Every consultation starts here, so let’s answer it plainly. Google Ads in Houston costs whatever your market’s auction says — but the ranges are knowable, and more importantly, the number you should actually manage isn’t the click price at all.
What clicks cost in the Houston market
Rough 2026 realities by category: commodity local services (cleaning, lawn care) often run single digits to low teens per click; mainstream home services (plumbing, HVAC, electrical) commonly land in the teens to $40s; the brutal auctions — roofing, water damage, personal injury law — can run $50 to well past $100 per click. Dental, med spa, and professional services typically sit in the teens-to-$30s. Within each category, emergency and "near me" terms price higher than research terms, and storm weeks reprice roofing overnight.
From clicks to leads
If your landing page converts 10% of clicks into calls or forms (a reasonable target; many DIY accounts run 3–5%), a $20 click means a $200 raw lead. Improving that page to 20% halves your lead cost without touching bids — which is why we obsess over landing pages and instant capture before scaling budgets.
The only number that matters: cost per booked job
Leads aren’t revenue. Divide monthly ad spend by jobs actually booked from ads and judge everything by that. A $3,000 budget producing 15 booked jobs at $600 average tickets is a wildly different business than the same spend producing 4. Getting this number requires call tracking and honest attribution — without it you’re steering by vibes.
Sensible starting budgets
Our rule of thumb for Houston SMBs: enough to buy roughly 10–15 clicks a day in your category, sustained for 90 days — less than that and the data never accumulates enough to optimize. For many trades that’s $1,500–$3,000/month; for roofing-tier auctions, more. If that budget scares you, SEO-first might be your path — slower, cheaper, compounding.
Where the waste hides
Broad match drift, no negative keywords, metro-wide targeting, after-hours clicks nobody answers, and — the classic — no follow-up on the leads you paid for. Most "ads don’t work" stories are actually one of these five.
Want your category’s real numbers and a projection for your ZIPs? Ask our AI or email hello@mediajunkie.io — we’ll give you the math before you spend a dollar.