Lead generation calculator: what does an ad budget actually buy?
Pick your industry, set a monthly budget, and see a realistic range of leads and closed deals, built from published cost-per-lead benchmarks, not agency promises. Ranges, not fake precision; and where no credible benchmark exists, we say so instead of inventing one.
Read this before the numbers. These are general market benchmarks. Your real costs depend heavily on where your business operates: city, competition level, season, and how well your campaigns are run all move the numbers. The underlying benchmarks are medians of thousands of published small-business campaign results, with each market’s own Google bid data layered on top. And this calculator covers paid ads only. SEO and organic leads are not included; ranking in Google and getting recommended by AI assistants is a separate channel that compounds over time instead of stopping when the budget stops. That work lives in our SEO & AI Visibility service.
Your industry
Monthly ad budget
CA$/moChannel
Location
Vancouver Google bid data + published benchmark conversion research, in CAD
leads / month
8.3 to 13
published benchmark to strong-execution scenario
booked jobs / month
3.5 to 5.7
42-43% close ratedirectional
Cost per lead
CA$113 to CA$181
Cost per booked job
CA$263 to CA$430
ad spend, at the modeled ranges
How we calculated this
- Cost per lead: published 2026 search-ads benchmark medians (13,474 US small-business campaigns). The conservative end of every range is the benchmark median.
- The strong-execution end models results about 1.6x better than the median. That is a Most AI Labs modeling assumption, not a published benchmark; it sits at the cautious edge of a documented spread (a 2014 conversion-rate study found top-quartile advertisers converting at 3 to 5x the median).
- Close rate: 42-43%, trade-software call data (2022; top companies reach ~77%) (directional; treat with care).
- Location: Vancouver mode: cost-per-lead medians come from published US campaign benchmarks converted at 1.40 CAD per USD (no Vancouver-specific CPL benchmarks exist anywhere); Google's Vancouver bid estimates appear as the local reality check. Canadian clicks average about 29% below US costs, so CAD figures lean conservative.
- Scope and vintage: paid ads only (SEO and organic excluded); 2026 search benchmarks, 2025 Meta benchmarks; Vancouver bid estimates pulled July 2026. Ranges are estimates, not guarantees.
Same budget on other channels
Google Searchselected
8.3 to 13 leads
Meta
26 to 42 leads
TikTok
not recommended
Cheaper is not always better: a search lead arrives with intent; a social form fill usually needs faster follow-up and more nurturing before it closes.
Vancouver reality check
Google’s own bid estimates for Vancouver put “plumber” at CA$8.01 to CA$48.84 per click (2,400 searches/month, pulled July 2026). Even at the low end, that implies roughly CA$105 per lead at the benchmark 7.63% conversion rate. Derived arithmetic on Google’s estimates, not measured campaign results.
Want this forecast with your numbers instead of benchmarks?
The free 7-day audit runs the same math with your job values, your website, and your service area, and tells you which end of the range your business would actually land on. Written document, yours to keep. No obligation.
These are medians, not promises
The published benchmarks are medians of thousands of US small-business campaigns. Half of real campaigns do worse. The spread between median and top-quartile operators is 3 to 5x (2014 conversion study).
The averages include broken follow-up
62.8% of dealership leads get no response within 24 hours. Only 52% of law firms answer the phone. Beating benchmarks is mostly operations, not ad tricks.
Speed to lead is the multiplier
Calling a lead within 5 minutes makes you about 21x more likely to qualify it than waiting half an hour. Most of the ROI difference lives right here.
The benchmarks behind the calculator
Google figures: published 2026 search advertising benchmark medians (13,474 US small-business campaigns, April 2025 to March 2026, with trade-level rows from dedicated home-services and automotive datasets). Meta figures: published 2025 lead-campaign medians (726 US campaigns; small samples per industry). All USD.
| Industry | Google CPL | Google CPC | Google conv. rate | Meta lead CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| All industries (median) | $66.69 | $5.42 | 8.18% | $27.66 |
| Law firms | $131.63 | $9.87 | 5.55% | $18.17 |
| Dental clinics | $72.97 | $8.00 | 10.67% | $76.71 |
| Restaurants | $30.57 | $2.05 | 8.05% | $3.16 |
| HVAC | $127.74 | $9.68 | 6.56% | $41.26 |
| Plumbing | $129.02 | $10.49 | 7.63% | $41.26 |
| Electrical | $93.69 | $12.18 | 9.08% | $41.26 |
| Roofing | $228.15 | $10.70 | 3.70% | $41.26 |
| Accounting firms | $93.69 | $5.87 | 4.85% | no benchmark |
| Insurance brokers | $74.44 | $3.39 | 2.64% | no benchmark |
| Auto dealers | $44.26 | $2.27 | 6.01% | no benchmark |
| Property management & real estate | $102.51 | $3.22 | 3.70% | $16.61 |
| Auto repair shops | $29.96 | $4.35 | 15.51% | no benchmark |
| Renovations & general contracting | $90.92 | $8.33 | 8.05% | $41.26 |
| Garage doors | $81.45 | n/a | n/a | $41.26 |
| Landscaping | $117.92 | n/a | n/a | $41.26 |
| Cleaning services | $46.99 | n/a | 17.65% | $41.26 |
| Handyman | $54.05 | n/a | n/a | $41.26 |
| Medical clinics | $40.04 | $4.76 | 12.43% | $47.47 |
| Gyms & fitness studios | $67.36 | $6.17 | 6.94% | $52.98 |
| Tutoring & education | $77.48 | $4.81 | 13.14% | $28.22 |
| Staffing & recruiting | $67.36 | $5.81 | 3.05% | $17.64 |
| Industrial & commercial | $75.19 | $5.87 | 8.20% | $37.34 |
| Travel & tourism | $44.70 | $2.14 | 5.83% | no benchmark |
| Veterinary clinics | $31.50 | $4.06 | 16.22% | no benchmark |
| Medspas & beauty | $39.25 | $4.62 | 10.35% | $51.42 |
Industries we checked and could not add. The benchmark dataset publishes 23 categories, and several common local businesses simply are not among them: moving companies, childcare and daycare, senior home care, physiotherapy and chiropractic, financial advisors, IT and managed services, and pest control. We could have mapped each onto a loosely-related category and printed a number. We would rather tell you the data does not exist. If your industry is missing, the “All industries” median is the honest starting point, and the free audit prices your actual market.
Category notes: accounting uses the dataset’s Business Services category (no accounting split exists); insurance uses Finance & Insurance (shared with banking); veterinary uses Animals & Pets; medspas use Beauty & Personal Care; auto dealers use Automotive For Sale. TikTok is absent because no independent multi-industry TikTok CPL benchmark exists as of mid-2026; our TikTok estimates for B2C industries derive from vendor ecommerce data (about $41 per conversion) and are directional only.
Vancouver bid estimates, straight from Google
Top-of-page bid estimate ranges from Google Keyword Planner, targeted to the City of Vancouver, 12 months to June 2026, in CAD. Pulled July 2026 from a live Google Ads account. These are Google’s estimates of what advertisers pay for top-of-page placement, not measured campaign results, and a click is not a lead: divide by a realistic conversion rate to sanity-check any cost-per-lead promise an agency makes you.
| Industry | Keyword | Searches / mo | Bid low | Bid high |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Law firms | family lawyer vancouver | 880 | CA$5.78 | CA$17.57 |
| immigration lawyer vancouver | 590 | CA$5.26 | CA$12.83 | |
| employment lawyer vancouver | 480 | CA$2.99 | CA$11.04 | |
| personal injury lawyer vancouver | 210 | CA$9.97 | CA$73.77 | |
| Dental | dental implants vancouver | 590 | CA$5.16 | CA$19.13 |
| invisalign vancouver | 590 | CA$8.73 | CA$37.38 | |
| Restaurants | restaurants vancouver | 14,800 | CA$0.43 | CA$1.81 |
| best restaurants vancouver | 12,100 | CA$0.19 | CA$1.08 | |
| private dining vancouver | 210 | CA$0.65 | CA$2.00 | |
| HVAC | hvac vancouver | 390 | CA$10.00 | CA$57.15 |
| furnace repair vancouver | 210 | CA$12.80 | CA$35.09 | |
| air conditioning installation vancouver | 70 | CA$20.36 | CA$63.79 | |
| heat pump installation vancouver | 50 | CA$29.54 | CA$103.34 | |
| Plumbing | plumber vancouver | 1,900 | CA$12.87 | CA$67.17 |
| emergency plumber vancouver | 320 | CA$9.89 | CA$51.21 | |
| drain cleaning vancouver | 90 | CA$12.87 | CA$51.34 | |
| hot water tank replacement vancouver | 70 | CA$15.84 | CA$56.43 | |
| Electrical | electrician vancouver | 720 | CA$7.01 | CA$40.40 |
| ev charger installation vancouver | 30 | CA$4.07 | CA$22.63 | |
| Roofing | roofing vancouver | 390 | CA$8.04 | CA$46.37 |
| roof repair vancouver | 90 | CA$20.12 | CA$49.87 | |
| roof replacement vancouver | 20 | CA$9.14 | CA$67.70 | |
| Accounting | accountant vancouver | 390 | CA$4.33 | CA$19.17 |
| tax accountant vancouver | 170 | CA$2.99 | CA$11.84 | |
| small business accountant vancouver | 70 | CA$6.39 | CA$42.43 | |
| bookkeeping services vancouver | 40 | CA$11.86 | CA$47.56 | |
| Insurance | home insurance vancouver | 170 | CA$14.37 | CA$88.22 |
| insurance broker vancouver | 110 | CA$4.63 | CA$25.38 | |
| business insurance vancouver | 20 | CA$19.81 | CA$146.51 | |
| Auto | used cars vancouver | 1,900 | CA$0.52 | CA$2.48 |
| car dealership vancouver | 480 | CA$2.28 | CA$7.08 | |
| buy car vancouver | 110 | CA$0.89 | CA$3.71 | |
| Veterinary | vet vancouver | 590 | CA$3.44 | CA$21.46 |
| emergency vet vancouver | 390 | CA$3.40 | CA$12.07 | |
| animal hospital vancouver | 140 | CA$2.88 | CA$10.84 | |
| Medspa & beauty | laser hair removal vancouver | 1,300 | CA$1.41 | CA$3.77 |
| coolsculpting vancouver | 140 | CA$1.25 | CA$5.41 | |
| medspa vancouver | 10 | CA$1.35 | CA$4.96 | |
| Auto repair | oil change vancouver | 390 | CA$1.07 | CA$3.80 |
| auto repair vancouver | 320 | CA$1.88 | CA$6.33 | |
| mechanic vancouver | 260 | CA$2.03 | CA$6.58 | |
| brake repair vancouver | 20 | CA$1.69 | CA$6.70 | |
| Landscaping | landscaping vancouver | 590 | CA$3.46 | CA$17.98 |
| lawn care vancouver | 50 | CA$4.13 | CA$21.45 | |
| Cleaning | maid service vancouver | 880 | CA$3.83 | CA$11.84 |
| cleaning services vancouver | 720 | CA$3.82 | CA$12.12 | |
| house cleaning vancouver | 480 | CA$2.91 | CA$9.38 | |
| Handyman | handyman vancouver | 590 | CA$3.43 | CA$11.35 |
| Medical clinics | walk in clinic vancouver | 8,100 | CA$1.31 | CA$4.46 |
| family doctor vancouver | 880 | CA$1.06 | CA$2.93 | |
| Gyms & fitness | gym vancouver | 1,900 | CA$1.58 | CA$5.71 |
| personal trainer vancouver | 1,600 | CA$2.47 | CA$6.08 | |
| fitness classes vancouver | 260 | CA$1.62 | CA$4.62 | |
| Tutoring | tutoring vancouver | 210 | CA$2.45 | CA$10.37 |
| math tutor vancouver | 170 | CA$6.72 | CA$17.80 | |
| Staffing | staffing agency vancouver | 880 | CA$0.82 | CA$3.56 |
| employment agency vancouver | 880 | CA$0.82 | CA$3.56 | |
| recruitment agency vancouver | 590 | CA$1.41 | CA$6.97 | |
| Industrial | machine shop vancouver | 50 | CA$1.95 | CA$5.01 |
| welding services vancouver | 10 | CA$2.03 | CA$4.40 | |
| Travel & tourism | whale watching vancouver | 2,900 | CA$1.14 | CA$5.13 |
| travel agency vancouver | 720 | CA$1.60 | CA$9.23 | |
| vancouver tours | 390 | CA$1.41 | CA$7.35 | |
| tour company vancouver | 20 | CA$1.40 | CA$3.98 | |
| Property management | property management vancouver | 720 | CA$2.76 | CA$8.19 |
| rental property management vancouver | 50 | CA$1.66 | CA$7.01 |
Some keywords returned no estimate (dentist vancouver, emergency dentist vancouver, botox vancouver, electrical panel upgrade vancouver, commercial insurance vancouver, medical clinic vancouver, industrial equipment and supplies vancouver); we show nothing rather than guessing. Google also merges close variants, so a few terms we submitted (landscaper, tutor, property manager) collapsed into the rows above. Note what the spread tells you: a heat pump installation click can cost CA$103 while a whale watching click costs CA$1.14, which is why one budget produces wildly different lead counts across industries.
Honest answers
Can $100 a month get me 30 deals?
No, and anyone who says yes is selling something. At the cross-industry median of $66.69 USD per lead, $100 buys about one and a half leads, before anyone closes anything. Even in the cheapest categories (restaurant offers on Meta at $3.16), $100 buys roughly 30 reservations or offer claims, not 30 closed customers. A realistic starting budget for lead generation in most service industries is $1,000 to $3,000 per month, and the winners spend it on fewer channels done properly, not every channel at once.
Are these Vancouver numbers?
Three market modes: Vancouver (CAD), Canada (CAD), and United States (USD), each with its own Google bid data as the local layer. The cost-per-lead medians in every mode trace to the same published large-sample campaign benchmarks (US-market data, disclosed in the methodology), because no Vancouver-specific or Canada-wide CPL benchmark exists anywhere, and inventing one would be dishonest. What genuinely differs by market is the advertising-cost layer: Google’s bid estimates targeted to each market. The bid table above is genuinely local: Google’s own top-of-page bid estimates targeted to the City of Vancouver, pulled from a live Google Ads account in July 2026, and the “Vancouver reality check” under your result derives from it. Still true and worth repeating: nobody publishes measured Vancouver campaign benchmarks. Google’s bid estimates are the closest honest thing that exists, and we label them as estimates.
Which channel is cheapest?
Meta leads cost less on paper ($27.66 median vs $66.69 on Google), but the channels are not interchangeable: Google captures people actively searching for your service; Meta interrupts people who weren’t. Meta leads typically need faster follow-up and more nurturing. Restaurants are the exception where Meta is a clear standout. TikTok has real reach with under-35 consumers but no independent lead-cost benchmarks yet, so treat any TikTok CPL promise as unverified.
Why show ranges instead of one number?
A single number looks authoritative and hides uncertainty. Our conservative end is the published benchmark median, which already contains every broken campaign and ignored lead. The strong-execution end models results roughly 1.6x better: a Most AI Labs modeling assumption, not a published benchmark, sitting at the cautious edge of a documented 3-to-5x median-to-top-quartile spread (2014 conversion study). Where your business lands inside the range comes down to operations: your offer, a landing page that loads fast and reads simply, answering leads in minutes instead of days, and tracking that shows which half of the budget is wasted. That operational layer is what we build.
Want these numbers for your business, with your data?
The free 7-day audit maps your actual cost per lead, where your follow-up leaks, and what a right-sized campaign would return. Written document, yours to keep.