TL;DR
Nextdoor publishes no rate card, but its help center on October 6, 2026 explains the two ways a business page pays: Pay as You Go, billed on impressions after they run against a daily budget you set, and a Monthly Subscription that charges your daily budget times 30 upfront with a 10 percent discount. Nextdoor's own budget guidance recommends $3, $5 or $10 a day, so a typical small-business campaign is $90 to $300 a month, and a custom run of $8 a day for seven days is $56. The business page itself, business posts and neighbor recommendations are free. Nextdoor sells trust, not intent: 1 in 3 US households are on it, 77 percent of ad audiences are homeowners, and 79 percent of neighbors say a recommendation there influenced a purchase, but nobody opens Nextdoor with a burst pipe. It pays for lawn care, landscaping, cleaning, handyman, pet and pool services where the job is recurring and the neighborhood is the territory, and it does not pay for emergency trades, where $150 a month on Google Local Services Ads buys two to seven exclusive calls instead of a few thousand impressions.
Disclosure: Skill Mammoth manages Google Local Services Ads, Google Ads and Meta ads for contractors and does not resell Nextdoor. Several of our lawn and cleaning clients run Nextdoor ads themselves at $5 a day and keep them running, which is the basis for the verdicts below. Every price and mechanic here is from Nextdoor's help center and business site, read on October 6, 2026, with third-party figures labelled as such.
What is free on Nextdoor
The business page is free to claim, and Nextdoor's help center says so plainly: businesses "can claim or create a business page for free," with advertising and opportunity alerts "available at an additional cost." A free page can post updates to the neighborhoods it serves (two business posts a month on the free tier), collect recommendations from neighbors, and appear when a neighbor asks "anyone know a good plumber." That last mechanic, the recommendation thread, is where most of Nextdoor's value to a contractor sits, and it costs nothing beyond asking every happy customer to recommend you there the same way you ask for a Google review.
How Nextdoor Ads are priced
Nextdoor sells ads to a small business from the Ads tab on the business page, with three goals (Promote My Business, Drive Website Visits, Get New Leads), one image ad format with a logo, headline, body and a call to action that can be a website link, Message Me, or Call Now, and targeting by city, ZIP code or state plus demographic filters. You set a daily budget. Then you pick one of two billing models.
| Billing model | How you are charged | When | Example at $5 a day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay as You Go | Impressions after they run, accruing toward your daily budget | When the balance hits your billing threshold, plus a catch-up charge on the 1st of each month | About $150 a month, billed in chunks as the threshold is reached |
| Monthly Subscription | Daily budget times 30, charged upfront, with a 10 percent discount | Same day each month, auto-renews until cancelled, runs to the end of the cycle after cancellation | $150 less 10 percent, $135 charged upfront |
| Custom duration | Daily budget times the number of days, or 31 days, whichever is smaller | Upfront | Nextdoor's own example: $8 a day for 7 days is $56 |
| Verdict | Subscription for a campaign you intend to run all season (the 10 percent is real money at $300 a month). Pay as You Go for a test, because you can pause it the same day; a subscription keeps running to the end of the billing cycle. | ||
Nextdoor's budget guidance lists three recommended plans at $3, $5 and $10 a day. There is no published minimum below $3, and no published cost per thousand impressions or cost per click; Pay as You Go "pays for impressions after they occur," and how many impressions a dollar buys depends on how many advertisers want the same ZIP codes. For comparison, Taradel, a reseller that runs Nextdoor campaigns for local businesses, prices its packages at $20 per 20,000 impressions, a $1 CPM, with design and targeting bundled in. Larger budgets go through Nextdoor Ads Manager, the self-serve platform with a conversion pixel, homeownership and income targeting, and custom and lookalike audiences, which is the right door once you are past $500 a month.
What a Nextdoor lead costs
Nextdoor does not publish a cost per lead and neither will we invent one. The most useful way to think about it is impressions, because that is what you buy. A $150 month on Pay as You Go buys a few thousand to a few tens of thousands of newsfeed impressions in your ZIP codes depending on competition. A newsfeed ad with a Call Now or Message Me button converts a small fraction of those into contacts; our lawn and cleaning clients see a handful to a dozen a month at $5 a day in suburban territories, which puts a Nextdoor contact in the same $15 to $50 range one 2026 third-party benchmark reports for Local Deals. The contacts are warm (the neighbor chose to message a business in their own feed) and slow (nobody has an emergency), which is the whole profile of the channel.
| Channel | You pay per | Typical small-business cost | When the homeowner is looking |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nextdoor Ads | Impression (daily budget) | $90 to $300 a month at Nextdoor's recommended $3 to $10 a day | They are not; they are reading the neighborhood feed |
| Google Local Services Ads | Lead (call or message) | $20 to $80 a lead; $150 buys 2 to 7 exclusive calls | Now, with the problem typed into Google |
| Yelp Ads | Click | From $5 a day; $4 to $15 a click in home services | Now, in markets where people use Yelp |
| Facebook and Instagram | Click or impression | $2.18 a click, about $43 a lead in home improvement | They are not; same as Nextdoor with wider reach and weaker trust |
| Verdict | Nextdoor competes with Facebook for the "not looking yet" budget, not with Google for the "looking now" budget. Judge it against Facebook on cost per contact and trust, and never against Local Services Ads on cost per call. | ||
Want to know which neighborhoods are worth $5 a day?
We can read your Google Business Profile insights and your service area in ten minutes and say whether the next $150 belongs on Nextdoor, Local Services Ads or reviews.
Who should advertise on Nextdoor, by trade
- Lawn care, landscaping, snow: yes, at $5 to $10 a day in your route's ZIP codes. The job is recurring, the neighborhood is literally the territory, and a crew truck the neighbors already see is the ad's social proof. Target spring and fall sign-up windows rather than running all year.
- House cleaning, pool service, pet and handyman: yes, at $3 to $5 a day. Low ticket, recurring, trust-driven, and the Message Me button suits customers who want to ask a question before booking.
- Remodeling, exteriors, painting: yes, with photos. A before-and-after of a house two streets over is the most persuasive ad Nextdoor can show. Expect slow, large leads and run it alongside Facebook.
- Real estate, dental, medical, restaurants: usually yes. Nextdoor lists these as core industries and the neighborhood-trust mechanic fits a practice or a storefront that lives in one place.
- Plumbing, HVAC repair, electrical, garage doors, restoration: no, except for maintenance plans. Nobody with a flooded basement is in the Nextdoor feed. Put the $150 on Local Services Ads, where it buys exclusive calls from people searching right now; the trade-by-trade cost is in Local Services Ads cost. A tune-up or maintenance plan offer in the shoulder season is the one Nextdoor campaign that works for these trades.
Three Nextdoor habits to skip
Paying to promote a page with no recommendations. A neighbor who taps your ad lands on your business page, and a page with zero recommendations loses the message. Ask ten customers to recommend you on Nextdoor first; it is free and it is the page's review count.
Targeting the whole metro. Nextdoor's value is the neighborhood. A $5 a day budget spread across 80 ZIP codes buys nothing in any of them. Pick the five to ten ZIP codes your trucks are already in and let the ad say the neighborhood name (Nextdoor supports neighborhood and city merge fields in the headline).
Judging it like search. Nextdoor contacts arrive slowly and ask questions. Count them over 90 days against what you spent, and compare the result to Facebook, not to Google. The same logic applies to the other pay-to-play platforms a contractor gets pitched: Yelp Ads cost and is Thumbtack worth it run the numbers for those, and how to get contractor leads ranks all of them by cost per booked job.
How to run the 90-day test
- Claim and complete the free page: services, hours, photos of the crew and the trucks, and ten recommendations from existing customers.
- Post twice a month for free before spending anything: a seasonal tip, a finished job with the street name, a sign-up window.
- Set $5 a day on Pay as You Go, targeting five to ten ZIP codes, with the Call Now button for service trades and Message Me for everything else.
- Route the messages to a phone that is answered; a Nextdoor message left for a day is a lead that went to the neighbor's other recommendation.
- At day 90, count contacts and booked jobs. Under $50 a contact for a recurring service is a keeper; move to the subscription for the 10 percent. Over $100 a contact, pause it and put the budget on the channel the Facebook ads for contractors comparison says fits your trade.
Want the demand to show up under your own name instead?
Nextdoor rents the neighbor's attention for $5 a day. A Google profile with 100 reviews and a site that converts keeps it. A fifteen-minute call sorts out which you need first.
Frequently asked questions
How much do Nextdoor ads cost?
Nextdoor publishes no rate card. You set a daily budget, and Nextdoor's own guidance recommends $3, $5 or $10 a day, so $90 to $300 a month. Pay as You Go bills impressions after they run; the Monthly Subscription charges your daily budget times 30 upfront with a 10 percent discount. A custom run of $8 a day for seven days is $56, Nextdoor's own example.
Is it free to have a business on Nextdoor?
Yes. Nextdoor's help center states businesses can claim or create a business page for free, post updates, and collect recommendations from neighbors at no cost. Advertising and opportunity alerts are the paid products.
Are Nextdoor ads worth it for small businesses?
For recurring, neighborhood-based services (lawn care, landscaping, cleaning, pool, pet, handyman) and for remodel and exterior work with strong photos, a $5 a day test usually produces contacts at $15 to $50 each. For emergency trades (plumbing, HVAC repair, electrical, restoration) the same money buys two to seven exclusive calls on Google Local Services Ads and should go there instead.
What is the minimum budget for Nextdoor ads?
Nextdoor's recommended plans start at $3 a day and the help center sets no published floor below that. The practical minimum for a test is $5 a day in five to ten ZIP codes for 90 days.
How does Nextdoor advertising billing work?
Two models. Pay as You Go accrues a billable balance as impressions run, charges you when the balance hits a billing threshold, and settles any remainder on the 1st of the month; campaigns can be paused any time. Monthly Subscription charges daily budget times 30 upfront with a 10 percent discount, renews on the same date each month, and runs to the end of the cycle after you cancel.
Nextdoor ads or Facebook ads for a local business?
Both reach people who were not looking, so compare them on cost per contact and trust. Facebook has wider reach and 2026 home improvement benchmarks of $2.18 a click and about $43 a lead; Nextdoor has a smaller, verified, homeowner-heavy audience (77 percent homeowners by Nextdoor's figures) and a feed where business recommendations carry weight. Run $5 a day on each for 90 days and keep the one with the lower cost per booked job.