A drain cleaning is $300. A pest spray is $150. A whole-home interior repaint is $2,000 to $6,000, and cabinet refinishing runs $3,000 to $8,000. That gap is the whole opportunity, and painters routinely bid like they are selling service calls.
What makes painting different from other trades? Ticket size. Most home service trades run on $150 to $500 jobs. A painter's average residential job is $2,500 or more, a whole-home interior is $2,000 to $6,000, and a full exterior runs $3,000 to $12,000. At a $45 lead cost and a 40% close rate, cost per booked job lands near $110 against a job worth thousands. Very few trades have that much room.
Figures from our published painting LSA research. Blue Grid Media is a Google Partner.
Typical range
Versus $150-$500 most trades
Highest margin service you offer
At $45 per lead and a 40% close rate, a booked painting job costs roughly $110 to acquire. Even at a 25% close rate it is about $180. Against a $2,500 job, that is not a marketing cost worth agonising over.
Painting is not one auction. Click costs and job values move independently, and the cheapest clicks sit next to the biggest jobs.
| Job type | US searches | Cost per click | Typical job value | Break-even cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cabinet refinishing | 76,200/mo | $3.14-$16.89 | $3,000-$8,000 | $875 |
| Interior, whole home | 58,040/mo | $6.74-$29.61 | $2,000-$6,000 | $630 |
| Exterior, full house | 40,500/mo | $5.48-$30.22 | $3,000-$12,000 | $720 |
| General, painters near me | 339,000/mo | $5.94-$33.94 | Mixed | Depends on the mix |
| Commercial | 5,820/mo | $8.32-$64.07 | $5,000-$25,000 | $875 |
| Single room | Low | Cheapest | $400-$1,200 | $126 |
Market cost per lead for painting runs $25 to $75. Against a cabinet refinishing break-even of $875, that is 11.7 times of headroom. Very few trades have that much room, and almost no painter bids like they do.
Because it is the only job type where the volume is high, the clicks are cheap and the margin is best, all at once.
Cabinet work draws $3.14 to $16.89 per click against $6.74 to $29.61 for interior painting. The term "cabinet painting" alone pulls 40,500 searches a month at $0.38 to $4.32.
76,200 searches a month across the cabinet cluster, behind only the general "painters near me" pool and ahead of both interior and exterior painting.
Jobs run $3,000 to $8,000 with strong margins, and the homeowner searching for it already knows exactly what they want. There is far less quote-shopping than a whole-home repaint.
One caution. Cabinet terms carry a competition index near 100 with very low bids, which usually signals a large share of DIY and inspiration traffic mixed in. It works, but only with a tight negative list filtering out how-to, paint colour and product searches.
Single-room repaints, and they do it by looking like your best performing campaign.
This is why cost per lead is the wrong number to manage a painting account on. A $25 single-room lead and a $75 cabinet lead look three times apart on the report. In profit terms the cabinet lead is worth seven times more.
Every job type has its own lead cost and its own value. Averaging them hides the ones worth having.
| Service | Job value | Why it deserves its own campaign | Search behaviour |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interior repaint | $2,000-$6,000 whole home | Year-round demand, steady value | Researched, compares quotes |
| Exterior painting | $3,000-$12,000+ | Highest ticket work you do | Seasonal, weather-driven |
| Cabinet refinishing | $3,000-$8,000 | Highest margin service on the list | High intent, knows what they want |
| Single room | $400+ | Low value, useful for filling gaps | Price-shopping, fastest to close |
Cabinet refinishing is the one to isolate first. Homeowners searching for it already know what they want, the job is $3,000 to $8,000, and the margin is the best on your list. It should never share a budget with single-room repaints.
In this order, because each step depends on the one before it.
Your competition for attention is other painters, but your ticket is ten times a drain clean. The bid ceiling most painters set is inherited from trades with completely different economics.
Highest margin, highest intent, clearest search language. It gets buried when it shares a budget with cheaper work.
Interior is year-round and steady. Exterior is seasonal and weather-dependent. They need different budgets at different times, not one average.
In moderately competitive painting markets, $250 to $500 a week is a realistic starting point. Setting a tight cost-per-lead cap from day one starves the account before it learns anything.
A $75 lead that closes beats a $25 lead that does not. On a $2,500 average ticket, lead cost is almost never the constraint. Close rate is.
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 the ticket is unusual. Most home service businesses sell $150 to $500 jobs. A painter sells $2,500 and up, and the market still prices painting leads like a service call.
What painting leads actually sell for
$3,000 to $8,000 ticket
Break-even against market lead cost
$400 to $1,200 ticket
That 11.7x gap is the whole opportunity, and it is not a secret anyone is guarding. Your competitors are not bidding into it either. Most painting accounts are built to protect a cost per lead number that only makes sense if every job were a single bedroom.
Google Keyword Planner, United States, grouped by job type. Volume, competition index and the top of page bid range each auction actually runs at.
| Job type | Searches per month | Competition index | Top of page bid | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General, painters near me | 339,000 | 56 | $5.94-$33.94 | Biggest pool by far and the hardest to qualify. Mixed intent, mixed job size. |
| Cabinet refinishing | 76,200 | 83 | $3.14-$16.89 | Second biggest, cheapest clicks, best margin. The standout on this table. |
| Interior painting | 58,040 | 41 | $6.74-$29.61 | Lowest competition index of the major categories. Year round demand. |
| Exterior painting | 40,500 | 46 | $5.48-$30.22 | Seasonal peak spring and summer, larger tickets than interior. |
| Specialty | 36,080 | 75 | $2.62-$16.74 | Popcorn ceiling, deck staining, wallpaper removal. Cheap clicks, real volume. |
| Commercial | 5,820 | 35 | $8.32-$64.07 | Thin volume, widest bid range, longest close. Its own campaign or none at all. |
Two things jump out. Cabinet refinishing has the second largest volume and the cheapest clicks at the same time, which almost never happens. And interior painting carries the lowest competition index of any major category at 41, meaning the auction is softer than most painters assume.
Because it is the only job type where high volume, cheap clicks and the best margin all land together.
Cabinet work draws $3.14 to $16.89 a click against $6.74 to $29.61 for interior painting. The single term "cabinet painting" pulls 40,500 searches a month at $0.38 to $4.32.
76,200 searches a month across the cabinet cluster, behind only the general "painters near me" pool and ahead of both interior and exterior painting.
Jobs run $3,000 to $8,000, and the homeowner searching for it already knows what they want. Far less quote-shopping than a whole-home repaint.
That pattern usually means a large share of DIY and inspiration traffic mixed in. Cabinet campaigns work, but only behind a tight negative list filtering how-to, paint colour and product searches. Run it broad and you will buy Pinterest browsers.
Single room repaints, and they do it by looking like the best performing campaign in the account.
Cheapest clicks in the account. Highest conversion rate, because people decide fast on a single room. Lowest cost per lead, so it reads as the campaign that is working. On any bid strategy chasing volume the budget drifts there on its own.
The ticket is $400 to $1,200, not $3,000 to $8,000. Break-even is $126 a lead, not $875. Same crew hours for a fraction of the revenue, and it is eating the budget the cabinet campaign needed.
A $25 single-room lead and a $75 cabinet lead look three times apart on a cost per lead report. In profit terms the cabinet lead is worth roughly seven times more. This is the clearest example in home services of why cost per lead is the wrong number to manage an account on.
Six problems, in roughly the order they cost money.
Cabinet, interior, exterior and single rooms sharing a bid. A $700 bedroom and a $5,000 kitchen are not the same customer and should never compete for the same budget.
Cabinet terms carry a competition index near 100 on very low bids, the signature of heavy DIY traffic. Without negatives filtering how-to, colour and product searches, the cheapest clicks in the account are also the least likely to ever hire anyone.
Commercial painting is 5,820 searches a month with a bid range running to $64.07, and a much longer close. Inside a residential campaign it never gets the patience or the bid it needs, and it distorts the residential numbers on the way through.
Exterior demand peaks in spring and summer. Holding one budget across all twelve months means underspending in the only months the work is actually being bought.
Painting is a quoted trade. The homeowner is collecting numbers, and the gap between the call and the estimate in their inbox usually decides the job more than the bid did.
If the account counts form submissions as the conversion, it will buy form submissions. Booked jobs, and the ticket behind them, are what the bidding should be optimising toward.
Break-even cost per lead by job type, which is the number that should set each campaign ceiling.
| Job type | Average ticket | Break-even CPL | Market CPL | Headroom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single room | $400-$1,200 | $126 | $25-$40 | 1.7x |
| Whole-home interior | $2,000-$6,000 | $630 | $25-$75 | Roughly 8x |
| Exterior, full house | $3,000-$12,000 | $720 | $25-$75 | Roughly 10x |
| Cabinet refinishing | $3,000-$8,000 | $875 | $45-$75 | 11.7x |
| Commercial | $5,000-$25,000 | $875 | $45-$75 | 11.7x |
Read the last column downward. A painter running one blended bid is pricing every one of these jobs as though it were the top row. That is the mechanism by which a painting account with a good cost per lead still fails to grow.
Google lists ten job types for painters. They do not all behave the same way in an auction.
| Job type | Why it earns a campaign |
|---|---|
| Interior painting | Year round demand and the highest residential volume. Lowest competition index of the majors. |
| Exterior painting | Spring and summer peak, tickets $3,000 to $12,000. Needs seasonal pacing the interior campaign should not inherit. |
| Cabinet refinishing | High margin specialty at $3,000 to $8,000, strong buyer intent, cheapest clicks. Needs its own negative list. |
| Deck and fence staining | Spring and summer add-on, often booked alongside exterior work. |
| Wallpaper removal | Niche but steady. Older housing stock drives consistent demand. |
| Commercial painting | Offices, retail, property management. Longer close, higher contract value, its own patience. |
| Drywall repair and patching | A common pre-paint need. Bundling lifts the average job value. |
| Popcorn ceiling removal | 18,100 searches a month on its own and it pairs naturally with interior repaints. |
| Epoxy and garage floor coating | Growing category that homeowners increasingly search for directly. |
| Pressure washing | Pre-paint essential, and it works as a standalone entry point to exterior work. |
Job types published on our Google LSA for painters guide. Not every one deserves its own campaign in every market, but every one deserves a decision rather than being swept into a single bid.
Thirty minutes. The answers decide the campaign structure, and occasionally decide that we should not take the account.
If the answer is none, that is usually the single biggest growth lever on the table given the volume and the click cost. If it is most of your work, the campaign build looks completely different.
Not the best job last year. The average. It sets every bid ceiling on the account and it is the number most painters have never actually calculated.
Painting is a quoted trade and the homeowner is collecting numbers. This delay decides more jobs than the bid does.
5,820 searches a month, bids running to $64.07, and a much longer close. Worth doing deliberately, and expensive to do accidentally inside a residential campaign.
Exterior peaks spring and summer, but how hard depends on your climate. Flat annual pacing is the most common seasonal mistake in painting accounts.
If it is form fills, the account has been buying form fills. Moving it to booked jobs usually changes the numbers more than any bid adjustment.
The decisions that determine whether the account makes money, rather than a list of tasks.
Cabinet, interior, exterior and commercial each get their own campaign and their own bid ceiling, anchored to the break-even figures above.
Cheapest clicks, second biggest volume, best margin. It gets a real budget and a real negative list rather than a share of a general painting campaign.
DIY, how-to, colour, product and brand searches, plus the art and automotive traffic that the word "painter" pulls without qualification. This matters more on painting than on almost any other trade.
Spring and summer carry the demand and the bigger tickets. Interior holds the account through the rest of the year.
Booked jobs with their ticket attached, imported as offline conversions. Without it the account optimises toward the cheapest lead, which in painting is always the smallest job.
Landing page experience is a quarter to a third of Quality Score. On a quoted trade, the page that makes requesting an estimate effortless beats a bid increase.
The full guide: large-ticket advantage, estimate timing and where LSA fits.
CPC and CPL benchmarks across sixteen contractor trades.
The same job-value problem, with a 20x spread between mowing and hardscaping.
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.
Typically $25 to $75 each, depending on market and service. What matters more is what happens after: at $45 a lead and a 40% close rate you are around $110 per booked job, and at a 25% close rate roughly $180. Against a $2,500 average job, both are comfortable.
Yes, and Google supports the vertical. LSA suits the faster, more urgent end of painting work. Larger interior and exterior projects usually convert better through Google Ads pointed at a proper landing page, because those buyers research and compare before they call.
Cabinet refinishing, in most cases. It carries the best margin, the jobs run $3,000 to $8,000, and people searching for it already know exactly what they want. After that, interior repaints for steady year-round volume.
Build the campaigns before the season starts, not during it. Exterior demand is weather-driven and short, so competitors flood in and bid up clicks exactly when you need them. Being live and warmed up beforehand is cheaper than arriving late.
In moderately competitive painting markets, $250 to $500 a week is a sensible start. The common mistake is setting a very tight maximum cost per lead at launch, which stops the account gathering enough data to optimise on.
Because you are selling a $2,500 job and they are selling a $300 one, and the auction reflects that. Comparing your CPL to a plumber's is comparing the wrong number. Compare cost per booked job against ticket value instead.
Commercial work has longer sales cycles, bigger contracts and completely different search behaviour. It can work, but it needs its own campaigns and its own patience. It should not quietly share a residential budget.
The person you speak to on the consultation. No handoff to a coordinator. We cap how many accounts one person carries so that stays true.
No. Month to month, no auto-renewal, no cancellation fee. The Google Ads account, the LSA profile, the tracking and the landing pages are yours from day one and stay yours if you leave.
Then more leads will not help, and we will say so. Painting is an estimate-driven sale, so if quotes are going out slowly or not following up, that is the constraint. We would rather tell you that than rebuild campaigns you did not need rebuilt.
Clicks run roughly $3 to $34 depending on the job type. Cabinet refinishing is cheapest at $3.14 to $16.89 per click, interior painting runs $6.74 to $29.61, and the broad "painters near me" terms sit at $5.94 to $33.94. Cost per lead typically lands between $25 and $75. In moderately competitive markets a starting budget of $250 to $500 a week is realistic.
Between $25 and $75 is the normal market range, but the useful question is what the lead is worth. A cabinet refinishing job at $3,000 to $8,000 breaks even around $875 per lead. A whole-home interior breaks even near $630. A single-room repaint breaks even at about $126. So a $70 lead is excellent for cabinet work and merely acceptable for a single room.
Usually yes, because the ticket size is unusual for a trade. Most home service businesses sell $150 to $500 jobs. A painter's average residential job is $2,500 or more. At $45 per lead and a 40% close rate the cost per booked job is around $112, against a job worth thousands. The maths is more forgiving than almost any other trade.
At a $45 average cost per lead, roughly 22 leads. At a 40% close rate that is about 9 booked jobs. If those are whole-home interiors averaging $4,000, the revenue side is not close. The variable that decides the outcome is not the budget, it is how fast estimates go out and get followed up.
Cabinet refinishing, in most markets. Google Keyword Planner puts the cabinet cluster at 76,200 US searches a month, second only to the general painters-near-me pool, at $3.14 to $16.89 per click, the cheapest of any painting category. Jobs run $3,000 to $8,000 with strong margins and buyers who already know what they want. The one caution is that cabinet terms carry a competition index near 100 on very low bids, which signals heavy DIY traffic, so it needs a tight negative keyword list.
By job type, from Google Keyword Planner US data: cabinet refinishing $3.14 to $16.89, specialty work such as popcorn ceiling removal $2.62 to $16.74, exterior painting $5.48 to $30.22, the general painters-near-me pool $5.94 to $33.94, interior painting $6.74 to $29.61, and commercial painting $8.32 to $64.07. Interior painting carries the lowest competition index of the major categories at 41.
Single room repaints produce the lowest cost per lead in a painting account and the least profit. The ticket is $400 to $1,200 against a break-even of about $126 a lead, while cabinet refinishing runs $3,000 to $8,000 with a break-even near $875. A $25 single-room lead and a $75 cabinet lead look three times apart on a cost per lead report, but the cabinet lead is worth roughly seven times more in profit.
No. Commercial painting is roughly 5,820 US searches a month with top-of-page bids running to $64.07 and a substantially longer close cycle than residential work. Inside a residential campaign it never receives the bid or the patience it needs, and its slower conversion signal distorts the residential data. It belongs in its own campaign with its own budget, or it should be left out deliberately.
It depends on the job. Break-even cost per lead runs about $126 on a single room at a $400 to $1,200 ticket, about $630 on a whole-home interior at $2,000 to $6,000, about $720 on a full exterior at $3,000 to $12,000, and about $875 on cabinet refinishing at $3,000 to $8,000. Market cost per lead for painting is $25 to $75, so cabinet work carries roughly 11.7 times of headroom while a single room carries only about 1.7 times.
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.