What does a shared lead really cost you?
Shared leads are priced per lead, but you get paid per job. Put in your own numbers and see what each booked job really costs you.
That is 150% of the gross profit on the job, spent before the truck rolls.
The starting values are an example, not a benchmark: $60 sits inside the $35–$90 range one 2026 survey found for HVAC leads (Valley Marketing Group, an agency that sells alternatives). Use your own invoices.
Four numbers, no hidden assumptions.
Monthly spend
Leads bought × price per lead.
Jobs booked
Leads bought × the share that book.
Cost per booked job
Monthly spend ÷ jobs booked.
Share of profit
Cost per booked job ÷ (job value × gross margin).
Reading the result
If cost per booked job is a large share of the job’s gross profit, every extra lead you buy makes you busier without making you much richer. Three things move it: call-back speed (on a shared lead, the first contractor to reach the homeowner usually wins), which jobs you buy (a repair call earns far less than a replacement, so a lead price that pays for one may not pay for the other), and where the calls come from.
That last one is the lasting fix. A call from your own Google profile, website or Local Services Ads is not sent to anyone else, and the reviews and rankings that produce it keep working when you stop paying. Shared leads stop the day the subscription does.
What to do with the number
- Run it per lead source, not blended: one platform is often far worse than the others.
- Run it per job type: drop the lead categories where cost per booked job is above the gross profit.
- Track it monthly as your own channels grow, and cut shared leads as the number from your own calls gets better.
Lead cost questions
How do I work out my real cost per job from shared leads?
Divide what you spent on leads in a month by the number of those leads that became booked jobs. If you bought 30 leads at $60 ($1,800) and booked 6 jobs, each job cost $300 in lead fees before any labour or parts.
What do Angi and HomeAdvisor leads cost?
It depends on the trade, the job type and the city. One 2026 survey put HVAC leads at $35 to $90 each, shared with 3 to 8 competitors. Check your own invoices: the calculator is only as good as the numbers you put in.
What is a good win rate on shared leads?
There is no reliable published benchmark, and it varies widely with how fast you call back. Track it yourself for a month: leads received against jobs booked from those leads. Speed matters most, because the homeowner usually books whoever reaches them first.
Why compare lead cost to gross profit instead of revenue?
Because lead fees come out of what is left after parts and labour. A $300 lead cost on a $500 job looks like 60% of revenue, but if the job's gross profit is $200 the leads cost more than the job made.
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