Playbook · Guide Nº 001
What a drywall lead actually costs.
Updated July 31, 2026 · Data: Patch-It-Now, Kansas City metro · Source: Google Local Services Ads billing
The answer: in the Kansas City metro in 2026, one real drywall company pays $36.77–$46.66 per charged Google Local Services lead, averaging $42.22 across 200 charged leads from January 1 to July 30, 2026 — total spend$8,443.23. Those are billing numbers, not estimates, and the dashboards are below.
Why you can't find this number anywhere else
Search "drywall lead cost" and everyone ranking has something to sell you: lead brokers quoting the prices they charge, and aggregate benchmarks with no named business, no screenshots, and no methodology you can audit. This page is one company, fully shown. It's my dad's company — that relationship is disclosed everywhere on this site, and it's exactly why I'm allowed to publish the billing screens.
The awkward truth: drywall doesn't exist in LSA
Google's Local Services Ads taxonomy has no drywall category. None. This account runs under the Handyman category with exactly 2 of its 14 job types switched on — "Repair drywall" and "Install drywall" — so every dollar targets drywall work while the category machinery thinks it's a handyman account. If a marketer promises you "a drywall LSA campaign" without mentioning this, they haven't run one.
Two more facts your last sales call probably got wrong: the badge is "Google Verified" now — the old Google Guaranteed and Google Screened badges were retired in October 2025, along with the consumer money-back guarantee. And nobody can "dispute your bad leads" anymore: credits are automated, reviewed by Google within about 72 hours, with no human appeals process to sell you.
Month by month, with receipts
| Month (2026) | Charged leads | Lead spend | Cost per charged lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| April | 22 | $1,026.57 | $46.66 |
| May | 31 | $1,286.39 | $41.50 |
| June | 44 | $1,617.81 | $36.77 |
| July (to the 30th) | 51 | $2,041.03 | $40.02 |
| Jan 1 – Jul 30 total | 200 | $8,443.23 | $42.22 avg |
"Charged leads" is Google's billing count after automated credits. Counting every lead that hit the inbox — credited and uncharged included — July was 63. I quote the charged series because it's what the money actually bought.
How that compares to the published benchmarks
The only serious public LSA numbers are SearchLight Digital's aggregates (February 2026): roughly $39 per lead for electricians, $51 for HVAC, $57 for plumbers, about $54 blended, with a 43.9% booking rate. Useful directional data — and still anonymous, unauditable, and averaged across markets. One named account with its billing screens beats a thousand-account average you have to take on faith. That's the standard this page holds itself to; refreshed monthly with the new real month.
The free leads next door
The ad account is half the story. The same company's website took 29 quote requests in July (21 in June — the form only went live May 31), and the Google Business Profile logged 120 calls from February through July. Those channels cost setup work, not per-lead dollars — which is why the blended cost of a booked drywall job is lower than any per-lead price quoted above.
One warning about every number above
Google is folding Local Services Ads into Google Ads as Performance Max pay-per-lead campaigns. Phase 1 starts August 2026 for plumbing, HVAC, electrical, cleaning, lawn care, and pest control; service-area businesses follow late 2026, and manual lead bidding is being deprecated. Handyman-category accounts like this one aren't in the first wave, but the pricing mechanics behind every CPL on this page are changing within the year. When the migration hits this account, this page gets the before/after — same dashboards, same candor.
Running drywall ads — or thinking about it — and want your numbers to look like June's? The audit is one phone call and it's free. Get your lead-flow audit or read the full case study.