What a Contractor Marketing Agency Costs and What $5,000 a Month Buys

Here is what agencies that sell to contractors say on their own websites. We opened each page in October 2026 and copied the price as written. Some publish a menu, some publish a floor, and some only say what clients "typically" spend.

Every competitor price links to its source in our notes. RYNO's exact words: "our clients typically invest $5,000 or more into their agency partnership." Prices change, so check the agency's site before you compare.

One pricing guide that AI assistants quote a lot, from Limitless Local, puts contractor agency fees at "$1,000 to $3,000+ per month" for ongoing work and a full-service program at about $2,000 to $5,000. That lines up with the low and middle of the table above. The top of the range is where an agency runs several ad platforms at once.

Mostly it comes down to hours. A $249 plan is mostly software and a templated website that a lot of contractors share. A $5,000 to $11,000 retainer pays for people who log into your ad accounts every week. These four things move the price the most.

1. How many channels they run. One service, like SEO alone, costs less than Local Services Ads, Google Ads, Yelp, the map and reviews together.
2. Who does the work. Ask whether a person reviews your leads weekly or whether a dashboard just sends you a report.
3. Whether ad spend is inside the fee. Some agencies quote a percent of spend. Most charge a flat fee and have Google bill you directly.
4. The contract term. A lower monthly price with a 6 or 12 month term can cost more than a higher price you can cancel.

Cheap is not wrong. If you are a two-truck shop, a $249 website and SEO plan may be all you need. Once you are over about $1M and buying leads from Google, I'd worry less about the retainer and more about the junk lead nobody flagged and the call nobody answered.

It depends on your trade, your market and how many calls you want. Here is real spend from our own accounts so you can see the scale, taken from each client's monthly report. In September 2026 we managed $29,940 of Google Local Services Ads spend across 5 contractor accounts. That produced 274 charged leads, and 152 leads were marked booked by the contractors.

Across 7 contractor accounts, a charged LSA lead cost $96.20 on average from October 2025 to September 2026 ($100,043.13 of spend over 1,040 charged leads). One roofing account carries most of that volume, so read it as a ballpark, not a quote. The full breakdown is in our Google LSA statistics study.

The same budget can look very different from one company to the next. TMC Roofing spent $21,714 in September to hit a 200 to 250 lead goal it set itself. Kinetic Electric spent $269, and one LSA call that month turned into a $23,000 commercial job. Set the budget off the number of booked jobs you can handle, then work back.

DG Agency retainers start at $5,000 a month for home service contractors doing $1M or more in revenue. It is month to month with 30 days' notice. Ad spend goes straight to Google, Yelp and Meta with no markup. Every engagement carries a 90-day guarantee: no measurable result in 90 days and you get the retainer back.

The retainer covers:

• Google Local Services Ads, including a weekly review of every lead
• Google Business Profile management and Google posts
• Local SEO and conversion fixes on your current website
• Yelp advertising and your Yelp page
• Citations on the main directories
• Review monitoring and a reply to every review
• Speed-to-lead follow-up and call tracking
• A monthly call on your numbers with Daniel

We review and rate every LSA lead weekly so Google credits the junk back. A new website is not in the retainer. It is a separate project starting at $5,000. Full details are on the pricing page.

What the money has bought for named clients so far: Legacy Plumbing Group in Oak Harbor, WA went from 15 Google LSA leads in May 2026 to 64 in August. TMC Roofing went from 46 charged LSA leads in January 2026 to 202 in September, and its owner reports revenue grew from $3M to $8M in 12 months. Read the Legacy Plumbing Group and TMC Roofing case studies for the month-by-month numbers, including where cost went up.

Contractors under about $1M in revenue. At that size the retainer usually eats too much of the margin the extra jobs bring in. Running Local Services Ads yourself with 30 minutes a week of lead review is often the smarter move until you are past that point. We say this on the first call.

It is also not for owners who want to run their own ads and only need a setup, or anyone who isn't ready to pay a retainer plus ad spend. If that is you, the cheaper plans in the table above are a fair place to start.

Get these answers in writing, whoever you hire.

1. What is the monthly fee, what is the term and how much notice do I give to cancel?
2. Is ad spend inside the fee or on top, and do you mark it up?
3. Whose name are my Google Business Profile, Local Services Ads account, Google Ads account, domain, website and tracking phone numbers in?
4. Who reviews my leads every week, and how do you get junk leads credited?
5. What do you report on: clicks and leads, or booked jobs and what they were worth?
6. Which contractors in my trade can I call for a reference?

More on picking an agency in our guide to choosing a marketing agency and our list of the best home services marketing agencies. If you are comparing us with a specific firm, see DG Agency vs Hook Agency.

The fee is the same across trades. What changes is the ad spend and which channels carry the load. See how we run it for roofers, plumbers, HVAC companies, electricians and solar installers.