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Google Ads budget calculator for local businesses
Move the sliders. The verdict and three budgets recalculate instantly, with 2026 cost-per-click and conversion benchmarks pre-loaded for your trade. Free, no email, nothing to submit.
Free ad budget forecast
Know what ads will cost you before you spend a dollar.
Give us four numbers about your business and we'll send back a forecast: how many leads, at what cost, and how much revenue you can expect at three different monthly budgets. Built from real search data for your service and city, not a guess.
What's in the forecast
- 01
What a customer is worth to you
We work from your average job value, margin, and repeat rate to put a real number on what you can afford to pay to win one customer.
- 02
What a lead costs in your market
Live cost-per-click and conversion benchmarks for your category in your city, so the forecast reflects your market, not a national average.
- 03
How much demand actually exists
Monthly search volume for the terms that matter. If only 90 people a month search for what you do, no budget will produce 100 leads, and you should know that before spending.
- 04
Three budgets, side by side
Expected clicks, leads, jobs, and revenue at a starter, growth, and aggressive budget, so you can see where the returns flatten out.
- 05
Your break-even closing rate
The closing rate you'd need for each budget to pay for itself. If it's higher than what your team closes today, ads aren't the first fix.
- 06
A straight answer on whether to run ads
Sometimes the honest answer is "not yet." We'll tell you that too, and what to fix first so ads work when you do start.
Request your forecast
Takes a minute. Rough numbers are fine; we'll email if we need anything else.
Why trust us with a look?
Because we run this exact math before we take on any ad client, and we've walked away from accounts where it didn't work. We'd rather tell you the truth now than spend your money later. A few recent results.
Inquiry landed within the first 30 days of running ads for an architecture firm.
ATMO ArchitectureHot tub sales in the first quarter after launch, with a targeted ad strategy driving in-store and online leads.
Hot Springs Pools & SpasQualified, high-ticket leads per week for a manufacturer scaling from $4M toward $10M.
NovoBlend"He took the time to understand my goals and vision and crafted exactly what I asked for. They kept us in the loop and were committed to communication throughout the process. I highly recommend him for any marketing or advertising needs."
Who's building the forecast
Warren builds every forecast personally. He runs advertising and growth for branded by clients, from Shark Tank-featured ecommerce brands to dozens of home service companies, and wrote our guides on the profitability equation and forecasting a marketing budget. You'll get the same math our paying clients get before we spend their first dollar.
How it works
1. Request the forecast
Fill out the form. Takes about a minute. Rough numbers are fine.
2. We pull your market data
We pull search volume, cost-per-click, and conversion benchmarks for your service in your city and run them against your numbers.
3. Get your forecast
Within three business days you'll get a one-page forecast with three budget scenarios and a straight recommendation.
Who this is for
We're most useful to local service businesses that haven't run ads yet, or stopped, and want to know what a real budget would return before committing to one.
Good fit
You know your average job value, you can handle more work than you're getting, and you're deciding whether $1k, $3k, or $7k a month in ads is the right move.
Already running ads?
If you already spend $1k or more a month on Google Ads, our free audit will tell you more than a forecast will:
Get a free Google Ads audit →How much should a local business spend on Google Ads? The math, not the guess
Every article answers this with a range like '$1,000 to $10,000 a month.' That range is useless because the right number depends on four things only you know: what a job is worth, what you keep, how many leads you close, and how many jobs you can take. Here is the calculation we use for every forecast, with the benchmarks we plug in when you don't have your own.
If you want us to run it for your business, with real cost-per-click data for your trade and city, use the form above.
01
Start from the job, not the budget
Take your average job value and multiply by gross margin. That's what a customer is worth up front. Multiply by jobs per customer per year and years they stay, and you have lifetime value. A $4,000 job at 40% margin is $1,600 of profit; if customers come back every three years, it's closer to $3,000.
Most owners can afford far more per lead than they think, and some can afford far less. This number decides which.
02
Work out the most you can pay for a lead
Divide margin-adjusted value by three. That's a healthy ceiling for cost per customer (a 3:1 return). Multiply by your close rate, and that's the most you can pay for a lead. At $1,600 margin and a 30% close rate, you can pay up to $160 a lead and still earn three dollars for every one spent.
If leads in your market cost more than that, no budget fixes it; your close rate or your offer has to change first.
03
Get the market's real cost per click
Home service clicks in 2026 range from about $8 for handyman and lawn work to $25 to $60 for emergency plumbing, HVAC, and roofing in competitive metros. Google's Keyword Planner gives a range by city; auction data from live accounts is better. Pair it with a benchmark click-to-lead rate of 5% to 8% for a well-built landing page, 2% to 3% for a homepage.
Cost per click divided by conversion rate is your expected cost per lead. Compare it to your ceiling from step two.
04
Build three scenarios, not one number
Starter: enough to produce 15 to 30 conversions a month, which is the floor Google's bidding needs to learn. Growth: the budget that fills your current capacity. Aggressive: the budget to add a crew or a second city. For most single-location home service companies that's roughly $1,500 to $2,500, $3,000 to $6,000, and $7,000 to $15,000 a month.
The forecast shows expected leads, booked jobs, revenue, and return for each, so you can pick based on what you can handle, not what you can afford.
05
Plan for the ramp
Month one is data collection: expect cost per lead 30% to 50% above steady state while negatives get built and bidding learns. Month two is where it drops. By month three, if cost per lead is still above your ceiling, the problem is the page or the phone, not the budget.
Daily budget is monthly divided by 30.4, and Google can spend up to twice the daily number on a given day, so don't panic at a single heavy Tuesday.
06
Know when 'not yet' is the right answer
If your close rate is under 15%, if nobody answers the phone after 5pm, or if your website has no page built for the service you'd advertise, ads will amplify the problem. The forecast will say so, and tell you which thing to fix first. That's a better outcome than spending $3,000 to learn it.
A good forecast occasionally tells you not to run ads. That's what makes it a forecast and not a sales pitch.
Benchmarks we use when you don't have your own
Home service, single location, US. Your numbers replace these the moment you have them.
$8 to $60 per click
Range across trades in 2026: handyman and lawn at the low end, emergency HVAC, plumbing, and roofing at the top in competitive metros.
5% to 8%
Click-to-lead rate for a dedicated service landing page. Homepages typically convert at 2% to 3%, which doubles your cost per lead.
$1,500 to $2,500 a month
The usual starting budget that produces enough conversions for Google's bidding to learn. Below $1,000 most trades never get out of the data-collection phase.
Questions people ask about Google Ads budgets
Q
How much should I spend on Google Ads per month as a small business?
Enough to generate 15 to 30 leads a month at your market's cost per lead, and no more than your capacity can serve. For most home service companies that's $1,500 to $5,000. The free forecast gives you the specific number for your trade and city.
Q
Is $10 a day enough for Google Ads?
Almost never for a service business. At $15 a click, $10 a day buys 20 clicks a month and perhaps one lead. Google's bidding never gets enough data to improve. If $300 a month is the real budget, Google Business Profile and reviews will return more.
Q
Is $1,000 a month enough for home service Google Ads?
It can work for lower-cost trades (cleaning, lawn, handyman) in smaller markets. For HVAC, plumbing, roofing, or electrical in a metro, $1,000 usually produces too few leads to optimize. We'd rather tell you that before you spend it.
Q
How do I calculate my Google Ads budget?
Leads wanted divided by conversion rate gives clicks needed. Clicks times cost per click gives the monthly budget. Divide by 30.4 for the daily budget. Then check that cost per lead sits under what your margin and close rate allow. The forecast runs all of this with your numbers.
Q
Why did Google spend more than my daily budget?
Google can spend up to twice your daily budget on any single day, as long as the monthly total stays at daily times 30.4. Judge spend by the month, not the day.
Q
What if I don't know my conversion rate or close rate?
Use 5% click-to-lead for a good landing page and 25% to 30% lead-to-job for home services as starting assumptions, then replace them with real numbers after the first month. The forecast marks which inputs are yours and which are benchmarks.
Q
How long before Google Ads start working?
Expect two to three months to reach steady-state cost per lead. Month one is data collection. If month three is still above your ceiling, the issue is usually the landing page or missed calls, not the budget.
Q
Should I spend on Google Ads or SEO?
Ads produce leads in weeks; SEO produces them in months and then keeps producing. Most local businesses should start with a modest ads budget to learn what converts, then invest the learnings into SEO. Our SEO vs. Google Ads article walks through the ROI math.
Q
What's a good cost per lead for a contractor?
It depends entirely on job value. $150 a lead is excellent for a roofer and disastrous for a $120 lawn service. The right question is cost per lead as a share of margin-adjusted job value, which is what the forecast reports.
Q
What do I get from the free forecast?
A four-page PDF: your inputs, the market data we pulled, three budget scenarios with expected leads, jobs, revenue and return, a break-even close rate, and our recommendation, including 'don't run ads yet' if that's the honest answer.
Related tools and reading
Why free?
Because it's the fastest way to show you how we think. Most people take the forecast, set a budget, and run it themselves or with whoever they already have, and that's fine. Some decide they'd rather have us run it, and that's how we earn clients: by being useful first.