How much do HVAC companies pay for leads?

Short answer

There is no honest single figure, because an emergency repair lead and a full system replacement lead are worth very different amounts, and prices swing with the season and the market. Most published numbers come from lead sellers. Work out your own: value per booked job, close rate by source, and therefore what each kind of lead is worth to you.

HVAC owners get quoted lead prices all the time, usually by the people selling the leads. I do not have independent data I would trust for a national average, and I would be wary of anyone who gives you one without saying where it came from. What I can do is explain what drives the cost, and how to work out what a lead is worth to your business, which is the number that should set your budget.

Two kinds of lead, two prices

An emergency lead, no heat or no cooling, is usually a repair call. It is worth a modest amount on its own, though it can lead to a replacement or a maintenance contract. A replacement lead, someone planning a new system, is worth far more, and it is priced accordingly by every channel that sells leads. Treating the two as one “HVAC lead” with one target price is the most common budgeting mistake I see.

What drives the price

Season. Prices rise at the first cold night and the first heatwave, when every company is bidding for the same emergency searches.
Market. Dense metros with many contractors cost more than smaller towns.
Job type. Replacement and installation leads cost more than repair leads.
Exclusivity. Shared leads, sold to several companies, cost less and close worse.
Channel. Paid search, Local Services Ads, lead marketplaces and your own organic visibility each price differently.

Speed changes the real cost

For emergency leads especially, the price paid is only half the story. The MIT lead response study found a twenty-one-fold drop in the odds of qualifying a lead between a five-minute and a thirty-minute response. A company that calls back in an hour is paying for leads another company already booked. Faster answering is often the cheapest way to lower your effective cost per job.

How to work out what you can afford

From your own records, separately for emergency repairs, replacements and maintenance:

Average gross profit per booked job.
Close rate by lead source. Out of ten leads from each channel, how many booked?
Follow-on value. How often does a repair customer later buy a replacement or a maintenance plan?

Profit per job times close rate, plus a fair share of follow-on value, gives you what a lead from that channel is worth. Most owners who do this discover that one source they pay for every month is losing money, and that replacement leads from their own site are worth far more than they assumed.

Lowering the cost over time

The leads that cost least are the ones that arrive from your own Business Profile and website, with no charge per call. Building that takes months: a correct primary category and complete profile, fault pages for emergencies, financing and replacement pages for planned installs, and reviews that keep arriving. Buyers check recency; BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 74% of US consumers want reviews from the last three months, so ask on completion all year, including the shoulder months.

A worked example

Say an HVAC company buys shared emergency leads and pays for clicks on replacement terms. From its records, two in ten shared emergency leads become booked repairs, because other companies call faster, and those repairs carry a modest profit each. Replacement leads from paid search close at a similar rate, but each booked replacement carries many times the profit of a repair. On paper the replacement clicks look expensive. In practice they are the best money the company spends, while the shared emergency leads barely break even.

Your numbers will be different. The point is that the price on the invoice says very little until it is set against close rate and job value, and that emergency and replacement leads must be judged separately.

Seasonality and lead cost

HVAC demand spikes twice a year and lead prices spike with it. Companies that have built their own visibility before each peak pay least when demand is highest, because their calls come from the map pack and their own site rather than from an auction where every competitor is bidding. Emergency pages need to be ready a month or more before the weather turns. Replacement and financing pages take longer to mature and should be written during the peaks, ready for the shoulder seasons.

What to track every month

Emergency calls answered and replacement quotes issued, as separate numbers, by source, with how many became booked jobs. After one full year you will know exactly what each kind of lead from each channel is worth to your business, which is a far better guide than any published average.

Capacity first

Before buying more leads, check that you can serve them: technicians available, install calendar not already booked weeks out, and someone answering the phone at night. Leads you cannot serve cost money and reputation.

If you want more of your leads to come from your own profile and site, my SEO for HVAC companies builds separate paths for emergency and replacement buyers and times each to its season.