What an electrician can afford to pay per lead, job by job

Electrical shops were in the first group Google named when it began switching Local Services Ads into Google Ads this month, alongside a handful of other home service trades. If your account administrator has had the email, your date is set. If you work from home with no storefront, Google’s timeline puts service-area businesses like yours in a later wave, before the end of the year. Either way, the one setting most owners leaned on, the maximum you would pay for a lead, is going away.

That makes this a good month to answer a question most shops never write down: what can a lead cost before the job stops paying for it? The answer is different for a service call, a panel, a charger and a generator, and the published numbers help set each one.

What the switch takes away, and what it keeps

Google’s help page on the transition is specific. The ads keep showing on Search and Maps in the same positions, you still pay only for valid leads such as calls and messages, and targeting stays keywordless, built from your categories, service areas and Business Profile. A completed verification and the Google Verified badge come across automatically, and the insurance and license rechecks stop.

What changes matters more for budgeting:

• No manual bids. Setting a maximum cost per lead is no longer supported in Google Ads.
• Daily budgets. Google divides your average weekly budget by seven, and caps a month at that daily figure times 30.4.
• One target per campaign. If an account mixes electrical with another category under different cost-per-lead targets, Google replaces them with a single campaign-level target. Separate campaigns are the only way to keep separate targets.
• Profile edits can pause you. A significant change to the business name, address or primary category on your Business Profile triggers a review that typically takes 24 to 48 hours, and the campaign may stop serving meanwhile. This is not the month to rebrand.
• Callouts change. BBB callouts are no longer supported, and Google suggests choosing at least six other structured callouts, such as hours or specialties.
• History splits. Past leads, message threads and older call recordings move across. Performance reports do not, so screenshot or download yours first.

Google also says to allow up to two weeks after the move for performance to settle. Judge the new campaign on a full month, not the first few days.

What the published numbers say an electrician lead costs

Google does not publish Local Services lead prices for electricians. Its help pages say prices vary by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode, that message leads are usually priced below phone leads, and that credits are no longer given for leads outside your job types or service area. Your own lead history is the only real price list, which is one more reason to save it.

For search ads there are published medians. LocaliQ’s 2025 home services benchmarks, covering April 2024 to March 2025, give Electricians & Electrical Contractors a median click of $12.18, the second highest of its 16 home service categories after painting. Because 9.08% of those clicks became leads, the median cost per lead came to $93.69, close to the $90.92 median for home services overall. WordStream by LocaliQ’s 2026 report, covering April 2025 to March 2026, puts the broader Home & Home Improvement category at an $8.33 click, with 8.05% of clicks turning into leads.

These are medians across other advertisers’ accounts. They tell you the market is expensive per click and reasonable per lead, not what your next lead will cost.

Set a ceiling for each job, not one number for the shop

A single target cost per lead treats a breaker swap and a generator as the same sale. They are not. HomeAdvisor’s cost guides, updated in June, give lead-site estimates of what homeowners pay:

• Panel replacement: an average of $1,347, with most spending between $518 and $2,193.
• EV charger installation: an average of $967, with a typical range of $554 to $1,380.
• Whole-house generator installation: an average of $5,157, ranging from $1,512 to $8,803.

Now run your own close rate against them. Say one lead in four becomes a panel job. At the $93.69 search median, that is about $375 in lead cost per panel against a $1,347 average ticket. Say one generator lead in ten signs. That is about $937 in lead cost against $5,157. The arithmetic is simple; the point is that each job tolerates a very different lead price, and only separate campaigns let you act on it now that one campaign gets one target.

Chargers need a second look this year. The federal 30C credit ended for chargers placed in service after June 30, so no homeowner can count on a federal credit toward the install any more. Copy that sold the credit should come down, and charger campaigns should sell the install and the load check that often leads to a panel quote. That second job is where a charger lead earns its cost.

A missed call breaks every ceiling

All of this assumes the phone gets answered. CallRail’s January 2025 report on 1.1 million leads found home services businesses missed 14% of calls. Google also ranks Local Services ads partly on responsiveness. A ceiling worked out on paper means nothing if one call in seven goes unanswered. Check your answer rate by hour before raising any target.

What to do this month

• Screenshot or download your Local Services performance reports before your migration date.
• Make sure the administrator email on the account belongs to someone who reads it.
• Write down a cost-per-lead ceiling for service calls, panels, chargers and generators, based on your own close rate and average ticket.
• If electrical shares a campaign with another category, plan the split so each keeps its own target.
• Hold off on any change to your business name, address or primary category until the move has settled.
• Pick at least six structured callouts to replace a BBB callout if you used one.

How we set up an electrical account, from verification to job-type pages, is on our electrician marketing page. For running Local Services and search under one budget, see our Google Ads work.