Google Ads Benchmarks 2026
The average Google Ads cost per lead in 2026 is $66.69, from an average cost per click of $5.42, a click-through rate of 6.64% and a conversion rate of 8.18%. Cost per lead fell year over year for the first time since 2020. Every figure below is broken out by industry and sourced.
What is the average cost per lead in Google Ads?
$66.69 across all industries in 2026. The spread is enormous: attorneys and legal services pay $131.63 per lead while arts and entertainment pays $26.84, a difference of nearly five times. A benchmark is only useful once it is narrowed to your category, which is why the table below is the whole point of this page.
The more important story is direction. Cost per lead decreased in 2026 for the first time in five years, and conversion rate increased for 87% of industries. After several years of steadily rising costs, search advertising got slightly cheaper and slightly more effective at the same time.
| Industry | Avg CPC | Avg CTR | Avg CVR | Avg CPL |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Attorneys and legal services | $9.87 | 5.87% | 5.55% | $131.63 |
| Home and home improvement | $8.33 | 6.47% | 8.05% | $90.92 |
| Dentists and dental services | $8.00 | 5.66% | 10.67% | $72.97 |
| Personal services | $7.17 | 7.16% | 12.34% | $54.60 |
| Health and fitness | $6.17 | 5.81% | 6.94% | $67.36 |
| Business services | $5.87 | 6.10% | 4.85% | $93.69 |
| Industrial and commercial | $5.87 | 6.57% | 8.20% | $75.19 |
| Career and employment | $5.81 | 5.88% | 3.05% | $67.36 |
| Education and instruction | $4.81 | 7.56% | 13.14% | $77.48 |
| Physicians and surgeons | $4.76 | 6.61% | 12.43% | $40.04 |
| Beauty and personal care | $4.62 | 6.75% | 10.35% | $39.25 |
| Apparel, fashion and jewelry | $4.44 | 6.64% | 4.50% | $97.51 |
| Animals and pets | $4.06 | 7.49% | 16.22% | $31.50 |
| Furniture | $3.97 | 6.57% | 2.99% | $106.70 |
| Finance and insurance | $3.39 | 9.83% | 2.64% | $74.44 |
| Real estate | $3.22 | 7.61% | 3.70% | $102.51 |
| Sports and recreation | $2.77 | 8.75% | 7.69% | $44.26 |
| Automotive, for sale | $2.27 | 8.28% | 6.01% | $44.26 |
| Travel | $2.14 | 9.32% | 5.83% | $44.70 |
| Restaurants and food | $2.05 | 6.83% | 8.05% | $30.57 |
| Arts and entertainment | $1.63 | 12.75% | 5.91% | $26.84 |
What do home service contractors pay per lead?
Home and home improvement sits near the top of the cost table: $8.33 per click and $90.92 per lead, against a conversion rate of 8.05%. Only attorneys pay more per click. That is a direct consequence of job value, because a contractor who wins a $12,000 roof replacement can absorb a lead cost that would ruin a restaurant.
The category average hides most of what matters, though. Roofing, HVAC, plumbing and electrical behave differently enough that a single home services number is close to useless for budgeting. LocaliQ’s home services benchmarks put the median search ads cost per lead at $228.15 for roofing and gutters, $127.74 for air conditioning, $129.02 for plumbing and $93.69 for electricians (campaigns April 2024 to March 2025). SearchLight Digital’s February 2026 study of 888 contractors put Local Services Ads cost per lead at $51 for HVAC, $57 for plumbing and $39 for electrical; it has no roofing row, and the published roofing LSA figures disagree ($65.80 from 99 Calls, $162 from The Media Captain).
In each of these trades, the published Local Services Ads cost per lead is below the published search figure, though the two come from different years. That does not make it the better channel, because volume and lead quality differ, but it does mean a contractor running only one of the two is leaving the cheaper channel untested.
What do healthcare practices pay per lead?
The healthcare average is $66.02 per lead from a $5.64 cost per click and an 8.09% conversion rate, which is close to the all-industry average. The specialty level spread is far wider than the category suggests, running from $18.54 to $141.17, a difference of more than seven times inside one industry.
| Specialty | Average cost per lead |
|---|---|
| Mental health | $141.17 |
| Addiction recovery | $120.30 |
| Urology | $111.05 |
| Plastic and cosmetic surgery | $102.51 |
| Hearing aids and care | $96.54 |
| General dentistry | $84.77 |
| Emergency dentistry | $75.19 |
| Assisted living and elder care | $74.44 |
| Hospitals and clinics | $72.97 |
| Orthodontics | $71.52 |
| General practice and family medicine | $62.80 |
| Oral and maxillofacial surgery | $55.15 |
| Emergency medicine | $41.68 |
| Physical therapy | $32.79 |
| Ophthalmology | $30.88 |
| Dermatology | $18.54 |
Cost per lead fell for 63% of healthcare categories year over year, while cost per click rose for 56% of them. Practices are paying more per click and less per lead, which means conversion improved faster than costs rose.
How much have Google Ads costs risen since 2016?
Cost per click has more than doubled in ten years while cost per lead has risen only about 13%. The gap is conversion rate, which went from 2.70% to 8.18%. Advertisers pay far more for attention and convert far more of it, and those two effects have largely cancelled out.
| Metric | 2016 | 2026 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost per click | $2.32 | $5.42 | Up 134% |
| Click-through rate | 1.91% | 6.64% | Up 248% |
| Conversion rate | 2.70% | 8.18% | Up 203% |
| Cost per lead | $59.18 | $66.69 | Up 13% |
How should you actually use a benchmark?
As a sanity check, not a target. A benchmark tells you whether your numbers are strange for your category. It cannot tell you whether they are good for your business, because that depends on close rate and job value, neither of which appears in any benchmark table.
The number that matters is your break even cost per lead. Take your average job value, multiply by gross margin to get gross profit, multiply by your lead to customer close rate, and the result is the most you can pay for a lead before you lose money. A contractor with a $6,000 average job, 45% margin and a 20% close rate can pay up to $540 per lead and still break even. Against that figure, a $90 benchmark is not expensive.
This is why a high cost per lead is not automatically a problem and a low one is not automatically a win. Attorneys pay $131.63 per lead and run profitably because one signed case is worth thousands. A restaurant paying $30 may be losing money.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good cost per lead in Google Ads?
One below your break even, which depends on job value, margin and close rate rather than on any published average. As a reference point, the 2026 all-industry average is $66.69, home and home improvement is $90.92, healthcare is $66.02 and legal is $131.63.
Why did cost per lead go down in 2026?
Conversion rates rose for 87% of industries while cost per click stayed roughly flat. More of the clicks advertisers were already buying turned into leads, which lowered the cost of each one. It is the first year over year decrease measured since before 2020.
Are these figures Google Ads only?
The WordStream and LocaliQ dataset covers Google Ads and Microsoft Ads search campaigns across more than 13,000 campaigns in 23 industries, reported as medians so that a single unusual advertiser does not skew a category.
Do benchmarks include branded search?
Accounts bidding exclusively on branded terms are excluded from the source dataset, because branded traffic converts far more cheaply and would understate what a new advertiser should expect.
How often do these numbers change?
The major benchmark reports are published annually. Costs moved sharply between 2020 and 2025 and were comparatively stable in 2026, so a figure more than a year old should be treated as directional rather than current.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page is third party industry data, not RYN Digital client data. RYN Digital does not publish client outcome statistics.