What is cost per lead?

Cost per lead (CPL) is the amount of money you spend to generate one new inquiry. The formula is straightforward: take your total marketing spend on a channel and divide it by the number of leads that channel produced.

If you spent $500 on Google Ads last month and got 10 calls from it, your CPL is $50.

Why CPL matters for field service businesses

Most small field service companies have a limited marketing budget. You might have $500 or $1,000 a month to spend, and you need it to go as far as possible. CPL tells you which channels are delivering and which ones are burning cash.

Without tracking CPL, you are guessing. You might be pouring money into a lead source that costs you $150 per lead when another one could get you leads for $30. Or you might be about to cancel a marketing channel that is actually your cheapest source of new business.

Typical CPL ranges by trade

These ranges vary by market, competition, and season, but they give you a useful benchmark:

• Lawn care: $20–80 per lead. Lower end for organic search and referrals, higher end for paid ads in competitive markets.
• Landscaping: $50–150 per lead. Higher-ticket services attract more competition and more expensive clicks.
• Tree care: $30–100 per lead. Emergency work (storm damage) can bring cheaper leads; planned removals tend to cost more.
• Pest control: $25–75 per lead. Seasonal spikes can push costs up during spring and summer.
• Pressure washing: $20–60 per lead. Generally lower because the market is less saturated in many areas.
• Pool service: $30–90 per lead. Concentrated in specific regions, which affects pricing.

If your CPL is consistently above these ranges, it does not necessarily mean your marketing is broken. It might mean your market is more competitive, or that you are targeting higher-value jobs.

How to calculate your CPL

For each marketing channel, track two things:

1. What you spend. This includes the obvious costs (ad spend, directory listing fees) and the less obvious ones (the time someone spends managing campaigns, the monthly fee for a lead gen service).
2. How many leads you get. A lead is someone who contacts you about work. Not a website visit, not an impression — an actual person who calls, fills out a form, or sends a message.

Divide spend by leads. That is your CPL for that channel.

Do this for everything: Google Ads, Google Business Profile, Yelp, HomeAdvisor, Angi, yard signs, truck wraps, door hangers, Facebook ads, and referrals. Yes, referrals have a CPL too — if you give a $25 gift card for every referral, and that generates one lead per card, your CPL is $25.

CPL is not the whole story

A low CPL is good, but it is only useful in context. Two important things CPL does not tell you:

Lead quality. A lead source that sends you 20 leads at $25 each sounds great, until you realize only 2 of them are in your service area and the rest are tire-kickers. A $75 lead that converts at 50% is worth more than a $25 lead that converts at 5%.

Revenue per customer. A $100 lead for a commercial maintenance contract worth $20,000 per year is a bargain. A $20 lead for a one-time $80 job is less impressive than it looks.

The real question is not “what does a lead cost?” but “what does a customer cost?” That is where CPL connects to conversion rate and customer lifetime value. Together, those three metrics tell you whether your marketing is actually making you money.

A practical starting point

If you are not tracking CPL at all, start with your biggest spend. Whatever you are putting the most money into — probably Google Ads or a lead generation service — track the spend and count the leads for one month. That single number will tell you more about your marketing than any gut feeling.