How do Google Local Services Ads charge per lead?
What Google counts as a paid lead in Local Services Ads, which calls and messages are free, how credits for bad leads work, and how the weekly budget caps your monthly spend.
You pay Google for each valid lead, and nothing for the ad being shown or clicked. A lead is a call you answer or return, a missed call during business hours where the caller stays on the line more than 20 seconds, a voicemail, a text or email, or a booking request in the US or Canada. Google prices each lead based on your location, the job type, the lead type and the bidding mode you set.
## What counts as a charged lead
Google's help page on how leads work spells out each kind of contact.
- **Phone calls.** A call counts if you or your staff answer it, or if you call back and speak with the customer. A missed call during business hours also counts when the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds. If your phone system plays a menu, the timer starts after the caller's first key press. - **Voicemail.** A voicemail left by the customer counts. - **Messages.** Texts and emails from customers count. Google says message leads are usually priced lower than phone leads, based on how likely the customer is to book. - **Bookings.** A booking request counts, in the United States and Canada only.
## What you are not charged for
The same page lists contacts that should not cost you anything:
- Spam and duplicate contacts that Google's systems filter out. - A missed call where the caller hangs up at your phone menu without pressing a key, even if the menu ran more than 20 seconds. - Missed calls outside your business hours or outside your active ad schedule. - A repeat contact from the same number or email within 15 days of a charged lead. After 15 days with no contact, the next one is a new lead.
That 15-day rule is worth knowing before you call a customer back from a different line or ask them to text a second number. It keeps one job from being billed twice.
## Getting credit for bad leads
Google reassesses charged leads over a 30-day period. If it finds one was poor quality, a duplicate or invalid, the credit goes to your account balance automatically. You can also report a lead through the feedback survey on the Leads page. Google says it may occasionally credit leads you report, which is short of a promise.
The Charge Status column on the Leads page shows each lead as Charged, Not charged, In review or Credited. Credits are not available for health care, tax specialists or advertisers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
## How the budget works
You set an average weekly budget based on how many leads you want each week. Any one week can go over that average. The month cannot. Google sets a monthly maximum equal to the weekly budget times the average number of weeks in a month, and once you hit it, your ad stops showing until the month ends or you raise the budget. Billing runs through Google Ads, so a suspended Google Ads account also suspends your Local Services Ads.
## Is it the right fix for fewer leads?
Local Services Ads put you in front of people who are already searching, so they help most when the gap is demand. If plenty of people call and few become jobs, buying more calls makes the leak bigger. Before you set a budget, the six questions on this site find which stage between interest and a signed job is short, and point you to the fix for that stage.