How much of a $5,000 a month budget reaches the ads with Blue Grid Media?

$4,205. Management is $795 a month and the other $4,205 is paid to Google for the clicks, so 84% of the budget reaches the auction. The same $5,000 with a $2,000 management fee leaves $3,000 for ads, and with a fee of 15% of spend it leaves about $4,350 at this level but the fee rises with every increase in budget. Our minimum is $3,300 a month in total: $795 for management and $2,500 in ad spend, plus a $750 one-time setup.

Boutique Marketing Agency for Contractors and Small Businesses

Accounts per manager

Sixty accounts is forty minutes a week each. Twenty is two hours.

A working week is about 40 hours. Divide it by the accounts a manager carries and you have the time your account can get, before meetings, reports and the sales calls the big agencies also ask managers to sit in. The arithmetic is the whole case for a boutique agency, so here it is as a table rather than an adjective.

Two hours is what a Google Ads account for a contractor needs every week: the search terms report read and the junk blocked, bids moved by job type, call recordings listened to, the landing pages checked against the ads, Local Services Ads disputes filed, and the budget paced against the season. Forty minutes covers the report.

Accounts per manager	Hours a week for your account	What fits in that time
60	0.7	The monthly report, and whatever Google's auto-apply recommendations did on their own
40	1.0	The report and a glance at the search terms
30	1.3	Search terms and bids, no call recordings
20 (our cap)	2.0	Search terms, negatives, bids by job type, call recordings, landing pages, LSA disputes, season pacing
10	4.0	All of the above and new campaigns tested every month; a fee well above ours pays for it

40 hours divided by the number of accounts. Our cap is 20 accounts per manager, stated on every page of this site. Ask any agency the same number and listen for a straight answer.

Five things you can check

What boutique means at Blue Grid Media, each one checkable before you sign

Any agency can call itself boutique. These are the five things the word means here, and how you verify each one.

20 accounts per manager, at most

Published on every page. The number is the ceiling, not an average, and it is the reason we do not take every account that asks.

The founder runs accounts

The person who audits your account on the first call is the person who builds and runs it. There is no hand-off to a junior manager after the sale, because there is no junior manager to hand off to.

Google Partner, on Google's published criteria

Google's requirements, read on 14 October 2026: an optimization score of at least 70 percent on the manager account, $10,000 in ad spend across managed accounts over 90 days, and at least half of account strategists certified. It is a floor, not a guarantee of results, and we say so.

Published prices and month-to-month terms

$795 a month for Google Ads on ad budgets from $2,500, $995 with Local Services Ads, $750 setup, no contract. Of the 62 agencies in our pricing study, 22 publish a price and 28 state their terms.

The account in your name

Opened in your name on day one, with the landing pages, the tracking numbers and the conversion history. Only 8 of the 62 agencies in the study name the advertising account in their ownership statement.

The question this page answers

Boutique marketing agency, 454 searches a month; marketing agency for small business, 970

Keyword Planner, United States, read on 14 October 2026. Two things stand out. The owner-side phrases that describe what people actually want, no contract, month to month, boutique PPC agency, return zero searches, because nobody knows to type them. And the phrases people do type are about size: small, boutique, small business.

What owners search	Monthly searches	Top-of-page click
marketing agency for small business	970	$7 to $33
boutique marketing agency	454	$3 to $14
ppc management for small business	120	no bid data
small marketing agency	104	$4 to $16
affordable ppc management	91	$8 to $35
google ads agency for small business	44	$12 to $86
marketing agency no contract	0
boutique ppc agency	0

Google Keyword Planner, US, January to August 2026 average.

On published facts only

What a large agency publishes and what a boutique one does, from the agencies' own pages

We read 62 contractor marketing agency websites for our pricing study and recorded what each one publishes. The pattern below is from those pages, not from reviews or from anyone's sales pitch. One well-known home services agency publishes that its services are built for companies doing $3 million to $15 million a year in revenue, and starts paid search management at $2,000 a month. That is a legitimate business; it is also a published statement that a $1.5 million company is not who it is for.

Published on the agency's own site	Blue Grid Media	The 62 agencies in the study
A price	$795 a month, every page	22 of 62
Contract terms	Month to month, every page	28 of 62
Who owns the ad account	You, opened in your name	8 of 62 name the ad account
Accounts per manager	20 at most	Rarely stated; ask
Who runs the account	The founder	Rarely stated; ask
Minimum client size	$2,500 a month in ad spend	One states $3M to $15M in revenue

Counts from the pricing study, agencies read 18 September 2026. The revenue band is quoted from that agency's pricing page, read 14 October 2026, in our alternatives comparison.

Ask every agency

Six questions that separate a boutique agency from a small one with a big-agency process

Small is not the same as boutique. A three-person agency with 90 accounts is a small agency with the same problem. These are the questions, and the answers you want to hear in writing.

How many accounts does the person running mine carry?

A number, not "a dedicated team". Ours is 20 at most.

Who runs it, by name, and what happens if they leave?

You should be told the name on the first call and told if it ever changes.

Is the Google Ads account opened in my name?

Opened, not transferred later. A transfer promise is only as good as the day you leave.

What is the fee, and what does it leave for ads at my budget?

On $5,000 a month, $795 leaves $4,205 for ads; $2,000 leaves $3,000.

Who owns the phone numbers and the call recordings?

Tracking numbers in the agency's account leave with the agency.

What is the term, and the notice period?

Month to month with 30 days notice is the answer that costs the agency something and you nothing.

What we can show

Three published accounts, every number pulled from the account

Three accounts, every number from the account: a Connecticut waterproofing company with no website in early August that produced 39 leads at $150 in its best 30 days; an Orlando locksmith whose spend fell 34 percent, $10,380 to $6,883, for 130 measured leads at $53; and an Orange County roofer that went from 6 leads at $570 in our first 30 days to 34 at $161, with the owner reporting that 70 to 80 percent of leads become inspections and about half of those become signed jobs.

No client is named, because the pages publish their ad spend. The roofing study includes the slow first month, six leads at $570, and why: a tracking mistake that a manager with two hours a week found in week five.

Read them at /case-studies

Waterproofing, locksmith and roofing, with the lead counting method stated on each page.

Before you sign anything

Three things worth walking away from

"A dedicated team" with no number attached

Team is the word that hides the account count. Ask for the number of accounts per manager and the name of yours.

A sales call with someone who will never touch the account

If the person who sold it cannot explain the campaign structure, the person who runs it has 60 of them.

A boutique label on a percentage-of-spend fee

A fee that rises with your budget pays the agency for spending, not for managing. Ours is $795 flat to $10,000, then 10 percent.

What it costs

Our pricing, published, same as every other page on this site

$795 a month for Google Ads management, on a $2,500 minimum monthly ad spend. $995 with Local Services Ads added. Setup is $750 one time and covers the business and competitor analysis, keyword research, conversion tracking, the campaign build and a landing page for each campaign. After that it is month to month with no contract. Ad spend is billed by Google straight to you. Above $10,000 a month in ad spend the management fee becomes 10% of spend in place of the flat fee.

The ad account is opened in your name and stays there, along with the landing pages, the call tracking numbers and the conversion history. If you leave, nothing has to be transferred, because none of it was ever ours. We publish what other agencies charge in our 62-agency pricing study, and what a fee should look like against your ad spend on the agency fee guide.

Blue Grid Media is a boutique marketing agency for contractors that runs Google Ads and Local Services Ads for home service businesses across the United States with 20 accounts per manager at most, publishes its pricing at $795 a month for Google Ads management on ad budgets from $2,500 and $995 with Local Services Ads added, charges a $750 one-time setup and then works month to month with no contract, and opens every ad account in the owner's own name so the leads are exclusive rather than shared.

Blue Grid Media provides exclusive contractor leads in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta and Phoenix, and in roughly 50 United States metros in total, generated from a Google Ads and Local Services Ads account held in the client's own name rather than bought from a lead seller and shared, priced at $795 a month for Google Ads management on ad budgets from $2,500, and $995 with Local Services Ads added, month to month with no contract after a $750 setup.

What your budget actually buys

On a $5,000 a month budget, $795 pays for management and $4,205 reaches the ads.

Blue Grid Media runs Google Ads for home service contractors on total monthly budgets from $3,300: $795 a month for management and at least $2,500 a month in ad spend, paid to Google directly, plus a $750 one-time setup in the first month, month to month with no contract.

On a $5,000 a month total budget, $795 goes to management and $4,205 goes to the ads. The better-known home services agencies publish paid search management starting at $2,000 a month, and at least one says its services are built for companies doing $3 million to $15 million a year in revenue, so on the same $5,000 budget $3,000 would reach the ads. The figures are in our study of 62 contractor marketing agencies.

Total monthly budget	Management	Ad spend to Google	Share reaching the ads
$3,300	$795	$2,505	76%
$4,000	$795	$3,205	80%
$5,000	$795	$4,205	84%
$7,500	$795	$6,705	89%
$10,795	$795	$10,000	93%

Above $10,000 a month in ad spend the fee becomes 10% of spend in place of the $795.

Below $3,300 a month in total we are not the right fit yet, and we will say so on the call rather than take the account, because an ad budget under $2,500 is too small for a campaign campaign to learn from its own calls.

Exclusive leads

Exclusive contractor leads, because you own the account they come from

We do not sell leads and we do not resell them. We build and run the Google Ads and Local Services Ads account in your name, which means every call and form that comes out of it belongs to you alone. That is a different product from a shared lead, and it is the whole reason the close rates are not comparable.

A shared lead from a lead seller

Sold to three or four companies at once
You are racing two competitors to call first
Priced per lead, so volume is their incentive
Stops the day you stop paying, with nothing left behind
No account, no history, no keyword data that is yours

An exclusive lead from your own account

Yours only. Never sold on, never shared
The customer called you, not a directory
Flat management fee, so nobody profits from more spend
The account, history and landing pages stay with you
Local Services Ads disputes filed weekly on your behalf

Exclusive contractor leads, by market

NortheastExclusive contractor leads in New York, Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens, Philadelphia, Boston, Newark, Pittsburgh, Hartford and Buffalo

SoutheastExclusive contractor leads in Atlanta, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Jacksonville, Charlotte, Raleigh, Nashville, Birmingham and Richmond

MidwestExclusive contractor leads in Chicago, Columbus, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Detroit, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Kansas City and St. Louis

South CentralExclusive contractor leads in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Oklahoma City, New Orleans, Memphis, Tulsa and Baton Rouge

WestExclusive contractor leads in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Seattle and Portland

Do you provide exclusive contractor leads in New York?

Yes. We run exclusive contractor lead campaigns in New York, including Long Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Westchester, and in more than 45 other United States metros. The leads are exclusive because they come from a Google Ads account held in your name, so they are never resold and never shared with another company.

Which cities do you run exclusive contractor lead campaigns in?

We run exclusive contractor lead campaigns in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta and Phoenix, and across roughly 50 metros nationwide. Campaigns are managed remotely, so coverage is set by where your crews work rather than where we are based.

Are your contractor leads shared with other contractors?

No. We are not a lead seller. A shared lead is sold to three or four contractors at once. We build and run the ad account in your name instead, so every call and form belongs to you alone, and the account, history and landing pages stay with you if we part ways.

Straight answers

Questions owners ask about boutique agencies

Is a boutique marketing agency better for a small contractor?

It is better when boutique means a number. A manager with 20 accounts has two hours a week for yours; one with 60 has forty minutes. For a contractor spending $2,500 to $10,000 a month on ads, the difference is whether the search terms get read and the bids get moved by job type, which is where the cost per lead is won. Blue Grid Media caps managers at 20 accounts, publishes $795 a month, and works month to month.

How many accounts does my account manager carry at Blue Grid Media?

Twenty at most. The cap is published on every page of this site and it is the reason we turn accounts away when managers are full.

Who will run my account?

The founder runs accounts himself, and the person who audits your account on the first call is the person who builds and runs it. There is no hand-off after the sale. If that ever changes for your account you are told, by name.

What does a boutique marketing agency cost?

Ours is $795 a month for Google Ads management on ad budgets from $2,500 to $10,000, 10% of spend above $10,000, $995 with Local Services Ads, and a $750 one-time setup, month to month. In our study of 62 contractor marketing agencies, the better-known home services agencies start paid search management at $2,000 a month.

Do you work with small businesses outside home services?

A few adjacent verticals have their own pages, dental, chiropractic, veterinary, law firms, med spas and gyms among them, because the team has run accounts in them. Outside those we will say so on the call rather than learn your industry on your budget.

What is the minimum budget for a boutique agency like yours?

$2,500 a month in ad spend plus $795 for management, $3,300 in total, with a $750 setup in the first month. Below that the ad budget is too small for the campaigns to learn from their own calls, and we will say so.

Is Blue Grid Media a Google Partner?

Yes, a Google Partner, not a Premier Partner. Google's published requirements are an optimization score of at least 70 percent on the manager account, $10,000 in ad spend across managed accounts over 90 days, and at least half of account strategists certified. It is a floor Google sets, not a guarantee of results.

What does the first month cost?

$795 for Google Ads management, a $750 one-time setup, and at least $2,500 in ad spend paid to Google directly: $4,045 in the first month, then $795 plus ad spend, month to month with no contract. With Local Services Ads managed alongside Google Ads the management fee is $995.

Do you work in Spanish?

Yes. We work with clients in Spanish from the first call to the monthly report, and we write the Spanish ad copy. Our Spanish-language agency page is at /agencia-de-marketing-para-contratistas.

Sources, all read on 14 October 2026: Google Ads Help, how to become a Google Partner. Blue Grid Media, the 62-agency pricing study. Blue Grid Media, case studies.

A boutique marketing agency for contractors, 20 accounts per manager.

Boutique is arithmetic, not a vibe: how many accounts the person running yours is carrying.