Google Ads Benchmarks 2026: CPL, CPC & Conversion Rates

Google Ads benchmarks for 2026, across all industries: the average search ad has a 6.64% click-through rate, costs $5.42 a click, turns 8.18% of clicks into leads and costs $66.69 a lead. Those are the figures in LocaliQ’s 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks, built from thousands of LocaliQ customers’ campaigns on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads, and WordStream’s 2026 Google Ads benchmarks lookup shows the same values.

For a local service business, the all-industry average is the wrong yardstick. Home and Home Improvement, the closest category for HVAC, plumbing, roofing and other home service trades, averages $8.33 a click and $90.92 a lead. Dentists average $72.97 a lead, and attorneys $131.63. The number to compare against is your own category’s.

This guide puts the full 2026 table in one place, shows how to read it for a local business, and covers two things no benchmark can show you: how much of your own spend the search terms report never lists, and why a cost per click can jump 64% in three weeks while nothing in the account changes.

Google Ads Benchmarks by Industry: The 2026 Table

The chart shows the 2026 average cost per lead for the categories closest to local service businesses. The table below it has all four benchmarks for all 23 categories LocaliQ reports, in alphabetical order, with the all-industry average first.

Source: LocaliQ, 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks (last updated June 1, 2026), averages from LocaliQ customers’ search campaigns on Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. The all-industries conversion rate is the figure LocaliQ gives for Google Ads. WordStream’s 2026 lookup shows the same values for every category and describes them as medians. LocaliQ reports each metric in its own table, so a row’s cost per lead is not always its cost per click divided by its conversion rate.

How to Read These Google Ads Benchmarks

Each column answers a different question:

• Click-through rate: the share of people who saw the ad and clicked it. LocaliQ notes that a low one might signal a poor offer, weak targeting or ad copy that needs work.
• Cost per click: what you pay each time someone clicks the ad.
• Conversion rate: the number of leads you get divided by clicks, the way LocaliQ calculates it.
• Cost per lead: what you spend for someone to click your ad and then contact you by phone, chat, form or email.

What is a good CPA for Google Ads?

When the conversion you count is a lead, your cost per acquisition (CPA) is your cost per lead, so the last column doubles as a CPA benchmark for a lead account. A good CPA leaves profit after the job is done; beating an average does not prove that. Work out the most you can pay per lead from your job value, close rate and margin, as in our guide on how to calculate your maximum CPL, then use the table to see whether your market sits in the normal range.

Averages, not targets

These numbers describe thousands of advertisers, not your market. LocaliQ notes that multiple factors influence results, including budget, location and keywords, and that “When you have a new account, face low-volume keywords, or have a small budget, these results aren’t realistic.” WordStream’s lookup says it in fewer words: “Use these as a sanity check, not a target.“

The numbers also move from year to year. LocaliQ reports that the average cost per click rose a little over the last year while cost per lead fell across all industries, the first decrease in five years. Benchmark reports get updated, so check the edition date before you compare figures from two different sources. This table is the 2026 edition.

Home Services Benchmarks: HVAC, Plumbing, Roofing and Tree Service

LocaliQ does not break out individual trades. Its Home and Home Improvement category is the closest match for HVAC, plumbing, roofing, tree service and other home service companies, and in 2026 it averaged a 6.47% click-through rate, $8.33 a click, an 8.05% conversion rate and $90.92 a lead. Only Attorneys and Legal Services pays more per click. At an 8.05% conversion rate, it takes about 12 clicks to produce one lead.

Many home service searches are urgent. Someone searching “AC repair near me” on a July afternoon is ready to book, and that intent draws competitors to the same keywords. Each trade has its own economics underneath the shared category: see Google Ads for HVAC companies and plumbing CPL benchmarks for the campaign structure behind these numbers. Roofing and tree service follow the same emergency pattern, with demand that follows the storms.

Local Services Ads charge per lead instead of per click, so judge them on cost per lead, not cost per click. Our guide to Local Services Ads vs Google Ads compares the two. For HVAC companies, our Google Local Services Ads for HVAC guide covers what a lead costs and how to set it up.

For planning a licensed trade’s budget, we use our own range rather than the category average. For licensed trades, including HVAC, we plan around $150 to $250 per Search lead and $60 to $100 per Local Services Ads lead. Those are planning ranges from trades and home services accounts we have run or reviewed, not a quote or a promise. Above $300 a Search lead, we look for a problem before we add budget. See how we structure these campaigns in Google Ads for home service contractors.

Healthcare and Fitness Benchmarks: Dentists, Clinics, Chiropractors and Gyms

Dentists pay the third-highest average cost per click in the table, $8.00, but convert 10.67% of clicks, so a dental lead averages $72.97, less than a home improvement lead. Physicians and Surgeons pay $4.76 a click and convert 12.43%, for $40.04 a lead. Health and Fitness sits at $6.17 a click, a 6.94% conversion rate and $67.36 a lead.

Dental searches differ by procedure, so split campaigns the same way. Implants, clear aligners and emergency visits should not share a budget or a landing page; when they do, you can pay implant-level prices for a cleaning lead. We lay out that procedure-level structure, and what a practice can afford to pay per new patient, in our Google Ads guide for dentists.

LocaliQ does not list chiropractors separately. The two nearest rows, Physicians and Surgeons at $40.04 a lead and Health and Fitness at $67.36, sit far apart, so treat either as a rough guide. We do not publish a chiropractic cost per new patient: we have not run enough chiropractic accounts to give a range we would stand behind. The full breakdown is in Google Ads for chiropractors.

In healthcare, what a patient is worth over time changes the math. A patient who stays for months is worth more than a one-visit walk-in, so know what a new patient is worth before you decide what a lead can cost. For higher-ticket clinical offers, see our approach for clinics and high-ticket health brands.

Gyms and fitness studios most likely fall under Health and Fitness. A monthly membership changes the math again: what a member is worth over their stay sets what a lead can cost. The cost-per-member math is broken out in Google Ads for gyms.

Legal, Real Estate and Other Local Service Benchmarks

Attorneys and Legal Services carry the highest average cost per click in the table, $9.87, and the highest cost per lead, $131.63. For categories with a higher cost per lead like this one, LocaliQ’s advice is to think about the average lifetime value of a customer.

Real estate shows why one number is never enough. Its clicks cost $3.22, well under half the Home and Home Improvement price, but only 3.70% of them convert, so a real estate lead averages $102.51. Its numbers sit apart from the trades, so we cover its cost per lead and campaign structure in a separate guide to Google Ads for realtors.

At the other end, Automotive Repair, Service and Parts converts 15.51% of clicks, the second-highest rate in the table, so its leads average $29.96. Personal Services averages $54.60 a lead and Beauty and Personal Care $39.25. For the kinds of local businesses we work with, see who we serve.

What Benchmarks Can’t Show You: Your Own Search Terms

A benchmark is an average of many accounts. The numbers that matter most for yours are in its search terms report, and Google does not list all of them. Google says some search terms that don’t have enough query activity are omitted from the search terms report to keep with its standards on data privacy.

In two accounts we have run or reviewed, that hidden share was large. In a tree service account we manage, the search terms Google listed covered 34.6% of September 2026 spend and 40.5% of August’s. In an installation company’s account, they covered 60.3% of spend from June 1 to August 29, 2026. In other words, 39.7% to 65.4% of the spend in those accounts never showed up in the search terms report.

What the report does list is worth sorting before you cut anything. In the installation company’s account, $11,705 of the $37,625 spent on listed searches (31%) produced no conversions. Only about $457 of that was junk, such as job seekers, do-it-yourself searches and product brands. Most of the rest was the right kind of search that did not convert. More negative keywords were not the fix.

We split spend that booked nothing into three piles before we cut it: searches you never wanted, searches from outside your service area, and the right searches that did not book. Only the first one is fixed with negative keywords.

Why Cost Per Click Can Jump When Nothing Changed

Benchmarks average many accounts, and a single month in one account can sit far from them. In the same installation company’s account, the average cost per click rose from $10.78 in the week of August 3, 2026 to $17.66 in the week of August 24, up 64% in three weeks. Impression share held between 47% and 53% the whole time, and the change history showed no changes to the live campaigns.

When that happens, look at the auction before the account. Google calculates Ad Rank from several factors, including your competition, the context of the person’s search and your ad quality at that moment, so the price of the same position can rise when other advertisers bid more. With impression share flat and no changes logged, we read that jump as a pricier auction, not a broken account. The question it raises is whether the higher price per click is still worth paying.

Before you change anything after a jump like that, check impression share, the change history and the season. Then set the month against the same month a year earlier, not against a benchmark average.

The Variables That Move Every Vertical’s Numbers

Benchmarks are a starting line. WordStream’s lookup lists what moves an account away from them: geography, keyword strategy, ad quality, landing page and seasonality. Four of those are worth a look before you add budget.

Market and season. Your competitors and your season set the price of a click, so the same keyword can cost more in one market or month than in another. Show ads only to people in or regularly in the area you serve. Two guides work this through for your own market: what a $10k ad budget should produce and how much Google Ads costs a local service business.

Campaign structure. Running HVAC maintenance and emergency replacement in the same campaign blends two kinds of intent. Emergency searches should have their own campaign, budget and landing page that match the urgency of the search. That is how our Google Ads management sets up Search: one campaign per service, each sending people to a page about that service. For how structure and match types change what each Search lead costs, see our guide to Google Ads for local service businesses.

Landing page. Sending ad clicks to your homepage leaves visitors to hunt for the next step. A page built around one service, one offer and one call to action gives every click a clear place to go. In high-ticket categories the page has a second job, screening out poor-fit leads before they take up a sales consultation, which our guide to Google Ads for solar companies walks through. Our websites and landing pages service builds those pages, with calls and forms tracked from launch day.

Ad quality. Google says higher quality ads can often lead to lower CPCs, and it measures quality at auction time with signals such as expected click-through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience.

How to Compare Your Account With These Benchmarks

1. Pick your row. Use the closest category, and compare the same metric measured the same way.
2. Check what counts as a conversion. Each one should be a real call, form or booking, counted once. Our Google Ads conversion tracking guide shows how to check. If the counts are off, we set up and repair Google Ads conversion tracking.
3. Take brand searches out. Searches for your business name usually convert cheaply and flatter the totals.
4. Compare the same season. Set a month against the same month a year earlier before you set it against a benchmark average.
5. Read your search terms. Sort spend that produced nothing into the three piles above before you add negative keywords.
6. Finish with booked jobs. A lead is not a booked job. Your cost per booked job decides whether the account pays.

Get Your Google Ads Account Checked

We manage Google Search and Local Services Ads for home service companies, clinics and other local businesses that can count a booked customer. Every monthly report starts with one number: what a booked customer cost you, with our fee included. See how our Google Ads and Local Services Ads management works.

Want a second set of eyes on your account? Our basic audit is free and comes in writing; a call is optional. Get the free audit.

Sources

1. LocaliQ, 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks, last updated June 1, 2026. Checked October 10, 2026.
2. WordStream, Google Ads Industry Benchmarks Lookup (WordStream 2026 Google Ads Benchmarks, Search Network). Checked October 10, 2026.
3. Google Ads Help, About the search terms report. Checked October 10, 2026.
4. Google Ads Help, About Ad Rank. Checked October 10, 2026.

The account examples come from Google Ads accounts we have run or reviewed. Each is shown by type of business, with its period, and no client is named.