Cost per lead for lawn care and landscaping companies: what each published figure counts

Last verified: 6 October 2026 · Next scheduled check: January 2027 · Change log

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The short answer

Published Google Ads figures for lawn care and landscaping companies run from $28 a lead (mulch) to $153 a lead (hardscaping), across sources covering 2024 to 2026. Blended landscaping figures from the two sources that state their sample size are $54 and $118.

Those numbers are not measuring the same thing. One source counts any conversion Google records. Another counts only real inquiries. A third removes duplicates and spam first. Before you compare any cost per lead with your own, you need to know which of these it is, and this page sets them side by side.

We found no trade association that publishes a cost-per-lead figure for the green industry. Every number you will find comes from an agency or a lead seller reporting on its own accounts. That includes the figures below, and it includes us.

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Why the numbers disagree: the definition ladder

The same month of ad spend can produce very different cost-per-lead figures depending on what is counted as a lead. Each step down this ladder removes something, so the count gets smaller and the cost per lead gets larger.

1. Every contact. Every call and every form submission, which is what a call-tracking or form report shows by default. It includes repeat callers, existing customers, vendors and wrong numbers.
2. Unique contacts. The same caller counted once. Repeat calls about one job stop inflating the count.
3. First-time contacts. People who have not called or written in the previous year. This is closest to what most owners mean by “new inquiries”.
4. Qualified leads. Contacts who want a service you offer, in an area you serve, at a scope you take on. Someone has to listen to the call or read the form to know.
5. Booked jobs. Qualified leads that turned into a sold estimate.
6. Cost per customer (CAC). Total marketing spend divided by new customers. This is a different unit from cost per lead, and it is often quoted as if it were one.

A figure quoted with no rung attached cannot be compared with anything, including your own numbers.

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Published figures, stamped

Each row shows what the source says it counted. Where the source does not say, the row says “not stated”.

Source links are listed at the end of this page.

A note on the 99 Calls landscaping page: it carries no publication date, and its figures have changed between snapshots. We cite it with the date we read it, and we re-read it every quarter rather than carrying a number forward.

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Lawn care and install are different markets

Pooling them hides the most useful thing in the data. Both sources that split lawn from install put hardscaping at roughly twice the cost per lead of lawn care:

• Evergrow 2025: hardscaping $153.27 against lawn care $84.24.
• 99 Calls, Jan – Jul 2026: hardscaping $108 against lawn mowing and maintenance $51.

In Evergrow’s figures the clicks cost about the same (hardscaping $4.81, lawn care $4.67). The difference is how often a click becomes a lead: 3.13% for hardscaping against 5.54% for lawn care. If your business does both, track them separately. A blended figure will look worse than your lawn numbers and better than your install numbers, and it will describe neither.

Fertilization and weed control: we found no published figure that splits these out. We will add one when a source publishes it, not before.

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The channel changes the unit

Cost per lead is only comparable within the same kind of lead.

• Google Search ads. You pay per click and count leads yourself, so the definition is whatever you or your agency set up. Most published figures above are this channel.
• Local Services Ads. You pay per lead, and Google decides which leads it charges for. 99 Calls puts landscaping at $31 – $72 per vetted lead over its last 12 full months.
• Lead marketplaces (Angi, Thumbtack and similar). Many sell the same lead to several companies at once. A shared lead and an exclusive lead are different products, so their prices cannot be compared directly. One vendor estimate: Lead Truffle, a lead-software vendor (27 Jan 2026, no source cited), puts Angi landscaping leads at $25–55 each, with a standard lead shared among 3–8 contractors, a membership of about $300 a year, and shared leads closing at 13–20% against 27–30% for exclusive leads. Treat it as one vendor’s estimate, not a measurement.
• SEO. There is no per-lead charge, and we found no current published per-lead cost we could verify.
• Meta (Facebook and Instagram). We found no current published figure we could verify for the green industry.

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Cost per lead moves with the season

Lead prices move with demand through the year. No single figure on this page is an annual rate, and none should be multiplied up into one.

One agency’s own lawn-care accounts show how far it moves. Evergrow’s 2025 figures put lawn care at about $40–50 a lead in late April and early May, the mid-$80s to $90s in summer, and over $200 in winter for lawn-care-only companies that keep ads running. Their 2024 report (61 accounts, more than $225,000 of spend, all services) ran from $67.68 in February to $111.11 in December, with April at $99.17. The seasonal shape changed even between one agency’s two years.

When you compare your own cost per lead with any figure here, compare the same months.

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Cost per customer is a different number

Some figures quoted as “cost per lead” are actually cost per new customer: marketing spend divided by the customers it produced. One published example, for lawn care:

• Focus Digital (published 23 June 2024; sample and source not stated, so treat it as directional): paid cost per customer by yearly contract size, $36.88 (contracts of $100–500), $122.94 ($500–1,500), $276.61 ($1,500–3,000), $799.10 ($3,000–10,000) and $1,536.73 ($10,000+, commercial). By channel: SEO $47.07, Google Ads $73.34, Yelp $101.74.

The pattern is the useful part. The bigger the contract, the more it costs to win one, so a “high” cost per customer can be a healthy number for a company selling larger contracts.

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Five questions to ask about any cost-per-lead figure

Whether it comes from an agency report, a sales call or an article, these five questions tell you whether you can compare it with anything.

1. What counts as a lead? Every call, unique callers, first-time inquiries, or qualified leads someone actually listened to.
2. How many leads is it based on? A figure built on a handful of leads can swing wildly from one month to the next.
3. Which months? A spring figure and a winter figure are not the same measurement.
4. Whose spend is in it? One channel or all of them, and whether management fees are included.
5. Shared or exclusive? If the lead was also sold to other companies, its price is not comparable with an exclusive lead.

If a figure can’t answer the first question, it can’t be compared with anything.

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How this page was made

Who we are. Lucrative Landscaping is a marketing agency that runs campaigns for green-industry companies. We are one of the agencies whose kind of data appears on this page, so we have tried to hold our own figures to the same standard we hold everyone else’s.

Published figures. Each source page was opened and the figure read in the page’s own words on the date shown. Where a source does not state its sample, window or lead definition, the table says “not stated” rather than guessing. A source whose page changes is re-read, not carried forward. A source that disappears is removed.

Our own figures. This version contains no figures from our own accounts.

Refresh. Every figure is re-checked each quarter, in January, April, July and October. Changes are listed below.

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Change log

• 6 October 2026: First published. All third-party figures read on this date.

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Common questions

How much does a landscaping lead cost on Google Ads?
Published figures for 2024 to 2026 range from $28 (mulch) to $153 (hardscaping) per lead, with blended landscaping figures of $54 (99 Calls, Jan – Jul 2026, 1,928 leads) and $117.92 (LocaliQ, 1 Apr 2024 – 21 Mar 2025, 3,211 campaigns). The sources count leads differently, so check the definition before comparing.

How much does a lawn care lead cost?
Evergrow’s 2025 benchmark puts lawn care at $84.24 per lead on Google Search. 99 Calls puts lawn mowing and maintenance at $51 per lead (Jan – Jul 2026, 512 leads), counting only real inquiries.

How much do Local Services Ads cost for landscaping?
99 Calls reports $31 to $72 per vetted lead for landscaping (10th to 90th percentile across businesses, last 12 full months, read 6 October 2026).

Why is my cost per lead higher than these figures?
Usually because you are counting a different rung. If you count only qualified leads, your figure will usually be higher than a figure from the same spend that counts every inquiry. Seasonality, service mix and how much of your work is install also move it.

Does anyone publish cost per qualified lead?
Some vendors use the word “qualified”, but none we found says how qualification was judged or what sample the figure comes from.

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Related: landscaping marketing: what actually works, and how to tell.

Sources

• LocaliQ / WordStream, home services search advertising benchmarks: https://localiq.com/blog/home-services-search-advertising-benchmarks/
• Evergrow Marketing, 2025 landscaping and lawn care Google Ads benchmarks: https://evergrowmarketing.com/2025-landscaping-and-lawn-care-google-ads-benchmarks/
• 99 Calls, Google Ads lead costs for landscaping: https://99calls.com/blog/Google-Ads-Lead-Costs-Landscaping
• 99 Calls, landscaping leads: https://99calls.com/Landscaping-Leads.htm
• Focus Digital, average customer acquisition cost for lawn care: https://focus-digital.co/average-customer-acquisiton-cost-for-lawn-care/
• Lead Truffle, complete guide to Angi leads for home service contractors (27 Jan 2026): https://www.leadtruffle.co/blog/complete-guide-angi-leads-home-service-contractors-2026/