What a lead costs in your industry, and what it should cost you

The short answer

According to LocaliQ and WordStream’s 2026 search advertising benchmarks, the average cost per lead (CPL) for search ads across industries is $66.69. It ranges from about $27 for arts and entertainment to $131.63 for attorneys and legal services. On Facebook, LocaliQ’s 2026 benchmarks put the average CPL for lead-objective campaigns at $27.39, from $12.30 for career and employment to $61.56 for dentists.

Those numbers are useful as a sanity check, not a target. A good cost per lead is one that stays below what a lead is worth to you, which depends on your close rate and the value of a customer. The rest of this article gives the tables and shows how to work out your own number.

Google and Microsoft search ads: average cost per lead by industry

These figures come from LocaliQ’s 2026 search advertising benchmarks, built from thousands of its customers’ Google Ads and Microsoft Ads campaigns. A lead here means any contact from an ad: a call, form, chat or email.

• Attorneys and legal services: $131.63
• Furniture: $106.70
• Real estate: $102.51
• Apparel, fashion and jewelry: $97.51
• Business services: $93.69
• Home and home improvement: $90.92
• Education and instruction: $77.48
• Industrial and commercial: $75.19
• Finance and insurance: $74.44
• Dentists and dental services: $72.97
• Career and employment / health and fitness: $67.36 each
• Personal services: $54.60
• Shopping, collectibles and gifts: $49.40
• Travel: $44.70
• Automotive for sale / sports and recreation: $44.26 each
• Physicians and surgeons: $40.04
• Beauty and personal care: $39.25
• Animals and pets: $31.50
• Restaurants and food: $30.57
• Automotive repair, service and parts: $29.96
• Arts and entertainment: $26.84

The same report puts the 2026 average cost per click at $5.42 and the average conversion rate at 8.18%. LocaliQ notes that cost per lead fell overall for the first time in five years.

Facebook lead ads: average cost per lead by industry

LocaliQ’s 2026 Facebook benchmarks (last updated September 2026) cover campaigns using the leads objective, where people often submit a form without leaving Facebook. The all-industry average is $27.39.

• Dentists and dental services: $61.56
• Beauty and personal care: $50.91
• Home and home improvement: $42.95
• Furniture: $39.25
• Personal services: $38.09
• Industrial and commercial: $35.87
• Automotive for sale: $35.52
• Physicians and surgeons: $32.14
• Health and fitness: $27.11
• Education and instruction: $26.31
• Sports and recreation: $15.49
• Arts and entertainment: $14.59
• Real estate: $13.74
• Career and employment: $12.30

Facebook leads look cheaper, but they are a different product. Someone searching “emergency plumber near me” is ready to hire. Someone who taps a pre-filled form while scrolling may barely remember doing it. Compare cost per customer, not cost per lead, before deciding Facebook is the better deal.

Why your numbers may look very different

• Your market. National averages blend big cities and small towns. Competitive metros usually cost more per click.
• Your service mix. “Personal injury lawyer” and “will preparation” sit in the same legal category but behave very differently.
• What you count as a lead. If your tracking counts page views, button clicks or duplicate form fills, your CPL looks better than it is. If calls are not tracked, it looks worse.
• Campaign type. Brand searches convert cheaply and drag the average down. Prospecting campaigns cost more.
• Landing page. A slow or confusing page can double what you pay per lead for the same clicks.
• Spam. Bot form fills inflate lead counts and hide a real cost per lead that is much higher.

How to work out what a lead is worth to you

The number that matters is your maximum affordable cost per lead. You can estimate it in four steps:

1. Find the gross profit of a typical new customer. Use the first job or first year, whichever you can measure. Example: a $4,000 job at 40% margin is $1,600 gross profit.
2. Find your lead-to-customer close rate. Count the last 50 or 100 real leads and how many became paying customers. Example: 1 in 5, or 20%.
3. Multiply them. $1,600 × 20% = $320. That is your break-even cost per lead.
4. Set a target below break-even. Most businesses want room for overhead and profit, so a target of half to two-thirds of break-even is a common starting point. In this example, $160 to $210.

Run the same math for each service line. Your highest-value service can usually afford a cost per lead far above the industry average, while a low-margin service may not be worth advertising at all.

Want a second opinion on your lead costs?

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Signs your cost per lead is the wrong thing to watch

• CPL is falling but sales are not. Often a sign the campaign found cheaper, lower-intent traffic or that spam is being counted.
• Most leads never answer the phone. Look at search terms and placements before blaming the sales team.
• One channel looks cheap only because another does the work. People may see a Facebook ad, then search your name on Google. Check how leads describe finding you.
• Nobody tracks outcomes. Without a simple sheet or CRM field showing which leads became customers, you can only manage cost per lead, not cost per sale.

A practical monthly review

1. Pull spend and lead counts by campaign, not just for the whole account.
2. Remove spam and duplicates from the lead count.
3. Mark each real lead as won, lost or open.
4. Calculate cost per lead and cost per customer for each campaign.
5. Cut or fix the campaigns that are above your target cost per customer for two or more months.
6. Move budget toward the campaigns with the lowest cost per customer, not the lowest cost per lead.

Our Google Ads and paid search management follows this kind of review and adjusts campaigns weekly. If you are still deciding how much to spend at all, see how much Google Ads costs a small business. And because the page people land on often drives cost per lead more than the ad, it is worth reading landing page vs homepage for ads.

Keep reading

• Google Ads location targeting: settings that waste money and how to fix them
• Google Tag Manager for beginners: what it does and the tags a small business needs
• Google Ad Grants: eligibility, the $10,000 monthly limit and staying compliant
• Hiring a PPC agency in Orlando: what to expect in the first 90 days

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