Solve for any paid-ads metric in seconds. CPM, CPC, CTR, conversion rate, CPA, and ROAS, with the formula shown and real contractor benchmarks for context. Works for Google Ads, Meta, and any channel.
CPM (cost per mille) is what you pay for every 1,000 ad impressions. It is the headline metric for awareness and display campaigns. The formula is simple:
CPM = (ad spend ÷ impressions) × 1,000
Spend $500 to earn 200,000 impressions and your CPM is $2.50. The calculator above also runs it backward: enter a target CPM and your budget to see how many impressions you should expect, or a target CPM and impressions to see what it will cost. Typical CPM ranges vary widely by channel, audience, and season, but as a rough 2026 reference:
| Channel | Typical CPM range |
|---|---|
| Google Display Network | $1 to $4 |
| YouTube | $4 to $10 |
| Meta (Facebook / Instagram) | $7 to $14 |
| TikTok | $3 to $9 |
| $6 to $14+ |
These are general industry ranges to sanity-check your number, not guarantees. Actual CPM depends on targeting, competition, ad quality, and time of year.
CPC is the average price you pay each time someone clicks your ad. CPC = ad spend ÷ clicks. It is the metric that drives search-campaign budgets, because in pay-per-click you only pay on the click. For home service contractors, search CPCs run higher than most industries because the intent, and the job value, is high. Published 2026 averages by trade, with the range you should expect around them:
| Trade | Avg CPC | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Painting | $13.74 | $8 to $22 |
| Electrical | $12.18 | $7 to $25 |
| Roofing & gutters | $10.70 | $6 to $30+ |
| Plumbing | $10.49 | $5 to $45+ |
| Air conditioning | $9.68 | $5 to $40+ |
| Heating & furnaces | $9.30 | $4 to $28 |
| Window cleaning | $9.12 | $5 to $15 |
| Home services average | $7.85 | - |
Averages flatten a wide spread. The top of each range is where emergency and high-ticket terms sit, so a plumber bidding on burst pipe or sewer replacement can legitimately see $40+ while their account average stays near $10. Competitive metros run 30 to 150% above these; rural and mid-size markets 20 to 40% below. Full breakdown in our Google Ads cost guide and contractor Google Ads statistics.
If your CPCs are well above these, the usual culprits are broad keywords without negatives, a low Quality Score, or sending traffic to a weak landing page. Want a full budget forecast instead of a single metric? Use the Google Ads cost calculator.
CTR measures how often people who see your ad actually click it.
CTR = (clicks ÷ impressions) × 100. A rising CTR usually signals better ad
relevance, which tends to pull your CPC down over time, so it is one of the few metrics where the
improvement pays twice. Published home services averages by trade:
| Trade | Avg CTR | Read |
|---|---|---|
| Window cleaning | 10.04% | Best in category |
| Cleaning / maid services | 9.01% | Excellent |
| Garages | 7.25% | Above average |
| Handyman | 6.51% | At average |
| General contractors | 6.48% | At average |
| Air conditioning | 6.43% | At average |
| Painting | 6.29% | At average |
| Home services average | 6.37% | - |
Those are search numbers. On display and paid social a CTR under 1% is normal and not a fault, because the audience did not go looking for you. Compare like with like: judge a search campaign against the table above and a display campaign against display.
Conversion rate is the share of clicks that turn into a lead.
Conversion rate = (conversions ÷ clicks) × 100. This is usually the cheapest
lever you have, because it costs nothing in media: doubling conversion rate halves your cost per lead
without adding a dollar of spend. Published averages, with the cost per lead each one produces:
| Trade | Avg conversion rate | Resulting CPL |
|---|---|---|
| Cleaning / maid services | 17.65% | $46.99 |
| Window cleaning | 13.58% | $66.69 |
| Handyman | 13.45% | $54.05 |
| Pools & spas | 10.89% | $45.15 |
| Painting | 10.80% | $138.38 |
| Electricians | 9.08% | $93.69 |
| Plumbing | 7.63% | $129.02 |
| Heating & furnaces | 7.48% | $129.02 |
| Home services average | 7.33% | $90.92 |
Notice painting converts better than plumbing yet costs nearly three times as much per lead. Rate and cost are not the same story, because a $13.74 click needs a much higher conversion rate to land at the same CPL as a $9 one. That interaction is the whole reason to calculate the chain rather than stare at one number.
CPA (also called cost per lead or cost per action) is what you pay for each
conversion. CPA = ad spend ÷ conversions. It also falls straight out of the two
metrics above it, which is worth committing to memory:
CPA = CPC ÷ conversion rate
A $10.49 plumbing click at a 7.63% conversion rate is a $137 lead, which is why the published plumbing CPL sits at $129. You can predict your own CPL before you spend anything.
The number that actually decides whether the campaign works, though, is one step further out:
Cost per booked job = CPA ÷ booking rate
Book half the leads you pay for and a $129 lead is a $258 booked job. Against a $450 drain clear that is thin. Against an $8,000 repipe it is nothing. This is the point where paid-ads maths has to meet your actual job economics, and where most accounts get judged on the wrong number: a CPL that looks high can be excellent and a CPL that looks cheap can be losing money, depending entirely on what happens after the phone rings. Work the job side out with the contractor profit margin calculator.
ROAS (return on ad spend) is revenue divided by ad spend, shown as a ratio. ROAS = revenue ÷ ad spend. A 4x ROAS means $4 back for every $1 spent. But "good" ROAS is not a fixed number, it depends on your margin. The real target is your break-even ROAS:
Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ profit margin
If your profit margin is 25%, you break even at 4x ROAS, so anything above 4x is profit. A 20% margin needs 5x to break even; a 50% margin only needs 2x. Switch the calculator to ROAS mode and you can solve for ROAS, revenue, or the spend that hits a target return.
These are not six separate numbers. They are one chain, and each link feeds the next. Read it left to right and you can trace a dollar from the moment it buys an impression to the moment it comes back as revenue.
Two consequences fall out of the chain that are easy to miss when you look at metrics one at a time.
Improving CTR lowers CPC twice over. A higher click-through rate wins you more clicks from the same impressions, and it also feeds Quality Score, which reduces what you pay for each one. Almost nothing else in the account pays in both directions at once.
Conversion rate is the cheapest lever in the chain. CPM and CPC are set by an auction you share with competitors, so moving them is slow and partly outside your control. Conversion rate is set by your landing page, your form, and how fast someone answers the phone. Going from 7.33% to 10% is a 27% cut in cost per lead, bought with a page edit rather than a budget increase.
Most CPM and ROAS calculators give you a single number and nothing else. This one shows the formula for what you just calculated, lets you solve for any variable (not just the headline metric), and gives you real benchmark ranges so you know whether your number is good, average, or a red flag. We run Google Ads and Local Services Ads for contractors every day, so the benchmarks come from the kind of campaigns these numbers actually describe.
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The CPC, CTR and conversion rate figures are the published 2026 home services averages we maintain in our contractor Google Ads statistics and Google Ads cost guide, drawn from LocaliQ and WordStream benchmark reporting. CPM ranges are general channel references for sanity-checking a number, not guarantees. Every formula on this page is arithmetic rather than an estimate. Nothing you type is sent anywhere; the calculator runs entirely in your browser.
CPM means cost per mille, or cost per 1,000 impressions. The formula is CPM = (ad spend / impressions) x 1,000. So $500 spent for 200,000 impressions is a $2.50 CPM. This calculator also solves it in reverse: enter a target CPM and impressions to get the spend, or spend and CPM to get the impressions you can expect.
ROAS is revenue divided by ad spend, shown as a ratio like 4x. A workable target for most businesses is 3x to 5x, but the number that actually matters is your break-even ROAS, which is 1 divided by your profit margin. If your margin is 25%, you break even at 4x ROAS, so anything above 4x is profit.
CPC (cost per click) = ad spend / clicks. CTR (click-through rate) = (clicks / impressions) x 100. Conversion rate = (conversions / clicks) x 100. CPA (cost per acquisition) = ad spend / conversions. This tool solves for any variable in each formula, not just the headline metric.
Yes. The math is the same everywhere, so you can use it for Google Ads, Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft Ads, programmatic display, TikTok, or any paid channel. The benchmark ranges note which channel they apply to.
Yes. Every calculator runs entirely in your browser with no signup and no data sent anywhere.
We run Google Ads and Local Services Ads for home service contractors, so your CPM, CPC, and ROAS are our job, not your spreadsheet. Book a free 30-minute consultation.