Local service ads vs Google Ads: which costs less per job?

Local service ads vs Google Ads is a choice between paying per lead and paying per click. Local Services Ads (LSAs) charge you when a customer calls, messages or books you, while Search ads charge you when someone clicks your ad. So don’t compare the lead price with the click price: compare what each costs per job you actually win.

How do Local Services Ads and Search ads charge?

Local Services Ads charge for each valid lead: an answered call or a callback, a text or email, a voicemail, or a booking request (bookings are in the US and Canada only). The price varies by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode. Message leads are usually, but not always, cheaper than calls. Your monthly maximum is your average weekly budget times the average number of weeks in a month, and the ads stop for the rest of the month once it’s reached.

Search ads charge for each click. Your maximum cost per click is the most you’ll typically be charged, and you’ll often pay less, though automated bidding can go above it. A campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget on one day, but no more than 30.4 times it in a month. Whether a click turns into a call is up to your ad, your landing page and your phone.

Which calls and messages count as a charged lead?

A missed call is charged during business hours if the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds. If a voicemail or greeting picks up, that counts as connected and is charged after 20 seconds, whether or not the caller leaves a message. With a phone menu, callers who hang up before pressing a key aren’t charged; the 20 seconds start at the first key press.

Your business hours come from your Google Business Profile, and an unanswered call is charged only when both your ad schedule and your business hours are active. The same customer contacting you again within 15 days isn’t charged twice. The Angi vs Google Ads guide compares these rules with Angi and Thumbtack.

What replaced the Google Guaranteed badge?

Google Verified. Google moved Local Services Ads to a single badge for all advertisers, and businesses that were already verified got it automatically. The money-back guarantee has ended. It covered only services booked before 7 December 2025, with claims due within 30 days of the work being finished. Google says ranking isn’t affected by the change.

To get the badge, a new business passes Google’s screening. That means background checks on the owners, and on field staff in some categories (US and Canada), at no charge; licence checks against state databases; proof of insurance in some categories; and a verified Business Profile for everyone. Some categories can show pre-badge ads while verification finishes, though Google places them below providers who have the badge. Locksmiths and garage door companies can’t use them.

What decides where a Local Services ad shows?

It’s an auction, like Search ads, but without keywords. The factors Google lists are:

• your bid, the most you’ll pay for a lead;
• how likely your ad is to bring a lead;
• how responsive you are (Google says missed calls may count against you);
• the search, and how relevant your business is to it;
• whether message and booking leads are turned on;
• your rating, number of reviews, average response time and image quality.

If several of your locations serve the same area, only your highest-ranking ad shows. Search ads rank on bid, ad quality and the Quality Score factors instead, and you pick the searches with keywords.

Which costs less per job?

Cost per job won is the cost per lead divided by the share of leads you win. Here’s an example with our own numbers, not Google prices:

• Local Services Ads: $70 a lead, with 1 in 10 credited later, is $63 a lead. Win 1 in 3 and a job costs $189.
• Search ads: $8 a click with 10% of clicks becoming leads is $80 a lead. Win 1 in 3 and a job costs $240.

Now two things that often happen. If 1 in 4 of your charged Local Services leads is for a job you don’t do, Google won’t credit those, so each useful lead costs about $84 and a job about $252: Search wins. And if negative keywords stop the clicks that could never convert, so 12.5% of clicks become leads, Search costs $64 a lead and about $192 a job: about even with Local Services Ads.

When should I run Local Services Ads, Search ads, or both?

Start with Local Services Ads if your trade is an eligible category, you can get the badge, you answer the phone during business hours, you already have reviews, and you want a simple setup on a small budget.

Start with Search ads if:

• your category or the badge isn’t available to you;
• you only want certain high-value jobs, because keywords give finer control than job types;
• you want ads outside your business hours, or more leads than Local Services Ads send at your budget.

Run both when Local Services Ads can’t send you enough leads, as long as each has its own tracked phone number. Then keep putting money into whichever has the lower cost per job won. In Search ads, make sure your ads only show to people in your area: new campaigns also reach people outside it by default, which presence or interest explains.

What changes when Local Services Ads move into Google Ads?

Google is moving Local Services Ads into Google Ads as a Performance Max campaign type built for pay-per-lead. It has no keywords, shows on Search and Maps only, and you’re still billed per valid lead. Selected US home and storefront services began moving in August 2026. Service-area businesses without a storefront, and accounts with custom bidding or booking setups, follow in late 2026, and accounts outside the US and the remaining categories in 2027. Google emails you 14 and 7 days before your move.

What changes for you:

• your weekly budget becomes a daily budget of a seventh of it, with the month capped at 30.4 days of that;
• manual maximum cost-per-lead bidding ends, and one target CPA (your target cost per lead) applies to the whole campaign, so different targets need separate campaigns;
• your lead history and badge move across, but your reports don’t, so download them first;
• allow up to 2 weeks for results to settle.

What the SpendCanary scan checks

In your Search campaigns, the free scan checks location targeting, search partners, broad match and the search terms you paid for. With Sign in with Google, it also lists your charged Local Services leads by job type, with how many you haven’t rated and how many were credited, and tells you if a licence or insurance check hasn’t passed. It doesn’t put a dollar figure on Local Services leads.

Sources

• Google Local Services Ads Help: How you’re charged, Lead credits, Google Verified badge, Getting started and categories, Screening, Verification requirements, Ad ranking.
• Google Ads Help: Local Services Ads move to Google Ads, Cost-per-click bidding, Actual CPC, Daily budget.
• We checked these pages on 9 November 2026. The lead and click prices, close rates and conversion rates in the example are our own illustration.