How Much Should an HVAC Company Spend on Marketing in 2026?

The HVAC owner I analyzed last month was spending $11,400/month on marketing.

He had no idea if it was working.

His Google Ads agency sent him a report every month. Click-through rates. Impressions. Quality scores. Twelve pages of data that answered every question except the one that actually matters:

How much is this costing me per booked job?

He didn’t know. His agency didn’t tell him. And because he didn’t know, he had no way to decide if $11,400 was the right number — or if he was $4,000 over budget, or $4,000 under it.

This article fixes that. By the end, you’ll know:

• What HVAC companies at different revenue levels actually spend on marketing
• The one number that tells you if your budget is right or wrong
• A simple formula to calculate your correct marketing spend in under 10 minutes
• The three places most HVAC companies leak budget without knowing it

The Number Everyone Gets Wrong

Most articles about marketing budgets say something like: “spend 5–12% of revenue on marketing.”

That advice is almost useless for an HVAC company. Here’s why.

A replacement company (focused on system installs) and a service-and-repair shop have completely different economics. The replacement company might have a $9,000 average ticket. The repair shop might average $280. The same percentage of revenue produces a wildly different cost per booked job — which changes everything about how much you should spend.

The right question isn’t “what percentage of revenue should I spend?”

The right question is: “What am I paying to get a booked job, and is that number good or bad?”

That one number — cost per booked job — is the only marketing benchmark that actually matters.

What the Data Shows: HVAC Marketing Spend by Revenue

According to multiple industry sources including ServiceTitan’s contractor benchmarks and industry analysis from 720 Digital, HVAC companies typically invest 7–10% of revenue on marketing, with 60–70% of that going to digital channels.

Here’s how that breaks down by company size:

Understanding your true cost per booked job — not just total spend — is what separates profitable HVAC operators from ones funding their agency’s growth.

The top 25% of HVAC companies — the ones that know their numbers — typically run at $180–$320 cost per booked job. Companies in the bottom half are often at $500–$900+ without knowing it.

Here’s what separates them: top performers track cost per booked job by channel, not total spend. They know Google Ads is producing jobs at $340 each and their LSA program is producing jobs at $180. They cut channels running above their threshold. The bottom half look at the total monthly invoice and hope for the best.

The Budget Formula (Do This in 10 Minutes)

Here’s the formula to calculate what you should spend:

Step 1: Find your average ticket What’s the average revenue per job — across all job types, all seasons? Get this from your accounting software: total revenue for last 12 months ÷ total jobs completed.

Step 2: Decide your maximum cost per booked job A healthy benchmark for HVAC: 8–12% of average ticket. If your average ticket is $1,800, your maximum cost per booked job should be $144–$216.

Replacement-heavy shops with $6,000+ average tickets can afford to spend $480–$720 per booked job. Service-heavy shops at $350 average need to stay under $42. This is why percentage-of-revenue advice fails — ticket size changes everything.

Step 3: Find your current close rate Of every call that comes in, what percentage turns into a booked, completed job? Most HVAC companies believe this is 35–45%. When actually tracked, it’s usually 22–32%.

Step 4: Calculate the number of calls you need How many jobs do you want to book per month? Divide by your close rate to find calls needed.

Example: 80 jobs ÷ 28% close rate = 286 calls needed per month.

Step 5: Calculate your max monthly budget 286 calls × your cost per call threshold = max budget.

If you’re paying $35 per call (reasonable for LSA) and need 286 calls: $10,010/month max budget.

The formula is simple. The discipline to track it consistently is where most owners fall short.

The 3 Places HVAC Companies Leak Marketing Budget

Even companies spending the right total amount lose money in predictable places. Here’s where to look.

Leak #1: Phone Handling

This is the single most overlooked variable in HVAC marketing.

Data from Hatch, which has analyzed over 1 million contractor call interactions, shows the average HVAC company answers roughly 68% of inbound calls. That means 32 out of every 100 calls they paid to generate go unanswered.

At $35 cost per call and 300 calls/month: that’s $3,360/month spent generating calls nobody answers.

Even among answered calls, booking rates vary wildly. Top performers book 65–75% of answered calls. Industry average is closer to 40–50%. That gap — on 300 calls/month — is the difference between 90 booked jobs and 150. Same budget. Same ads. Completely different revenue.

The fix: Track your answer rate and booking rate separately. Both numbers should live on a dashboard your CSR manager sees every day.

Leak #2: Wrong Channel Mix

Not all call sources are equal, and the most popular channels are often the most expensive.

According to 720 Digital’s 2025 HVAC marketing benchmarks, the average cost per click for HVAC keywords reached $32.77 in 2025, up from $29.03 in 2024. Here’s how that translates to cost per call across channels:

Most HVAC companies spending $8,000+/month are over-indexed on Google Ads and under-invested in LSAs and their own GBP optimization. Moving $2,000/month from broad Google Ads to LSAs typically reduces cost per call by 30–40%.

Leak #3: No Measurement System

The third leak isn’t a channel — it’s the absence of tracking.

Notably, research from HVAC Webmasters found that roughly 7 out of 10 HVAC companies with digital marketing agencies are unsatisfied with their results — largely because of a lack of billing transparency and no clear connection between spend and booked jobs.

If you can’t answer these four questions right now, you have a measurement problem:

1. What’s my cost per booked job this month?
2. Which channel produced the most jobs last month?
3. What’s my average ticket by channel?
4. What’s my close rate on calls from Google Ads vs. LSAs vs. Angi?

If you’re relying on your agency to tell you the answers, you’re getting the version they want you to see. Track calls by source and jobs by source — separately, in your own system.

What “Good” Looks Like at Different Revenue Levels

Here’s a benchmark table based on top-quartile HVAC companies. These are the numbers you’re aiming for:

Top-performing HVAC companies track marketing performance per truck, not just per campaign.

If you’re below these numbers in any row, that’s a revenue leak. Every one of these is fixable — and most don’t require spending more money.

The Real Answer to “How Much Should I Spend?”

Here’s the honest answer that most consultants won’t give you:

Spend exactly as much as produces a job at or below your cost-per-job threshold — and not a dollar more.

If your threshold is $300/booked job and you’ve found channels producing jobs at $220, spend more on those channels. If you’re spending $500/booked job on a channel and can’t fix it, cut it — no matter what your agency says.

The right budget isn’t a percentage. It’s not what your competitor spends. It’s not what your agency recommends. It’s the answer to one question:

At what point does the next dollar I spend stop producing jobs at a price that makes sense?

That’s your ceiling. Everything below it is the right budget. Everything above it is overhead you’re funding for your agency.

How to Know If Your Budget Is Right or Wrong (Right Now)

Run through this quick diagnostic:

1. Do you know your cost per booked job — by channel — for last month? If no: fix the measurement before changing the spend.

2. Is your phone answer rate above 85%? If no: you’re losing 15%+ of every marketing dollar before it has a chance to work.

3. Is your booking rate above 55% of answered calls? If no: your CSR process is costing you more than your marketing budget.

4. Are any channels producing jobs above 15% of your average ticket? If yes: those channels need to be fixed or cut.

5. Are you getting a monthly report that shows cost per booked job by channel? If no: ask for it. If your agency can’t provide it, that tells you something.

If you answered no to 3 or more of these, your marketing budget problem isn’t how much you’re spending. It’s that you don’t have visibility into where it’s going.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the average marketing budget for an HVAC company? According to industry benchmarks, HVAC companies typically invest 7–10% of revenue on marketing, with 60–70% going toward digital channels. For a $2M company, that’s roughly $11,000–$16,000/month. However, the right number depends on your average ticket, close rate, and cost-per-job threshold — not a fixed percentage.

Should HVAC companies use a percentage of revenue for marketing budgets? It’s a useful starting point but not precise enough to optimize against. Two companies at $2M revenue can have completely different optimal budgets if one has a $500 average ticket and the other has a $4,000 average ticket. Use cost per booked job as your primary benchmark, not percentage of revenue.

What’s a good cost per booked job for HVAC? For service and repair work (average ticket $250–$600): aim for $180–$320 per booked job. For replacement work (average ticket $5,000–$12,000): $400–$800 per booked job is reasonable. The target is 8–12% of your average ticket, regardless of job type.

How do I know if my Google Ads budget is right for my HVAC company? You need three numbers: cost per click, conversion rate (calls per click), and booking rate (jobs per call). Multiply through to find cost per booked job. If that number is above 12% of your average ticket, something in the chain needs fixing — the ads, the landing page, or the phone handling. Note that average HVAC CPCs hit $32.77 in 2025, so efficiency matters more than ever.

Is it worth spending more on marketing to grow my HVAC company? Only if you have the phone capacity and technician availability to handle the additional call volume. More spend into a broken phone process produces expensive, low-quality results. Fix the conversion system first, then scale spend.

How much do top HVAC companies spend on Google LSAs? LSA spend varies by market, but most HVAC companies find LSAs deliver the best cost per call of any paid channel — typically $25–$55/call in most US markets. Top performers allocate 30–50% of their paid media budget to LSAs before investing heavily in traditional Google Ads.

What to Do This Week

If you’re running an HVAC company between $1M–$5M and you’re not sure your marketing budget is right:

1. Pull last month’s numbers: Total marketing spend, total calls received (from all sources), total jobs booked. Calculate cost per booked job.

2. Ask your agency for a channel breakdown: Cost per call by source. If they can’t provide it, that’s important information.

3. Check your phone answer rate: Most phone systems or call tracking tools can pull this. If you don’t have call tracking, that’s the first thing to add.

4. Use our free Marketing Cost Calculator to benchmark your numbers against HVAC industry data — it takes about 4 minutes and shows where you rank against the top 25%.

The companies that know their numbers make better decisions. Not more dramatic decisions — better ones. Usually that means small shifts that compound over 12 months into six figures of recovered revenue.

That’s the point of this research. Not to sell you more marketing. To help you get more out of the marketing spend you already have.