There is no standard price. You set your own budget and pay per click, and the price of a click depends on your trade and country. In Google's estimates from October 2026, a top-of-page click for "plumber near me" ran from £1.54 to £10.70 in the UK and from £9.15 to £61.62 in the US.
The useful number isn't the cost per click. It's the cost per booked job, and only your own tracking can tell you that.
Many of the cost guides I read while researching this came from agencies, with wide ranges and little data behind them. So I pulled figures from Google Ads Keyword Planner myself for 21 searches local businesses compete on. Twelve of them are below.
What clicks are estimated to cost, by trade
| Search | UK searches/month | UK top-of-page bid | US searches/month | US top-of-page bid |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| plumber near me | 90 500 | £1.54 to £10.70 | 823 000 | £9.15 to £61.62 |
| emergency plumber | 12 100 | £3.87 to £26.39 | 90 500 | £18.28 to £82.32 |
| roofer near me | 33 100 | £2.98 to £12.65 | 165 000 | £10.32 to £56.13 |
| roof repair | 6 600 | £3.61 to £14.22 | 90 500 | £10.85 to £53.85 |
| hvac repair | 3 600 | £2.32 to £6.49 | 74 000 | £12.72 to £74.84 |
| ac repair | 9 900 | £1.35 to £7.17 | 368 000 | £14.07 to £75.96 |
| boiler repair | 5 400 | £3.66 to £11.88 | 27 100 | £8.40 to £50.43 |
| electrician near me | 74 000 | £1.34 to £7.46 | 368 000 | £4.29 to £41.16 |
| pest control | 18 100 | £1.75 to £5.54 | 201 000 | £7.30 to £34.15 |
| carpet cleaning | 135 000 | £0.39 to £1.92 | 368 000 | £1.03 to £7.48 |
| dentist near me | 246 000 | £1.39 to £5.54 | 1 830 000 | £3.64 to £17.15 |
| dental implants | 22 200 | £1.55 to £7.44 | 165 000 | £5.34 to £22.45 |
Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, checked 30 October 2026, average monthly searches for October 2025 to September 2026. Bids are Google's low and high estimates in pounds, because that is the account's currency. They are estimates and not what you would actually pay.
Three things stand out. US bids are well above UK bids for most of these searches. Urgent searches can cost far more than general ones: compare "emergency plumber" with "plumber near me" on the high end. And some trades are much cheaper than others: "carpet cleaning" sits well below "roofer near me" in both countries.
What those bids mean for a budget
A monthly budget divided by the click price gives you a rough number of clicks. Using the estimates above, and only as a guide, £1,000 a month would buy roughly:
| Search | UK clicks for £1,000 | US clicks for £1,000 |
|---|---|---|
| plumber near me | 93 to 649 | 16 to 109 |
| roofer near me | 79 to 335 | 17 to 96 |
| carpet cleaning | 520 to 2,564 | 133 to 970 |
| dentist near me | 180 to 719 | 58 to 274 |
These ranges are wide because Google's estimates are wide. Actual prices depend on competition, your area, the time of day and your ad's quality, so your own account will tell you more within a few weeks.
How Google charges your budget
You set an average daily budget, and Google can spend above it on some days. According to Google's help pages, for most campaigns you won't pay more than twice your average daily budget on a given day, or more than 30.4 times it in a month. So a daily budget of £30 can spend up to £60 in one day, and up to £912 in a month.
Work out your own cost per job
- Find your click priceStart with Keyword Planner for your own searches and area, then replace it with real data from your account.
- Measure how many clicks become enquiriesCount connected calls and forms, not taps on your phone number.
- Measure how many enquiries become jobsYour own diary or CRM is the only source for this.
- Compare the cost per job with what a job earnsA costly lead can still be a bargain on a high-value job.
Suppose clicks cost £5, one in ten clicks becomes an enquiry, and one in three enquiries becomes a job. That is £50 per enquiry and £150 per job. These numbers are only there to show the sum. They aren't a benchmark, so use your own.
The costs on top of clicks
- Management: your own time, or a fee to a freelancer or agency. Ask exactly what's included each month.
- Tracking and landing pages: often a one-off setup, and easy to overlook.
- Wasted clicks: irrelevant searches cost real money until negative keywords remove them. On the dental clinic account I rebuilt, there were no negative keywords at all when I started.
Local Services Ads work differently
Where they're available, Local Services Ads charge per lead and not per click, so the table above doesn't apply to them. I compare the two in Local Services Ads vs Google Ads.
Common questions
How much should a small local business spend on Google Ads?
There's no correct figure. Work backwards from your click price and what a job is worth, and set a budget that buys enough clicks to learn from. A budget that buys only a handful of clicks a month won't tell you much.
Why are Google Ads so expensive for plumbers and roofers?
Advertisers bid against each other, and a single job can be worth a lot, so they're willing to pay more per click. Emergency searches in particular can carry high bids.
Is the top-of-page bid what I will pay per click?
No. It's Google's estimate of what advertisers have paid to appear at the top of the page. Your actual cost per click depends on competition and your ad's quality.
Can Google spend more than my daily budget?
Yes. Google says that for most campaigns it may spend up to twice your average daily budget on a given day, but no more than 30.4 times it in a month.
Want to know what clicks cost in your own area?
Send me your website and service area. I'll review your account and tracking, and tell you the first things I'd fix.
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