Google Ads
Google Ads for Tradies: What a Realistic Budget Looks Like
See what tradies should budget for Google Ads, including realistic click costs, management fees and costly mistakes. Plan your campaign with confidence.
“Tradies don’t need Google Ads” gets said a lot, usually by someone who tried it once, threw $500 at it for a fortnight, and got nothing but broad-match junk clicks. We hear the opposite version too: some sparky or plumber quietly running Ads for two years, booked out three weeks solid, never mentions it because it’s working too well to talk about. Both stories are true. Budget and setup make the difference, not the platform. Here’s what a realistic number looks like.
Two numbers, not one
Your spend is really two things:
- Ad spend, what you pay Google for the clicks. This goes straight to Google, never marked up, not by a cent.
- Management fee, what you pay to plan, build and tune the campaigns so that spend isn’t wasted.
Mixing these up is where a lot of tradies get burned. A quote that bundles both into one vague number is a quote you can’t judge properly. You want both visible and separate, every month.
What does a click really cost?
In the trades, clicks in metro areas commonly run $8 to $30+, depending on how competitive your service and suburb are. “Google ads for tradies” itself carries an average cost-per-click around $15, with top-of-page bids stretching from roughly $6 to $18 depending on the keyword and location.
| Job type | Typical click cost (metro) |
|---|---|
| Standard service (painting, landscaping, general repairs) | $8–$15 |
| Popular trade (electrician, plumber, carpenter) | $12–$22 |
| Emergency callout (blocked drain, no hot water, power fault) | $20–$30+ |
Emergency services sit at the pricier end because the person searching needs someone now and is ready to call the first ad that shows up. That’s not a reason to avoid Ads.
It’s the reason targeting matters more than price. A $20 click that turns into a $2,000 job is cheap. A $20 click from someone three suburbs over who was never going to book you is money down the drain. That’s the mistake that gives Google Ads a bad name among tradies who’ve been burned by it.
A realistic starting point, in real numbers
Forget vague advice like “start small and see how it goes.” Here’s what we run for tradies, management fee and recommended ad spend both stated upfront:
- Single operator, local leads, our Local Starter package: $650/month management, free setup, with a recommended ad spend up to $2,000/month. Enough to run one or two tight Search campaigns for your best few services without spreading too thin.
- Growing business, multiple services or suburbs, our Growth package (most popular): $1,100/month management, $495 setup, recommended spend $2,000 to $6,000/month. This is where Performance Max and remarketing start working alongside Search, and where most established tradies land.
- Online store selling product, our E-commerce package: from $650/month management, $795 setup, recommended spend $2,000+/month, measured on return on ad spend rather than clicks alone.
The goal early on is enough budget for the campaign to gather data and find what converts. Spend too little and it never learns who your best customer is. Spend without proper management and you pay full price for clicks that were never going to call.
The sweet spot is a sensible budget, watched closely, not the biggest number you can afford.
“I tried Google Ads and it didn’t work”
If that’s your story, you’re not alone, and you’re probably not wrong about what happened. The usual culprits: broad-match keywords pulling in searches that have nothing to do with your trade, no negative keywords filtering out the tyre-kickers, a campaign left switched on and unwatched for months, and clicks landing on a generic homepage instead of a page built to get a phone call. Run it that way and yes, it’ll burn cash and book nothing.
Run it properly, tight keyword targeting, a service-area radius instead of a whole city, negative keywords added weekly, conversion tracking on every call and form, and it flips from a leak into your best source of fast, local jobs.
Where the money gets wasted
The biggest leaks we see when we audit a tradie’s existing account:
- Broad-match keywords paying for searches like “how does plumbing work” instead of “emergency plumber [suburb]”
- No negative keywords, so you’re paying for “plumbing apprenticeship” and “plumber salary” clicks alongside real leads
- City-wide targeting instead of your actual service area, wasting spend on suburbs you’ll never drive to
- A weak or missing landing page, sending the click to your homepage instead of a page built around one clear call-to-action
- Set-and-forget campaigns nobody’s tuned in three months, still bidding on keywords that stopped converting long ago
Tight targeting and a fast website built to convert fix most of it. That last one matters more than tradies expect: the best-targeted click in the world still needs somewhere good to land.
What to expect once it’s running
Budget for a settling-in period. The first few weeks are about Google learning which searches turn into calls for you, not a straight line of leads from day one. Most tradies see cost-per-lead start high and drop as the account gathers data and the keyword list gets tightened. That’s normal.
If it’s still climbing after two or three months of active management, something in the targeting or landing page needs fixing, not more budget thrown at it.
How your budget should move over time
A Google Ads budget isn’t a set-and-forget number. It should shift as your account matures and as your trade’s demand does:
- Month 1–2: hold the recommended starting spend for your tier. This is the data-gathering phase, resist the urge to cut spend just because the first few leads cost more than you’d like.
- Month 3 onwards: as negative keywords build up and the weak searches get filtered out, cost-per-lead should start dropping. This is the point to consider scaling spend on what’s working, rather than spreading thinner across more keywords.
- Seasonal trades: roofers, air-conditioning techs and landscapers often need to flex spend up before their busy season and pull back in the quiet months, rather than running a flat budget year-round.
None of this works without someone actually watching the account week to week. A budget left on autopilot, at any size, drifts back toward the broad-match, wasted-click problem this whole guide is about avoiding.
FAQ
How much should a tradie budget for Google Ads?
Most single-operator tradies start around $650/month management plus up to $2,000/month ad spend. Growing businesses running multiple services or suburbs typically sit in the $1,100/month management plus $2,000–$6,000/month ad spend range. The right number depends on your trade, your competition, and how many suburbs you’re chasing.
What’s a good cost-per-click for a tradie in Australia?
Expect $8 to $30+ per click depending on your trade and suburb, with emergency services (blocked drains, electrical faults) at the higher end. A high click cost isn’t automatically bad, a $25 click that books a $2,000 job is money well spent.
Do Google Ads actually work for trade businesses?
Yes, when they’re managed properly. The tradies who say Ads “don’t work” almost always ran broad, untargeted campaigns pointed at a generic homepage. Tight service-area targeting, negative keywords, and a dedicated landing page are what separate a working campaign from a wasted one.
What’s the difference between ad spend and management fee?
Ad spend goes straight to Google for the clicks, we never mark it up. The management fee pays for the planning, keyword targeting and ongoing tuning that stop that spend being wasted on the wrong searches. Any quote that doesn’t separate the two is one you can’t properly judge.
Get a realistic figure for your trade
Every trade and suburb is different, so we’ll give you a real number, not a rule of thumb, before you commit a cent. We work exclusively with Australian tradies across 19 trades, and Chris, who came off the tools as a pipefitter and boilermaker before running ad campaigns, leads every account personally.
