Cost per lead benchmarks for UK trades (and why cost per job matters more)
What is a good cost per lead for UK trades? We share our own real Facebook ad figures, show you how to work out yours, and explain why cost per booked job matters more.
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The only benchmarks we trust are ones we have seen
Search for cost per lead benchmarks for UK trades and you will find tidy tables with a number for every trade. Roofers this, plumbers that. Many are guesses, copied from another site or averaged from businesses that look nothing like yours.
We do not publish numbers we have not seen. We run an exterior cleaning business ourselves, and we run our own ads. So the benchmarks in this guide come from our own campaigns, with the real figures shown. Your trade, your postcodes and your offer will behave differently. Use ours as a reference point, then work out yours.
By the end you will know how to calculate cost per lead, why cost per booked job is the number that really pays your bills, and how to read your own Ads Manager without a headache. If you are still working out what to spend, read our guide to a Facebook ads budget for trades first.
Our real figures: two campaigns
Here is the first one. It was our own roof cleaning ad on Facebook and Instagram, run at £20 a day for 2 weeks.
Our own roof cleaning ad, £20 a day for 2 weeks.
That ad spent £281.80 and reached 24,884 people across 30,136 impressions. The leads turned into £8,450 of booked roof cleaning work.
The second is the roof leads campaign in Ads Manager, over the last 30 days to 28 September 2026.
Same service, longer window: 48 leads at £7.43 each from £356.40. That is within a penny of the first figure, which tells us the result was steady, not a lucky fortnight. You can see both on our results page.
How to calculate cost per lead
Cost per lead is the simplest number in advertising. Total ad spend divided by the number of leads. Three steps.
1. Add up your spend
Our two-week roof cleaning ad spent £281.80. Use what Ads Manager shows as amount spent.
2. Count the leads
The same ad produced 38 leads. Count real enquiries with a name and a number.
3. Divide
£281.80 divided by 38 leads gives £7.42 per lead.
Two things trip owners up.
What counts as a lead
Count a lead when a real person sends an enquiry with contact details. A like, a comment or a click is not a lead. If your form lets people send fake numbers, your cost per lead looks better than it is. Ask for a phone number and check the first few by ringing them.
Which spend to use
Use the amount spent in the same date range as the leads. If you paused the ad for a week, do not count that week. If you pay someone to manage the ads, keep their fee separate so you can see the media cost clearly, then look at both together when you judge the whole thing.
Setting up proper tracking and reporting means the lead count in your reports matches the enquiries you actually receive.
Cost per booked job: the number that matters
Cost per lead tells you how cheaply you can start a conversation. It does not tell you whether the conversation pays. For that you need cost per booked job, sometimes called cost per acquisition.
The sum is just as simple: total ad spend divided by the number of jobs booked from those leads. Our own roof cleaning ad is the example. The leads from £281.80 of spend turned into £8,450 of booked roof cleaning work. That is the number we care about, because a lead is only useful if somebody picks up the phone and says yes.
Here is the path every lead takes, and where each number comes from.
Someone sees your ad
Reach and impressions. This is where the money goes.
They send an enquiry
This is a lead. Divide spend by leads to get cost per lead.
You reply and quote
Speed matters most here. Slow replies lose leads you already paid for.
They book the job
Divide spend by booked jobs to get cost per booked job.
Why this changes your decisions
Two ads can have the same cost per lead and very different cost per booked job. One brings tyre-kickers after a free quote. The other brings people ready to book. If you only watch cost per lead you will keep the wrong ad running.
It also puts the spend in context. A single booked job from a high-value service can cover a lot of ad spend. That is why we always ask what a job is worth before we talk about budget, and why our lead generation work is built around booked jobs, not just enquiries.
To measure it, record where each new customer came from. A simple column in your diary or CRM is enough. Our tracking and reporting does this for you and reports it as jobs, not clicks.
What moves cost per lead up or down
You do not control the auction, but you control a lot of what goes into it. These are the things we see move cost per lead most on our own ads.
| Tends to lower it | Tends to raise it | |
|---|---|---|
| Ad photos | Real job photos | Generic stock images |
| Offer | One clear service, one clear next step | Several services in one ad |
| Targeting | Your postcodes only | A huge, vague area |
| Form | Few fields, quick to finish | Long forms with optional boxes |
| Freshness | New ads rotated in regularly | Same ad for months |
Creative
Real photos of real work beat polished stock images. People can tell. A before-and-after of an actual driveway or roof feels local and trustworthy. Our guide to writing ads that get booked jobs goes deeper.
Targeting and season
Tight postcodes mean you pay to reach people you can actually serve. Demand also moves through the year. Exterior cleaning, heating and garden work all have busy and quiet months, so a rising cost per lead in a quiet month does not always mean something is broken.
The offer and the form
One clear service and one clear next step convert better than a menu. A short form beats a long one. Every extra field costs you leads you have already paid to reach.
Ad fatigue
If people in your area see the same ad again and again, results usually fade. Rotate new photos and wording in before that happens, not after.
Speed of follow-up changes everything
Here is the part most benchmark articles skip. A cheap lead with slow follow-up often costs you more than a dear lead you ring within a minute.
Think about what happens on the customer's side. They fill in a form, then look at two or three other firms while they wait. The first business to reply with a friendly message and a time to visit usually wins. If you ring back the next morning, they have already booked someone else, and you paid for a lead you never had a chance to convert.
That is why we send every lead straight to the owner's phone. Name, number, postcode and job type arrive in WhatsApp, so you can tap to call from the van or the driveway. Our guide to following up leads fast with WhatsApp shows exactly how.
New leadsInstant alertsNew lead
- Name
- Sarah
- Job
- Roof clean, 3-bed semi
- Area
- Chelmsford
- Phone
- 07700 900123
Tap to call
09:14New lead
- Name
- Dave
- Job
- Driveway clean and reseal
- Area
- Brentwood
- Phone
- 07700 900456
Tap to call
09:32New lead
- Name
- Priya
- Job
- Gutter clear, detached
- Area
- Witham
- Phone
- 07700 900789
Tap to call
09:51Calls work the same way. A missed call on a ladder is a lead you paid for and lost. Missed-call text-back replies to the caller in seconds, and an AI phone receptionist answers every call, takes the job details and sends them to your WhatsApp. Both cut the gap between a lead arriving and you replying, which is where cheap leads turn dear. Our WhatsApp lead alerts do the same for every form enquiry.
Reading your own Ads Manager
Ads Manager has dozens of columns. You only need a handful. Open your campaign and look at these.
Amount spent
Check the date range matches the leads you are counting.
Results (leads)
Make sure the result is your lead form or enquiry, not link clicks.
Cost per result
This is your cost per lead. Compare week against week, not day against day.
Frequency
How often the same person sees your ad. Rising frequency with rising cost is a sign of tired creative.
Do not react to a single day. Daily numbers bounce around. Look at seven days or more before you change anything, and change one thing at a time so you know what worked.
Then take the final step Ads Manager cannot do for you: match leads to booked jobs. Work out your cost per booked job once a month. If you would rather have that done and explained to you, that is exactly what our reporting is for. Browse more in our marketing guides for trades.
Get your numbers checked free
Numbers only help if you know what to do with them. If you have run ads before and are not sure whether the results are good, we will go through them with you.
Cost per lead questions
What is a good cost per lead for a UK trade?
It depends on your trade, your area and the job you are selling. We only publish figures we have seen ourselves: our own roof cleaning ads came in at £7.42 per lead over two weeks and £7.43 over 30 days. Treat those as a reference point, not a promise for your trade.
What is the average cost per lead for Facebook ads in the UK?
There is no single honest average. Cost per lead changes with the trade, the postcodes, the offer, the photos and the time of year. Any figure you see quoted as "the average" usually mixes very different businesses. Work out your own number and track it over time.
Is a cheap lead always a good lead?
No. A cheap lead that nobody rings back for an hour is worth less than a dearer lead you call inside a few minutes. Judge ads on cost per booked job, not cost per lead alone.
How do I work out my cost per booked job?
Divide your total ad spend by the number of jobs you actually booked from those leads. You need to record which jobs came from ads, so ask every new customer how they found you and note it down.
Why did my cost per lead suddenly go up?
Common causes are tired creative that people have seen too many times, a smaller audience, a seasonal dip in demand, or a form that asks for too much. Check frequency and the ad itself first, then the form and offer.
Can you check my numbers for me?
Yes. Book a free marketing review and we will look at your cost per lead and cost per booked job with you, in plain English.