Paid ads. Reviewed October 29, 2026
Cost per click
Also called: CPC
Cost per click is what an advertiser pays each time someone clicks an ad, set by an auction, so it varies by trade, by city and by how many competitors are bidding on the same term.
In practice
Emergency and insurance-adjacent trades pay the most: water damage, roofing after a storm, locksmith. Lawn care and cleaning pay the least. The same term costs more in Phoenix than in Duluth.
Cost per click is an input, not a result. Two campaigns with the same click price can have lead costs five times apart.
For example
In Skill Mammoth's 2026 comparison, Google Search for contractors averaged $8.33 a click.
Related terms
- Cost per leadCost per lead is total marketing spend on a channel divided by the number of calls, forms or chats it produced, and it is the number to judge a campaign on rather than cost per click.
- PPCPPC, pay per click, is advertising where the business pays only when someone clicks the ad, and Google Ads search campaigns are the main form of it for contractors.
- Quality ScoreQuality Score is Google Ads' 1 to 10 rating of how well a keyword, its ad and its landing page match each other, and a higher score lowers the price paid per click.
Want this handled, not explained?
Skill Mammoth builds the site you own, gets you found on Google and ChatGPT, and texts every lead back in under 60 seconds. Month to month, every price published.