How Much Should a UK Tradesperson Spend on Google Ads Per Month?
Most UK trades should budget between £500 and £1,500 per month to start with Google Ads, with £750 to £1,000 the realistic sweet spot for a single-trade local business. That range covers enough clicks to gather proper data and turn a profit, without gambling money you cannot afford. Your exact number depends on your average job value, how competitive your area is, and how many leads you actually need each month. Below is how to work it out for your own business rather than copying someone else’s figure.
What is the right Google Ads budget for a small trade business?
There is no single correct spend, but there are sensible bands. Going in too low starves the campaign of data and it never learns; going in too high before you have proven the numbers just burns cash. Here is what works for UK trades in 2026.
| Monthly budget | Roughly per day | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| £300 to £500 | £10 to £17 | An absolute minimum test. Slow to gather data, one service, tight area. |
| £500 to £1,000 | £17 to £33 | The sweet spot for most local trades. Consistent, measurable leads. |
| £1,000 to £2,500 | £33 to £82 | Multiple services or a wider area, ready to scale what works. |
| £2,500 and up | £82 and up | Serious scaling across a region. Professional management essential. |
A useful rule of thumb: you want at least £30 a day so Google has enough clicks to learn which searches convert. Below that, the campaign struggles to optimise and results stay patchy.
What does a Google Ads click actually cost for trades?
Your budget only makes sense once you know what a click costs in your trade. In the UK in 2026, home services and trades typically pay £3 to £8 per click, with the average sitting around £3.20 for general home services and climbing higher for competitive emergency work like locksmithing or drainage.
Two things push your cost up:
- Location. London and the big cities run roughly 15 to 30 percent higher per click than the rest of the UK.
- Urgency. “Emergency plumber near me” costs far more than “bathroom fitting quote” because the intent to buy right now is sky high.
So if your clicks cost £5 and you spend £750 a month, you are buying roughly 150 clicks. The question then becomes how many of those clicks turn into calls and jobs.
How do I work out my own budget?
Do not start with the spend. Start with the job you want and work backwards. This five-step method gives you a number that fits your business.
- Set your monthly revenue target from Google Ads. Say you want £6,000 in new work a month.
- Divide by your average job value to get customers needed. At a £750 average job, that is 8 customers.
- Divide by your close rate to get leads needed. If you win 1 in 2 quotes, you need 16 leads.
- Divide by your landing page conversion rate to get clicks needed. A good trade landing page converts around 8 percent, so 16 leads needs about 200 clicks.
- Multiply clicks by your CPC, then add a 30 percent buffer. 200 clicks at £5 is £1,000, plus buffer is roughly £1,300 a month.
Change any number and your budget changes with it. A higher job value or a better close rate means you can afford more per click and still profit. This is exactly the kind of maths we run in our pay-per-click management before spending a penny of your money.
Is a cost per lead more useful than a budget?
Yes. A budget is an input; cost per lead is the number that tells you whether Google Ads is working. For UK trades, a healthy cost per lead often lands somewhere between £30 and £60, depending on trade and area. As a real-world benchmark, a landscaping business spending £750 a month at a £3.50 click cost and an 8 percent conversion rate saw a cost per lead of around £44 and a return on ad spend near 6.8 to 1.
The point is simple: if you know a lead costs you £44 and a job is worth £750, the spend answers itself. Track leads properly and the budget stops being a guess. If you are weighing paid ads against organic growth, our guide on PPC versus SEO shows where each one earns its place.
Would Local Services Ads be cheaper than Search Ads?
Often, yes. Google Local Services Ads charge you per lead, not per click, which many trades find easier to control and to trust. You appear at the very top with a “Google Verified” tick (formerly “Google Guaranteed”), and you can dispute leads that are clearly not genuine. For a lot of trades the smartest setup is Local Services Ads for the bread-and-butter emergency work, with Search Ads covering the services LSA does not, plus retargeting. We cover the full picture on our Local Services Ads page.
How do I stop wasting my budget?
Most trades who say “Google Ads did not work” were quietly losing money to fixable problems. Protect your spend by doing this from day one:
- Add negative keywords. Block “jobs”, “salary”, “DIY”, “free” and “course” so you stop paying for clicks from people who will never hire you.
- Send clicks to a dedicated landing page, not your homepage. One service, one area, a phone number top and bottom, and clear proof.
- Turn on call tracking. Trades win most jobs on the phone, so if you are not tracking calls you are flying blind.
- Only advertise when you can answer. A missed call is a paid-for lead handed to a competitor. If you cannot always pick up, look at our advice on Google Ads for UK trades and how to plug the gaps.
How long before Google Ads works?
Commit to at least three months. The first four to six weeks are a learning phase where Google works out which searches convert for you, so early cost per lead looks worse than it will settle at. Real optimisation happens in months two and three, when the data is rich enough to cut the losers and pour budget into the winners. Businesses that panic and switch off after three weeks almost always quit right before it starts to pay. When it is set up and managed properly, the results speak for themselves: we delivered a 588 percent return on ad spend for Get Off Road and tripled the inbound calls for Yorkshire Auto Locksmith.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run Google Ads on £300 a month?
You can, but treat it as a small test in one service and one tight area. At around £10 a day it takes longer to gather data, so give it a full three months before judging it. Most trades see steadier results from £500 a month upward.
How much do agencies charge to manage Google Ads?
In the UK, freelancers typically charge £200 to £800 a month and small agencies £500 to £1,500, while larger accounts often move to a percentage model of around 5 to 15 percent of ad spend. Always keep management and ad spend as separate figures so you can see exactly where your money goes.
Is Google Ads or SEO better for a trade business?
They do different jobs. Google Ads buys leads today, while SEO builds free leads over time. Most trades start with ads for cash flow, then invest in SEO so they are not renting all their traffic forever.
Should I pause my ads in a quiet season?
Rather than switching off completely and losing your learning data, lower the budget and lean into seasonal demand. A heating engineer, for example, should push harder into autumn and winter rather than going dark.
Get your Google Ads budget right the first time
The businesses that win with Google Ads are not the ones that spend the most. They are the ones that spend with a plan, track every lead, and cut what does not work. If you would like a straight answer on the right budget for your trade and area, talk to Unavoidable Marketing about managed Google Ads. We will model your numbers first, so you know what to expect before you spend a thing.