Four inputs give you a ceiling: the most a lead can cost before it stops being worth buying. The tool then plots that ceiling against what leads actually sell for in your industry. When the two do not overlap, it says so and tells you what to fix first.
Enter your average job value to see the most you can afford to pay for a lead, and how that ceiling compares with what leads cost in your market.
One below what a lead is worth to your business, which is gross profit per customer times close rate. The 2026 cross-industry average for search advertising is $66.69 per lead, but averages mislead here: attorneys run $131.63 on the same study while low-ticket services run under $30. A $150 lead is excellent for a roofer keeping $4,800 per job and ruinous for a cleaning company keeping $225. Compute your own ceiling first; the average is trivia.
Three multiplications and one division. Gross profit per customer equals job value times margin; value per lead equals that profit times your close rate; the affordable ceiling equals value per lead divided by a profit factor, three being a sensible default. Worked through: a $6,500 HVAC replacement at 45% margin keeps $2,925, a 30% close makes each lead worth about $878, and dividing by three sets the ceiling near $290. Spend at breakeven and you worked for free; the divisor is your profit.
The landing page and the offer, in most accounts we audit, with the market itself a distant third. Traffic clicking through to a slow page with a buried phone number converts at a fraction of what the same traffic does against a fast page with one clear action, and halving your conversion rate doubles your cost per lead with no change in the market at all. Genuine market causes exist too (storm-season roofing auctions, personal-injury bidding wars), but check the page before blaming the auction.
No. Cost per customer is the number that pays rent, and cheap leads with poor close rates lose to expensive leads that convert. A $25 shared lead closing at 10% costs $250 per customer; a $60 exclusive lead closing at 35% costs $171. Chasing the lower sticker price in that comparison costs a real business about $79 per customer, every customer, indefinitely.
Cost per lead prices an inquiry: a call, a form, a booking request. Cost per acquisition prices a paying customer, which equals cost per lead divided by close rate. CPL is the number ad platforms report because it is what they can see; CPA is the number your accountant cares about. Judge campaigns on CPA whenever you can trace it, and treat CPL as its leading indicator, useful precisely as long as your close rate holds steady.
Bands anchored to the LocaliQ 2026 study of 13,474 US campaigns (cross-industry average $66.69; attorneys and legal at $131.63, the highest category) and derived per vertical as documented in the methodology below.
| Industry | Cheap end (P25) | Median CPL | Expensive end (P75) | Typical close rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Accounting / financial services | $45 | $80 | $140 | 25% |
| Auto detailing / tint / wrap | $12 | $22 | $40 | 40% |
| Chiropractic | $25 | $45 | $75 | 50% |
| Consulting / professional services | $60 | $110 | $190 | 20% |
| Criminal defense law | $60 | $100 | $170 | 25% |
| Dental | $35 | $60 | $100 | 45% |
| Electrical | $35 | $65 | $110 | 35% |
| Family law | $70 | $110 | $180 | 15% |
| Fitness | $15 | $28 | $50 | 35% |
| General home services | $25 | $45 | $80 | 35% |
| Health & wellness | $25 | $45 | $80 | 35% |
| HVAC | $45 | $75 | $130 | 30% |
| Med spa / aesthetics | $30 | $55 | $95 | 35% |
| Other law practices | $75 | $130 | $210 | 18% |
| Personal injury law | $250 | $450 | $750 | 12% |
| Plumbing | $35 | $65 | $110 | 35% |
| Real estate services | $25 | $45 | $85 | 10% |
| Restaurant | $40 | $67 | $110 | 55% |
| Roofing | $70 | $120 | $200 | 25% |
| SaaS | $40 | $67 | $110 | 18% |
| Skincare / esthetics | $20 | $35 | $60 | 40% |
Close rates are lead-to-customer medians for each vertical; your intake can sit well above or below them, which is why the calculator takes yours as an input. Personal injury carries the widest error bars in the set.
Each page loads the calculator with that trade’s defaults and band, plus the economics that make the trade different: typical job values, what moves lead prices there, and a worked example.
The anchor source is the LocaliQ 2026 search advertising benchmarks study: 13,474 US campaigns across a full year, reporting a cross-industry average cost per lead of $66.69 and per-category figures topping out with attorneys and legal services at $131.63. Categories the study reports directly anchor their rows here.
Verticals the study does not break out (auto detailing, med spa, chiropractic among them) are derived: the category’s blended cost per click divided by our landing-page conversion bands, rounded conservatively, with the derivation recorded row by row in the repository’s methodology file. Personal injury is set from industry lead-cost reporting instead, because the blended legal average would mislead both PI firms and family practices badly.
Limits worth knowing: bands describe markets, and your market is one metro inside them. Storm weeks, enforcement waves, and January gym crowds all move real prices outside these ranges temporarily. The calculator treats every benchmark as a default you can overwrite, which is the honest way to use any benchmark. Bands refresh annually when the new study publishes; these were set in July 2026.
Sizing a monthly budget rather than a lead price? The Ad Spend Projection Calculator models spend, ramp, and breakeven for the same verticals, and the firm’s case studies show these numbers behaving in live accounts.