A mowing visit is $130 to $220. A hardscaping job is $3,000 to $15,000. Most landscaping accounts bid one blended number across both, which quietly prices you out of the only work with real margin in it.
What does a landscaping marketing agency actually do? The job is to stop your account treating a $175 mowing visit and a $9,000 patio build as the same customer. Landscaping lead costs split hard by job type: mowing leads run $18 to $30, hardscaping leads run $55 to $90. A single blended bid sits near the mowing ceiling, so the campaigns that could win hardscaping never get the budget.
Figures from our published landscaping cost-per-lead research. Blue Grid Media is a Google Partner.
$130-$220 ticket
$3,000-$15,000 ticket
January and February
The blended average everyone quotes is $20 to $55. That number is true and useless, because it hides a job mix where one lead is worth twenty times the other.
Every job type has its own lead cost and its own value. Averaging them hides the ones worth having.
| Job type | Lead cost | Ticket | What the account usually does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mowing and maintenance | $18-$30 | $130-$220 per visit | Cheapest leads, so a blended bid chases them and the budget drains here first |
| Hardscaping | $55-$90 | $3,000-$15,000 | Highest return per lead, and the first thing turned off when someone tries to lower CPL |
| Irrigation installation | $75-$90 at peak | Project pricing | Peak-season metro pricing, profitable only if bid separately |
| Seasonal cleanups | Mid-range | Project pricing | Useful volume filler, a poor thing to optimise the whole account around |
A company that turns off hardscaping to pull its blended CPL from $45 down to $30 has just deleted the job type with the highest return in the account. The CPL chart looks better and the business earns less.
In this order, because each step depends on the one before it.
Mowing, hardscaping, irrigation and cleanups get their own campaigns, budgets and targets. Nothing else on this page works until this is done.
Suburban mid-market maintenance should land around $28 to $45. A hardscaping-focused company in a major metro can absorb $60 to $75 profitably and should be bidding like it.
January and February CPL falls to $15 to $28 because competitors switch off. Going dark saves a little money and surrenders the cheapest leads of the year.
A maintenance client at $300 a month across 20 months at 45% margin is $2,700 of lifetime value. If the account only counts the first job, it is bidding against the wrong number.
Not cost per lead. Cost per lead is the number that makes people delete their hardscaping campaigns.
No setup fee, no annual contract. We bill at the end of month one only if you decide to continue.
Custom landing pages free on every plan, normally $500 each. No setup fee, no long-term contract. A flat monthly retainer, never a percentage of spend. Accounts spending over $5,000 a month are billed at 5% of spend.
Book a Free Audit CallBecause landscaping runs the widest break-even spread in home services. A mowing lead and a hardscape lead are the same click to Google and roughly a 30x difference to you.
$150 to $220 a visit, break-even CPL
$1,500 to $4,000 ticket
$2,000 to $8,000 ticket
$3,000 to $15,000 ticket
Those four break-even figures come from our published landscaping cost per lead analysis. Read them side by side and the problem is obvious. A single account-level bid that keeps mowing profitable is roughly 3 percent of what a hardscape lead is worth. You are not bidding conservatively on patios, you are effectively not bidding on them at all.
Ten job types, each with its own auction, its own ticket and its own break-even. This is the table the campaign structure gets built from.
| Job type | Typical CPL | Average ticket | Break-even CPL | What it means |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawn mowing | $18-$30 | $150-$220/visit | ~$36 | Highest volume, thinnest margin, most quote-shopping. Only works on lifetime value, not per visit. |
| Yard cleanup | $25-$45 | $250-$550 | ~$55 | Seasonal, mostly one-time. Close rates around 40 to 50 percent. |
| Mulching | $25-$40 | $300-$600 | ~$63 | Lower competition than mowing in most markets. Often bundles with spring cleanup. |
| Snow removal | $20-$40 | $100-$350/event | ~$40 | Winter only in cold markets. Needs its own budget line, not a share of the spring one. |
| Tree trimming | $30-$55 | $300-$800 | ~$70 | Overlaps the tree service LSA category. Check job type setup if leads feel mismatched. |
| Sod installation | $35-$65 | $1,500-$4,000 | ~$315 | Well qualified callers with a real budget. Close rates 45 to 55 percent. |
| Landscape design | $45-$75 | $2,000-$8,000 | ~$560 | Lower volume, further along in the decision. Design work pulls install work behind it. |
| Commercial maintenance | $40-$70 | $1,200-$4,000/mo | ~$900 | Two to four week close cycle, highest lifetime value on the list. |
| Irrigation install | $50-$85 | $2,000-$5,000 | ~$438 | Specialty, low competition, very specific intent. Check your state licensing. |
| Hardscape install | $55-$90 | $3,000-$15,000 | ~$1,125 | Highest CPL and highest ticket. Even $90 is cheap against a $9,000 patio. |
Published in full at landscaping LSA cost per lead. The column that matters is the fourth one. Read down it and you can see which campaigns have room to bid and which do not, which is a different question from which campaigns have the cheapest leads.
The same handful of problems, in roughly this order.
Mowing, cleanup, design and hardscape sharing a budget and a bid. The cheap leads win the budget because they look best on a cost per lead report, and the $8,500 patio work starves.
Maintenance contract sign-ups peak 40 to 60 percent above baseline in February and March. Accounts that hold a flat budget through the year underspend exactly when contracts are being signed and overspend in peak summer when design demand is at baseline.
A $25 mowing lead and a $75 hardscape lead look three times apart on the report. Against break-even they are $36 and $1,125. Optimising toward the lower number defunds the work that pays for the trucks.
In northern markets design and install demand drops 50 to 70 percent in November through January. Pausing entirely surrenders the ranking and the account restarts cold in spring, which is more expensive than holding a floor.
Judged on a single $280 job, maintenance breaks even at $83 a lead. Judged on a 20 month contract it breaks even at $1,425. Accounts built on the first number bid like maintenance is a loss leader.
Commercial maintenance closes over two to four weeks at 25 percent, against residential closing same week at 45 to 60. Same campaign means the bid strategy optimises against the faster signal and quietly buys less commercial.
None of this is exotic. It is the same structural problem every time: the account cannot tell a $190 mowing visit from a $9,000 patio, so it buys more of whatever converts fastest.
Landscaping demand does not drift, it swings. These are the published index figures we pace against.
| Period | Design and install | Maintenance | Seasonal cleanup | What we do |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Late winter (Feb-Mar) | +20-30% | +40-60% | Minimal | Push maintenance hard. This is when contracts get signed for the whole year. |
| Spring (Apr-May) | +40-60% | +50-70% | +60-80% | Everything on. The single most expensive period to be underspending. |
| Early summer (Jun) | +10-20% | Baseline | -30-50% | Pull back cleanup, hold design and maintenance. |
| Peak summer (Jul-Aug) | Baseline | Baseline | Minimal | Shift budget toward hardscape and design, where the ticket carries the higher CPC. |
| Fall (Sept-Oct) | +15-25% | +20-30% | +60-80% | Leaf removal surge. Cleanup earns its own campaign again. |
| Winter, north (Nov-Jan) | -50-70% | -40-60% | Pause | Hold a floor rather than switching off. Snow removal runs on a separate line. |
| Winter, south (Nov-Jan) | -10-20% | -10-20% | Reduce 30-40% | Sunbelt markets barely dip. Northern pacing applied here leaves money on the table. |
Index figures from our Google Ads for landscaping guide. The northern winter row is where most accounts get it wrong in both directions: pausing completely, or holding a summer budget through a 60 percent demand drop.
Separate question from cost per lead, and the one that decides whether a campaign can run at all.
| Job type | Cost per click | Average ticket | Campaign it belongs in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lawn mowing, one-time | $3-$8 | $60-$120 | Maintenance |
| Maintenance contract | $5-$12 | $150-$400/mo | Maintenance |
| Fertilisation and weed control | $5-$10 | $80-$200/visit | Maintenance |
| Mulch and bed refresh | $5-$10 | $300-$800 | Seasonal |
| Spring and fall cleanup | $5-$12 | $300-$700 | Seasonal |
| Leaf removal | $4-$9 | $200-$500 | Seasonal |
| Aeration and overseeding | $5-$10 | $200-$500 | Seasonal |
| Tree trimming | $8-$16 | $300-$1,500 | Seasonal |
From our published landscaping Google Ads data. Note the top and bottom rows. Tree trimming clicks cost roughly double mowing clicks and carry up to twelve times the ticket. In a blended campaign the account has no way to act on that, so it buys the cheap clicks.
Three different products. The column that decides it is the last one, not the first.
| Channel | Cost per lead | Exclusivity | Close rate | Cost per booked job |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Local Services Ads | $30-$55 | Exclusive phone call | 58% | $55-$95 |
| Google Ads | $18-$45 per click | Not exclusive | 22% | $82-$205 |
| Angi and HomeAdvisor | $25-$80+ | Shared with 3 to 5 rivals | 15% | $167-$533 |
From our landscaping ROI benchmarks. The shared-lead platforms are not expensive because the lead price is high, they are expensive because four competitors got the same phone number and the close rate collapses to 15 percent. We run LSA first, Google Ads for design-build research traffic, and we will tell you when a channel is not worth adding.
It depends entirely on whether you count the job or the contract behind it.
| Company type | Ticket or contract value | Close rate | Gross margin | Break-even CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance, one-time basis | $280 | 62% | 48% | $83 |
| Maintenance, lifetime basis | $5,400 lifetime | 55% | 48% | $1,425 |
| Hardscape and install | $8,500 | 34% | 40% | $1,156 |
| Design-build | $6,500 | 30% | 38% | $741 |
| Commercial maintenance | $1,800/mo over 30 months | 25% | 38% | $4,104 |
From our published ROI benchmarks. The first two rows are the same business. Judge maintenance on one $280 visit and you can pay $83. Judge it on a 20 month contract at 30 percent conversion and you can pay $1,425. Most landscaping accounts are built on the first number, which is why they lose the contract work to whoever was willing to pay for it.
Thirty minutes, and the answers decide whether we would take the account at all.
This sets the entire campaign structure. A maintenance-led company and a design-build company should not run the same account, even in the same city.
It is the difference between an $83 break-even and a $1,425 one. If you do not track it, that is the first thing we fix, before touching a bid.
Hardscape and design callers are collecting quotes. The delay between the call and the number in their inbox usually matters more than the bid.
Commercial closes slower at 25 percent but runs $1,800 a month over roughly 30 months. If you want it, it needs its own campaign or the bidding will quietly starve it.
Northern and Sunbelt accounts need opposite winter plans. Applying one to the other is the most common seasonal mistake we see.
April and May run 50 to 80 percent above baseline across every service. If the phone is already overwhelmed, more spend makes the problem worse rather than better.
Not a task list. These are the decisions that determine whether the account makes money.
Maintenance, seasonal cleanup, and high-ticket install each get their own campaign and their own bid ceiling, anchored to the break-even figures above rather than to an account-wide average.
Budgets move against the published index: maintenance pushed hard in February and March, everything open in April and May, cleanup pulled back in June, a winter floor rather than a pause.
Maintenance is worth $5,400 over its life, not $280. Until that number is importing as an offline conversion, the bidding is optimising against the wrong figure.
Separate campaign, separate budget, separate patience. A two to four week close cycle cannot share a bid strategy with same-week residential work.
Search terms, negatives, geography, schedule. Unglamorous, and still the most reliable way to lower cost per booked job without touching the budget.
Landing page experience is a quarter to a third of Quality Score. A page built for the ad usually beats a bid increase and costs less.
Cost per lead is the first column. It is also the least useful one. Read across to the last.
| Job type | Avg CPL | Close rate | Cost per booked job | Avg ticket | Return on lead spend |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lawn mowing | $25 | 45% | $56 | $190/visit | 3.4x |
| Spring cleanup | $35 | 50% | $70 | $375 | 5.4x |
| Landscape design | $60 | 35% | $171 | $5,500 | 32x |
| Hardscaping install | $75 | 30% | $250 | $8,500 | 34x |
Published in our landscaping cost per lead analysis. Hardscaping has the worst cost per lead on this table, the worst close rate, and the worst cost per booked job. It also returns 34x on lead spend against mowing at 3.4x. Every column except the last one tells you to fund mowing. The last one is the only column that pays for a truck.
Cost per lead is mostly a function of how many companies are bidding near you. Here is what to expect.
| Market | Active profiles | Typical CPL | What actually moves the number |
|---|---|---|---|
| Low competition | 3 to 5 | $15-$30 | Volume is the play. Broad budgets and new job types carry little risk here. |
| Medium competition | 6 to 12 | $25-$55 | Reviews and response time. A company with 60+ reviews and a two minute response pays noticeably less than one with 15. |
| High competition | 13 to 20 | $40-$75 | Reviews, response time and bid strategy together. Turning on hardscaping and irrigation lifts ROAS even as CPL climbs. |
| Saturated | 20+ | $55-$90+ | 75+ reviews, sub five minute response, and a deliberate shift to high ticket work. CPL stops being a useful metric at this point. |
From our published landscaping CPL data. If you are in a saturated market and your agency is still reporting on cost per lead, they are reporting on the one number you cannot win. Cost per booked job is the metric that survives competition.
Three patterns, and they compound.
Mowing converts fastest and cheapest, so every automated bid strategy learns to buy more of it. Within a few months the budget has quietly migrated to the lowest margin work in the business, and the reporting looks better than ever while it happens.
Hardscape and design leads cost two to three times more and close at 30 to 35 percent rather than 45 to 50. Judged on the same dashboard as mowing they look like failures, get their budget cut, and never accumulate enough data to prove the 32x to 34x return behind them.
Maintenance sign-ups spike 40 to 60 percent in February and March, cleanup spikes 60 to 80 percent twice a year, northern install demand falls off 50 to 70 percent in winter. An account running one budget across all of that is wrong in both directions for most of the year.
The fix in all three cases is the same, and it is structural rather than clever. Campaigns split by break-even, contract value fed back into the bidding, and budgets paced to the season. None of it is exotic. It is just work that a blended account cannot do.
The full guide: job types, seasonal phases and how the channel behaves for green industry work.
Where the $20 to $55 range comes from and why it splits so hard by job type.
Another trade where ticket size lets you outbid nearly everyone.
Including the ones with answers that do not help us sell.
Blue Grid Media publishes flat monthly pricing: $445 a month for Local Services Ads management, from $695 a month for Google Ads management, and $995 a month for both channels bundled. Custom landing pages are included free on every plan, normally $500 each. There is no setup fee and no long-term contract. Accounts spending over $5,000 a month on ads are billed at 5% of spend.
It depends entirely on the job type, which is why the blended figure misleads people. Mowing and maintenance leads run $18 to $30. Hardscaping leads run $55 to $90. Irrigation installation in a major metro at peak season can reach $75 to $90. If you are in a suburban mid-market chasing maintenance leads, a target of $28 to $45 is reasonable. If you are seeing $55 to $60 on maintenance, something is suppressing performance.
Because hardscaping leads genuinely cost more, and that is fine. A hardscaping lead at $80 against a $3,000 to $15,000 ticket returns far more than a mowing lead at $25 against a $175 visit. Judging both against one CPL target is how good campaigns get switched off.
Usually not. January and February CPL drops to $15 to $28 in most markets because competitors go dark. In warm markets CPL stays in the $30 to $55 range year-round anyway. A reduced winter budget almost always beats a pause, and it keeps your account history and Quality Score intact for spring.
Yes, and landscaping is a supported vertical. LSA works best for the maintenance and cleanup end where homeowners want someone reliable quickly. Higher-ticket design and hardscaping work usually converts better through Google Ads pointed at a proper page, because the buyer researches before calling.
Enough that each campaign can gather data rather than starve. Splitting $500 a month across four job types teaches the algorithm nothing about any of them. We would rather start with one or two job types funded properly and expand once they work.
Yes, because the value is completely different. A recurring maintenance client compounds over years, so the account can afford to pay more for that lead than the first invoice suggests. One-off cleanup work has to pay for itself immediately.
Commercial landscaping contracts behave more like B2B: longer cycles, bigger annual values, and different search behaviour. It can work well on Google Ads but it needs its own campaigns and its own expectations, not a share of the residential budget.
The person on your consultation call. No handoff to an account coordinator you have never met. We cap the roster deliberately so that stays true.
No. Month to month, no auto-renewal, no cancellation fee. You own the Google Ads account, the LSA profile, the call tracking and the landing pages from day one, and they stay yours if you leave.
Then we will tell you on the call. If the leads are arriving and nobody is booking them, no amount of campaign work fixes that, and rebuilding your account would waste your money.
It depends entirely on the job type. Published BGM benchmarks put lawn mowing leads at $18 to $30, yard cleanup at $25 to $45, sod installation at $35 to $65, landscape design at $45 to $75, and hardscape installation at $55 to $90. The useful comparison is against break-even: mowing breaks even near $36 a lead while hardscape breaks even near $1,125, so a $75 lead is marginal for mowing and extremely cheap for a patio.
Because cost per lead and profit per lead move in opposite directions in landscaping. Lawn mowing produces the lowest cost per lead in almost every account, and it also has the lowest ticket at $150 to $220 a visit and a break-even around $36. Hardscape leads cost two to three times more and break even near $1,125. Any bid strategy chasing volume drifts budget toward mowing automatically, which is why cost per booked job is the number to manage a landscaping account on.
Maintenance contract sign-ups peak 40 to 60 percent above baseline in late winter, February and March, which is when the year's recurring revenue is decided. Spring, April and May, runs 40 to 80 percent above baseline across design, maintenance and cleanup at once and is the most expensive period to be underspending. Fall brings a second cleanup surge of 60 to 80 percent for leaf removal.
In northern markets design and install demand drops 50 to 70 percent from November through January, but pausing entirely surrenders position and forces a cold restart in spring, which costs more than holding a floor. Sunbelt markets only dip 10 to 20 percent and should barely reduce at all. Snow removal, where it applies, belongs on its own budget line rather than sharing the landscaping one.
Published BGM benchmarks give Local Services Ads a $30 to $55 cost per lead with exclusive phone calls and a 58 percent close rate, landing cost per booked job at $55 to $95. Google Ads runs $18 to $45 per click with a 22 percent close rate and $82 to $205 per booked job, and it earns its place on design-build research traffic. Angi and HomeAdvisor share each lead with three to five competitors, which collapses the close rate to 15 percent and pushes cost per booked job to $167 to $533.
Thirty minutes, screen shared. We look at what you are actually paying per job type and tell you what we would change. If the honest answer is that the ads are fine, you will hear that instead of a proposal.