HVAC cost per lead is what you pay each time a channel or seller hands you a contact, and the honest answer is that no single HVAC number exists.
What exists: vendor benchmarks of vendors' own clients, sellers' rate cards, and Google click-price estimates, each measuring something different.
This page lines them up by channel, then shows the number that decides whether your lead cost is acceptable.
Its parent guide is HVAC lead generation.
What counts as a lead depends on who sells it
Google Local Services Ads name HVAC as a US category, and you pay for valid leads, which Google defines as calls, messages and bookings, rather than for clicks, against an average weekly budget (Google, Local Services Ads help).
Lead prices vary by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode, and message leads typically price lower than the corresponding phone lead, although not always; what Google never publishes is an HVAC lead price (as of September 2026).
Angi charges a lead fee that changes based on task, homeowner location and demand for the work, matches each homeowner request with no more than five pros, and states plainly that leads are not guaranteed jobs; it publishes no HVAC price.
Thumbtack lets pros set their own lead prices within a weekly budget, prices vary with job type and size, how many pros are available and your market, and Opportunities are paid only if the customer responds.
Exclusive call sellers differ again: 33 Mile Radius sells live calls sent to one contractor, prices by service area, and says leads are "typically" considered billable when a call "remains unanswered (4 rings or more)" or is "directed to voicemail, irrespective of whether a message is left".
So the same word covers a booked request, a form fill, and a call nobody answered; prices between channels are not directly comparable.
How shared, exclusive and pay-per-call models differ is the breakdown at buying HVAC leads, and Google's pay-per-lead format specifically is covered at Local Services Ads for HVAC.
How much do HVAC companies pay for leads: the published benchmarks
The closest things to public numbers are LocaliQ and WordStream benchmark reports, the same company, so treat every figure as one publisher's view of its own clients.
LocaliQ's 2025 home services search benchmark reports a median cost per lead of $127.74 for "Air Conditioning Installation & Repair" and $129.02 for "Heating & Furnaces," against $90.92 for all home services, from 3,211 US search campaigns run by LocaliQ clients, April 2024 to March 2025, where a "lead" is a tracked call or form, not a booked job, and the averages are medians (LocaliQ, 2025).
WordStream's 2026 search benchmark puts "Home & Home Improvement" at a median $90.92 cost per lead and $8.33 per click with an 8.05% conversion rate, from 13,474 US campaigns on Google and Microsoft Ads, April 2025 to March 2026 (WordStream, 2026).
On Meta, WordStream's 2026 Facebook benchmark puts Home & Home Improvement leads-objective campaigns at a median $42.95 cost per lead and a 5.32% conversion rate, from a 452-campaign US sample; the all-industry median is $27.39 (WordStream, 2026).
That median rose 4.10% year over year while most industries' fell, and it is one vendor's benchmark of campaigns that are not HVAC, not an HVAC Facebook lead price.
Published cost-per-lead medians, each from one vendor's own clients
So the average cost per lead HVAC companies pay has no single honest number: every honest figure names its vendor, clients, channel and year.
Facebook gets its own breakdown at HVAC Facebook ads cost.
What lead sellers publish about price
99 Calls sells exclusive HVAC leads plus done-for-you marketing, and lists $54.99 per organic SEO lead as a flat rate, $39 to $111 per Local Services Ads lead and $164 to $414 per Google Ads lead, ranges it calls the 10th to 90th percentile of its clients' costs over the last 12 months, so self-reported vendor data.
33 Mile Radius publishes no price: its pricing page says cost per lead varies by service area, with no setup or monthly fees and weekly card charges for valid leads.
Yelp Ads publishes budgets rather than per-lead prices, from $150 per month cancel anytime, and says you can spend as little as $5 per day on average.
One warning: precise Angi or Thumbtack lead prices circulate on agency blogs, but neither publishes an HVAC price, so such figures come from third parties.
Click prices are not lead prices
Keyword Planner's US click-price estimates for homeowner HVAC terms, our pull on October 1, 2026, run from $15.14 for ductless mini split installation to $81.38 for emergency hvac repair, with ac tune up at $53.10, ac repair at $46.46, ac replacement at $31.63 and ac installation at $25.43 in between.
Keyword Planner average click-price estimates, US, October 2026
Among these terms, emergency and repair clicks cost the most and installation terms the least, but a click is a bid in an auction, not a lead you can call.
Divide monthly spend by leads, not clicks; your own account's math in your own market replaces both the national estimate and the category median.
The number that matters: cost per booked replacement
Cost per lead is an input; the output is what a replacement costs you to win.
Cost per booked replacement (illustrative)
Say $3,000 of monthly lead spend buys 20 leads at $150 each, 8 book an estimate at $375 each, and 3 sign a replacement, so each replacement cost $1,000 to acquire.
That arithmetic is how you compare channels honestly: a $150 lead that books and closes beats a $60 lead that never answers, and billing a four-ring unanswered call sells contacts, not estimates.
Track the chain monthly: spend, leads, booked estimates, replacements.
What a new customer is worth over time is at HVAC customer acquisition cost.
For budget context, the ACCA / Farmington survey, fielded September to October 2025, reported the average contractor spending 6% of annual revenue on marketing and advertising, only 15% reporting 12% or more, a reported average and not a recommendation; the budget view is at HVAC marketing cost.
Lower cost per lead comes from conversion, not just cheaper clicks
The same click spend produces more leads when more clicks turn into calls, so conversion work on your own pages lowers cost per lead without raising a budget.
In the same survey, contractors ranked their Google Business Profile first for bringing in leads, ahead of truck wraps and websites; that is their opinion, not measured lead counts, but none of the assets it ranks charges per lead.
Click-to-call placement matters for the same reason: in tests Gabe ran on click-to-call at Sourcely, the startup he worked at before LaserAway, conversion rate rose by up to 50% in some cases, his result in an earlier role and not an HVAC benchmark.
More of the traffic you pay for picking up the phone is the whole mechanism, and no specific result is promised.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between a lead and a booked job?
A lead is a contact a seller charges you for, whether or not anyone answers the phone; a booked job is an estimate or appointment on your calendar. The gap between the two is why cost per lead alone never tells you what a channel really costs.
What counts as a billable lead?
Each seller defines it differently: Google bills a valid Local Services Ads lead as a call, message or booking, Angi charges a lead fee that changes based on task, homeowner location and demand for the work, and one exclusive-call seller says leads are typically billable when a call rings four or more times unanswered or goes to voicemail.
What is a good cost per lead for HVAC?
No method-disclosed HVAC-wide benchmark exists, so judge cost per lead against your own cost per booked replacement instead: a lead is only cheap if it books an estimate and closes.
How can I get free HVAC leads?
Start with the assets that cost nothing per lead: in the ACCA / Farmington survey fielded in September and October 2025, contractors ranked their Google Business Profile first for bringing in leads, ahead of truck wraps and websites. Referrals, maintenance agreements and your existing customer list feed leads too; the full order of operations is the guide at HVAC lead generation.
Is it worth paying more for exclusive HVAC leads?
Exclusive means only your company sees the lead; whether that is worth it depends on your booking and close rates, not the per-lead price alone. The shared-versus-exclusive comparison is covered at buying HVAC leads.