Cost per lead Australia: what a lead costs, by industry

Most cost per lead figures you'll find for Australia are American averages converted into dollars. We went to the source instead: what advertisers bid for the searches Australian customers actually make, across 13 industries and 56 searches, from Ahrefs' Australian data in November 2026. Here is what a click costs, what that means for a lead at three conversion rates, and how to work out your own number.

Key takeaways

• A plumbing click is the most expensive of the 13 industries we looked at, at a median of about $12. A physio or allied health click is the cheapest, at about $2.65.
• The same click can cost four times as much in one industry as another, so a "good" cost per lead only means something within your own industry.
• At a 10% conversion rate, a plumbing lead costs about $122 and a physio lead about $27. At 5%, double it.
• Your conversion rate moves your cost per lead as much as the price of the click does, and it is the part you control.
• Meta doesn't publish its auction prices, so no honest Australian cost per lead table by industry exists for it. We explain what to compare instead.

What a Google Ads click costs in Australia, by industry

Each figure is the median cost per click (CPC) across the searches we picked for that industry: the ones a customer types when they're ready to call someone, like "emergency plumber" or "family lawyer melbourne". The range shows the cheapest and dearest search in the set. Prices are in Australian dollars.

Industry	Searches	Median cost per click	Range
Plumbing	6	$12.18	$8.60 to $14.33
Removalists	3	$8.60	$5.73 to $15.77
Lawyers	5	$7.17	$0.72 to $14.33
Pest control	3	$7.17	$6.45 to $7.17
Software (business)	4	$6.81	$0.43 to $14.33
Accountants and bookkeepers	4	$6.09	$3.58 to $11.47
Roofing	4	$5.73	$1.58 to $7.17
Electrical	5	$5.02	$0.22 to $5.73
Real estate	4	$4.30	$1.15 to $11.47
Solar	4	$3.94	$1.86 to $5.73
Dentists	4	$3.23	$2.58 to $6.45
Builders and renovations	6	$2.87	$1.72 to $6.45
Physio and allied health	4	$2.65	$2.29 to $2.87

Two things stand out. Urgent jobs cost the most: "interstate removalists", "hot water repair" and "emergency plumber" are among the dearest clicks in the set, because the person searching will book today. And wide ranges, like lawyers' 72 cents to $14.33, come from mixing very different searches: "family lawyer melbourne" is fought over, while "personal injury lawyer" draws far fewer bids in Ahrefs' data.

What that means for your cost per lead

Cost per lead is the cost of a click divided by the share of clicks that become an enquiry (your conversion rate). A $10 click with one enquiry in ten clicks is a $100 lead. The table shows each industry's median click at three conversion rates: 15% (a strong, well-built landing page for an urgent need), 10% (solid) and 5% (common for a home page or a slow, unclear site).

Industry	At 15%	At 10%	At 5%
Plumbing	$81	$122	$244
Removalists	$57	$86	$172
Lawyers	$48	$72	$143
Pest control	$48	$72	$143
Software (business)	$45	$68	$136
Accountants and bookkeepers	$41	$61	$122
Roofing	$38	$57	$115
Electrical	$33	$50	$100
Real estate	$29	$43	$86
Solar	$26	$39	$79
Dentists	$22	$32	$65
Builders and renovations	$19	$29	$57
Physio and allied health	$18	$27	$53

The gap between the columns is the point. A plumber converting one click in twenty pays $244 a lead. The same plumber converting three in twenty pays $81, for the same clicks at the same price. Most of what an agency can do for your cost per lead happens on that side of the sum: the landing page, the call button, the speed of the site, and whether the ad promised what the page delivers.

How to work out your own cost per lead

1. Take your spend for the month from Google Ads (Campaigns, then the Cost column).
2. Count your real enquiries from ads in the same month: forms, calls and bookings. Count the people who got in touch, and leave out taps on a phone number.
3. Divide spend by enquiries. $3,000 and 40 enquiries is a $75 lead.
4. Compare it with the 10% column for your industry. Well above it usually points to the conversion step rather than the bidding.

Step two is where most businesses get stuck. In our Melbourne AI visibility study, 28% of trades and building websites loaded no analytics at all and none had call tracking we could find, so many can't count their enquiries by source. If you can't do step two, fix that first: a cost per lead you can't measure can't be improved.

How to estimate a Meta cost per lead

Google publishes what advertisers bid for each search through its Keyword Planner, which is where tools like Ahrefs get their figures. Meta publishes nothing like it. Meta sets its prices by audience, placement, season and creative rather than by the search, so every "Facebook cost per lead by industry" table you'll see is one agency's own accounts, a survey, or converted American data.

What we can say from how the two platforms work:

• Meta leads are usually cheaper and colder. Someone filling in a form in their feed wasn't looking for you a minute earlier. Someone searching "emergency plumber" was.
• Compare what each customer costs, which matters more than the cost per lead. A $30 Meta lead that books one time in ten costs $300 a job. An $80 Google lead that books one time in two costs $160.
• Instant forms inflate the numbers. Meta's built-in lead forms make it easy to submit without meaning it. Count the leads you reach and qualify, and leave out forms nobody follows up.

How we did it

• Source: Ahrefs Keywords Explorer, Australia, pulled 4 November 2026. Ahrefs' cost per click is based on Google's advertiser data and is given in US dollars.
• Currency: converted at the Reserve Bank of Australia's rate on 3 November 2026 (US$0.6976 to the Australian dollar).
• Searches: 56 searches across 13 industries, chosen as what a customer types when they're ready to enquire. Most name Melbourne or "near me". The full list is in the table below.
• Conversion rates: 5%, 10% and 15% are scenarios to compare against, and your real rate will differ. Your own rate is the number that matters.
• Limits: cost per click is an average of what advertisers pay, which swings by time of day, location and competition. Treat these as a starting point to compare against; a quote comes from your own numbers.

The data is free to reuse with a link to this page as the source. We'll update it every six months.

The data

Industry	Search	Searches a month	Cost per click
Plumbing	plumber near me	16,000	$10.03
Plumbing	emergency plumber	6,000	$12.90
Plumbing	plumber melbourne	2,600	$8.60
Plumbing	blocked drain plumber	1,700	$12.90
Plumbing	gas plumber	1,300	$11.47
Plumbing	hot water repair	450	$14.33
Electrical	electrician near me	17,000	$5.73
Electrical	emergency electrician	3,200	$3.58
Electrical	commercial electrician	2,000	$0.22
Electrical	electrician melbourne	1,400	$5.73
Electrical	switchboard upgrade	1,300	$5.02
Builders and renovations	bathroom renovations melbourne	1,700	$2.87
Builders and renovations	kitchen renovations melbourne	1,600	$5.02
Builders and renovations	home builders melbourne	800	$2.29
Builders and renovations	builders melbourne	600	$2.87
Builders and renovations	renovation builders	450	$1.72
Builders and renovations	extension builders	200	$6.45
Roofing	roof repairs	2,200	$1.58
Roofing	roof restoration melbourne	900	$5.73
Roofing	roofer near me	800	$7.17
Roofing	roofing melbourne	600	$5.73
Solar	solar battery installation	2,300	$4.30
Solar	solar panels melbourne	1,500	$3.58
Solar	solar installers	1,100	$5.73
Solar	solar panels cost	700	$1.86
Lawyers	personal injury lawyer	2,800	$0.72
Lawyers	divorce lawyer	1,500	$7.17
Lawyers	wills and estates lawyer	1,400	$2.87
Lawyers	conveyancing melbourne	1,100	$10.03
Lawyers	family lawyer melbourne	800	$14.33
Accountants and bookkeepers	tax accountant	2,300	$3.58
Accountants and bookkeepers	small business accountant	1,100	$11.47
Accountants and bookkeepers	accountant melbourne	700	$3.58
Accountants and bookkeepers	bookkeeper melbourne	350	$8.60
Dentists	emergency dentist	2,000	$2.87
Dentists	dentist melbourne	1,700	$3.58
Dentists	dental implants melbourne	1,600	$2.58
Dentists	invisalign melbourne	600	$6.45
Physio and allied health	physiotherapist near me	2,200	$2.87
Physio and allied health	chiropractor melbourne	500	$2.87
Physio and allied health	podiatrist melbourne	400	$2.29
Physio and allied health	physio melbourne	350	$2.44
Real estate	property valuation	3,500	$1.15
Real estate	sell my house	1,000	$11.47
Real estate	property management melbourne	300	$5.73
Real estate	real estate agent melbourne	150	$2.87
Removalists	removalists melbourne	4,300	$8.60
Removalists	interstate removalists	2,200	$15.77
Removalists	furniture removalists	1,100	$5.73
Pest control	pest control near me	9,300	$6.45
Pest control	termite inspection	3,900	$7.17
Pest control	pest control melbourne	1,900	$7.17
Software (business)	crm software	2,500	$5.02
Software (business)	accounting software	2,400	$8.60
Software (business)	payroll software	2,000	$14.33
Software (business)	project management software	1,500	$0.43

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