Published November 4, 2026 · by Luis Gomez · The only lead costs on this page come from one drywall account, my father’s, screenshotted in the case study; every electrical figure is labelled an example, and I show you how to pull your own.
Short answer: The cheapest electrical leads come from a Google Business Profile with the exact “Electrician” category, photos of clean panel work and reviews that name the job (free calls: 120 in six months for the one drywall listing I publish). Next is Local Services Ads, where Electrician is a category billed per charged lead, then a website with a page per money job, then referral partners who find electrical problems first: home inspectors, realtors, solar installers, HVAC and plumbing companies. The drywall numbers are first-party; the electrical ticket sizes are examples, and paying under a third of revenue per lead is a rule of thumb.
I run the marketing for one drywall repair company in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, and I publish its dashboards. I have not run an electrical account, so there is no electrician cost per lead here that I can’t screenshot: you get the plan that produced 52 charged leads in July 2026 for that drywall shop, mapped onto how electrical work is bought. The version I’d run for your shop is on the marketing for electricians page.
First, the math an electrical job has to clear
A lead here can be a $200 service call or a whole-house rewire, so run the sheet per job type. The tickets below are examples picked from inside the ballpark ranges on the electrician page (service calls $200 to $600, panel upgrades $2,000 to $4,500, EV charger installs $800 to $2,500, market ballparks, not client claims); the close rates are illustrations too. Put your own book in each row.
| Job type (example only) | Example ticket | Example close rate | Revenue per lead | Max to pay per lead (about ⅓) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Service call | $400 | 5 in 10 | $200 | $67 |
| EV charger install | $1,500 | 4 in 10 | $600 | $200 |
| Panel upgrade | $3,000 | 3 in 10 | $900 | $300 |
The rule of thumb is from the LSA cost-per-lead guide: revenue per lead should be at least three times what the lead costs, and if you close under 40% of Local Services Ads calls the problem is the phone, not the ads. The table also shows what most electricians miss: a lead price that is a bargain on a panel upgrade is a loss on a fixture swap, so job-type selection, not budget, is the dial that matters. The electrician page runs the same math on gross profit: say $350 kept from a booked job and four leads in ten booking, and about $140 rides on every lead.
1. The Google map listing (free, and it wins the research before a panel job)
A homeowner about to spend four figures on a panel upgrade reads everything before calling, and the map pack is where that comparison happens; a profile with nine reviews and no photos is eliminated before the phone rings. The profile is free. In order:
- Primary category exactly “Electrician.” Not the generic “Contractor.” It is the biggest ranking lever you control; secondaries only for work you really do.
- Service-area business, address hidden, with the cities you’ll actually roll a truck to, up to 20. Rank follows proximity to the verified address, not the length of the list.
- Photos that prove competence: a finished panel with the breakers labelled in your handwriting next to the before shot, an EV charger on a garage wall with the conduit run straight, a generator on its pad. Homeowners can’t judge wiring by a logo; they can judge a panel photo.
- Reviews that name the job. Ask by text within the hour of closeout, with the profile’s own review link, and ask for the words: “panel upgrade,” “EV charger,” “rewire.” The drywall listing I run sits at 5.0 stars with 89 reviews and outranks a 471-review national franchise, because recency and relevance count, not just totals.
- Services list in the words homeowners type: panel upgrade, EV charger installation, generator installation, whole-house rewire, lighting installation, ceiling fan installation, outlet and switch repair, troubleshooting. Leave off the work you don’t want.
- Q&A you seed yourself: “Are you licensed and insured?” (answer with the license number), “Do you pull permits?”, “Do you give free estimates on panel upgrades?”
License and permits are the trust angle in this trade: a homeowner can’t check your wiring, but they can check that a license number is on the profile, that you pull the permit on a panel change, and that an inspector signs off. Say all three in the description too.
The one listing I publish produced 120 calls straight from the Business Profile from February through July 2026, about 21 a month once everything else was running, at zero cost. The 31-point order is in the Business Profile checklist; I run it as a service if you’d rather be on the ladder.
2. Local Services Ads (Electrician is a category; your license is the door)
These are the results at the very top of Google with the Google Verified checkmark, billed per charged lead, not per click. Electrician is one of the 36 home-service categories Google offers in 2026, and one of the categories that require a license check in most states; the categories guide has the list, and the sign-up flow for your state shows what it asks for. The badge replaced Google Guaranteed on October 20, 2025, and the money-back guarantee ended November 7, 2025, so a pitch still promising it is dated (the badge, explained).
The electrician page’s read is that fewer shops run these ads well, so the top spot tends to cost less than in the crowded trades; I have not run an electrical account, so treat that as a pattern, not a number. The only account I publish, drywall repair in the Kansas City metro, ran $36.77 to $46.66 per charged lead from April to July 2026, with 52 charged leads in July at $39.89 (month-by-month table). A panel job doesn’t have to clear that bar; it has to clear yours.
What decides whether it pays for an electrician:
- Job types are your margin dial. Turn on the work you want more of: panel upgrades, EV charger installs, generator installs, rewires, lighting, and service calls if your estimate hours can take them. Turn off whatever Google calls the small fixture-and-fan work if those quotes never pay for the truck roll; since Google cut the “job type not serviced” credit, job types are the only filter you have.
- Answer live during the hours you list. From October 1, 2026 a missed call during listed business hours can be charged as a lead if the caller stays on the line more than about 20 seconds (migration email checklist). Response rate feeds the ranking too.
- Rate bad leads the day they land. No dispute button any more; Google’s automated review credits obvious junk within about 72 hours, and a “Very dissatisfied” rating gets a borderline lead looked at again.
- A budget that stays on all week, or the ads go dark for the back half of the week, when the breaker that won’t reset becomes an emergency search.
- The migration. Google is moving these ads into Google Ads as a pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign type from August 2026, and electrical is on the list for the first wave (accounts with home or storefront service; service-area businesses without storefronts follow in late 2026). Export your lead history before the account moves; the weekly budget becomes a daily budget (divided by 7) with a monthly cap of the daily figure times 30.4 (budget guide, migration guide).
Your own number takes five minutes: start the LSA sign-up for Electrician in your ZIP, stop at the budget step, and screenshot Google’s estimated cost per lead and leads per week for your area, then compare it to the right-hand column of your table. The method is in LSA cost per lead by trade; running the account is what I do under Local Services Ads management.
3. A website that asks for the panel job (free after the build)
The listing gets the call; the website is where panel and EV charger customers check prices and licensing before they call, and where the quote requests come from. The drywall site I rebuilt had never had a quote form; it went live May 31, 2026, and July brought 29 quote requests, about one a day, with paid search switched off.
- One page per money job: panel upgrade, EV charger installation, generator installation, whole-house rewire, lighting, electrical repair, each with a price range in your own numbers and what moves it (service size, meter location, the run to the garage, the utility’s rules).
- License, insurance and permits on every page, the license number in the footer, and a line that says you pull the permit and the inspection is part of the job.
- Ask for the job on every page: a short form and a phone number that gets answered. A drywall site I rebuilt went from a 1.93% to a 10.51% conversion rate on the same traffic by making the ask (the story). What I build is on the websites that rank page.
4. Google Ads search campaigns (small, exact match, after the first three)
Exact-match terms like “panel upgrade {city}” and “EV charger installer {city}” catch the research searches that never touch the map; broad match pays for “electrician jobs” and “how to wire an outlet.” Run it small, with negatives and call tracking, and only after the listing, the ads and the site are converting. What I’d run.
5. Referral partners who find electrical problems first
Every home inspector who writes up a double-tapped breaker or an old panel, every realtor holding an inspection repair list, every solar installer whose array needs a service upgrade and a licensed tie-in, every HVAC company setting a heat pump that needs a new circuit, every plumber installing a tankless water heater, every remodeler opening a kitchen, every builder who needs a service and a rough-in: all of them need an electrician who shows up, pulls the permit, and makes them look good. List 30 in your metro, drop off a card and a one-line offer (“send me the inspection report or a photo of the panel, I’ll quote it the same day, and your customer never hears a price you didn’t approve”), and follow up once a month. Slow to start, then it doesn’t stop.
6. Property managers and small commercial service work
Panels, code fixes and remodel wiring don’t care about the weather, which is why the electrician page calls this the steadiest schedule in the trades, and property managers are the steadiest customers inside it: tenant turnovers, code calls, exterior lighting, the dryer circuit that keeps tripping. Small commercial is the same story: tenant build-outs, restaurant equipment circuits, lighting retrofits. Offer the management companies in your metro a response window and a flat trip fee; one of them can keep a truck busy. Storm season is the exception: the surge-fried panel is an emergency search, and the generator quoted before the season is a planned job.
What I would not do
- Buy shared leads from the big marketplaces. You’re the third electrician calling the same homeowner about a $200 service call, and you pay whether or not they answer. The panel customers who research for weeks aren’t on those lists anyway.
- Turn on every job type in the Electrician category. Every job type you switch on is a search you’re bidding for, and the small fixture work books estimate hours a panel customer wanted.
- Let the office phone go to voicemail during the day. Under the October 1, 2026 rule a missed call during listed hours can be a charged lead if the caller stays on the line more than about 20 seconds; a phone that rings out at lunch costs the job and the bill. Forward it to a human.
The 30-day plan
| Week | Do this |
|---|---|
| 1 | Business Profile: exact “Electrician” category, service areas, 10 photos of clean panel and charger work, services list, license number in the description, seeded Q&As, review link saved as a text template. Website: phone in the header, form on every page. |
| 2 | Local Services Ads: license and insurance documents in, job types set to the money jobs only, weekly budget that stays on all week, bad leads rated daily. Phone forwarded to a human during listed hours. |
| 3 | Referral list of 30 (inspectors, realtors, solar, HVAC, plumbers, remodelers, builders, property managers); first pass. Add the panel upgrade and EV charger pages with price ranges. |
| 4 | Read the numbers: charged leads, cost per lead by job type, calls from the map, form requests, response rate. Kill nothing yet; most channels need eight weeks. Text every finished customer for a review that names the job. |
Questions electricians ask
How do I get electrical leads fast? Local Services Ads with your license on file and a phone answered live. Once screening clears, the ads and the map listing produce calls within days; the website and referral partners take months and then keep going.
How much do electrician leads cost? I don’t publish numbers I haven’t run, and I haven’t run an electrical account. The drywall account I do publish cost $36.77 to $46.66 per charged lead in Kansas City from April to July 2026. Pull Google’s own estimate for Electrician in your ZIP with the five-minute method in LSA cost per lead by trade and compare it to a third of your revenue per lead, job type by job type.
Is Electrician a Local Services Ads category? Yes, one of the 36 home-service categories Google offers in 2026, and it requires a license check in most states; the sign-up flow shows what your state asks for. The badge on the ad is Google Verified, which replaced Google Guaranteed on October 20, 2025.
Should I turn on EV charger installs? If you want the work, yes, with a page on the site and photos on the listing to match, because those searches are research-heavy and reward the profile that looks credible. If the mix skews toward charger quotes that don’t book, turn the job type off.
What does the LSA migration change for electricians? The ads move into Google Ads as a pay-per-lead Performance Max campaign type from August 2026, with electrical on the first-wave list (accounts with home or storefront service; service-area businesses without storefronts follow in late 2026). Export your lead history before the move; the weekly budget becomes a daily budget divided by 7 with a monthly cap of the daily figure times 30.4; and from October 1, 2026 a missed call during listed hours can be a charged lead if the caller stays on the line more than about 20 seconds.
Want the electrician version of this built on your numbers instead of mine? The electrician plan shows what I’d run. Or send your trade and your number and I’ll record a short walkthrough of your listing, your ads and your site, with the three fixes I’d make first, free, whether or not you hire me. Get the free audit →