account shows estimates for your own job types and service area once it is set up.
Do I pay for a missed call from a Local Services ad?
Yes, if the call comes in during the business hours on your Google Business Profile and the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds. That includes calls that go to voicemail, whether or not the caller leaves a message.
Does Google Guaranteed still refund customers?
No. Google replaced the Google Guaranteed badge with the Google Verified badge and discontinued the Money Back Guarantee. Reimbursement requests had to be submitted before December 7, 2025.
Can I get credit for a lead outside my service area?
Not anymore. Google no longer credits leads for job types or areas you do not serve, so set both carefully before the ads go live. Spam, duplicate and poor quality leads are still credited automatically, usually within 30 days.
Do reviews affect Local Services Ads cost?
Yes. Google ranks Local Services ads on bid and profile quality, including your rating, number of reviews and response time, and says higher quality profiles may rank higher and pay lower costs per lead.
Want to know what your profile and reviews are worth in the auction? Get a free marketing audit for your contracting business.