Pay per Click Lead Generation vs Pay per Lead: What Installers Pay
Run your own Google or Facebook ads, or pay a supplier per lead? What UK clicks cost on installers' searches, what that means per enquiry, and when each pays.
Pay per click lead generation means running ads on Google or Facebook, yourself or through an agency, and paying the platform for the clicks and views, whether or not they turn into enquiries. The other way to buy enquiries is pay per lead: a supplier runs the ads, pays for every click, and charges you for each lead that meets criteria you agreed. For an installer, the real question is which one gets you jobs for less.
That comes down to two numbers: what a click costs in your trade, and how many clicks become an enquiry. We pulled the first from Google Ads keyword data for 21 searches homeowners make about solar panels, heat pumps, windows and doors, conservatories, insulation, flooring and extensions. The second is yours, so the worked example uses three rates side by side rather than one.
What is pay per click lead generation?
On Google, you choose the searches you want to show up for, write the ads and send the clicks to a page on your website. You pay each time someone clicks. On Facebook and Instagram, you choose the area and the audience, and the ad takes people to a form, a page or a WhatsApp chat. An agency can run either for a fee, on top of what you pay the platform.
The enquiries are yours, and so is every click that went nowhere. Pay per lead turns that round: the supplier pays for the ads and the wasted clicks, and you pay for each lead that meets a written definition.
We've set out who carries the risk in each model in cost per lead vs cost per job, and what a pay-per-lead contract should say in how pay per lead works. This guide puts prices on the click side.
Can you pay Google or Facebook per lead?
Mostly not. When people talk about pay per lead ads or pay per lead campaigns on Google or social media, they usually mean a lead generation company buying the ads and selling you the leads. Here's what the platforms themselves charge for:
- Google search ads charge per click. Google's help page on cost-per-click bidding says "you pay for each click on your ads". Target CPA bidding aims your bids at a cost per conversion, but Google's option to pay for conversions instead of clicks is for Display campaigns only: image ads on other websites, not search results.
- Google Local Services Ads charge per lead, but not for most installers. Google's UK getting-started page says you "pay only for leads related to your business", and that the ads are available only for certain categories. When we read it on 5 November 2026, the list included flooring services, HVAC (heating or air conditioning), general contractor services, roofers and window repair services. It had nothing for solar, insulation, conservatories, heat pumps by name, or fitting new windows.
- Facebook and Instagram bill for the ads, not the leads. Lead ads collect enquiries on a form, but the billing events an ad set can use are things like impressions and link clicks. None of them is a lead. So your cost per lead on Facebook is what you spent divided by the leads you got: an outcome, not a price.
What does a click cost in your trade?
These are the prices advertisers pay for clicks on searches homeowners make before a job, from Google Ads keyword data for the UK.
What a click costs, by search
UK Google searches for seven home improvement jobs
| Search | UK searches a month | Average cost per click | Top of page bid, low–high |
|---|---|---|---|
| solar panel quotes | 1,000 | £21.07 | £8.96–£20.98 |
| solar panel installers | 880 | £12.42 | £5.51–£17.73 |
| solar panels cost | 3,600 | £4.95 | £1.59–£5.54 |
| heat pump quotes | 480 | £16.92 | £5.16–£19.36 |
| heat pump installers | 390 | £11.64 | £3.75–£14.06 |
| air source heat pump cost | 3,600 | £3.67 | £1.19–£3.83 |
| double glazing quotes | 260 | £22.59 | £5.62–£25.96 |
| replacement windows | 2,900 | £11.84 | £2.98–£14.71 |
| new windows cost | 1,900 | £7.19 | £1.90–£7.27 |
| composite doors | 33,100 | £2.56 | £0.79–£3.01 |
| conservatories | 49,500 | £4.33 | £1.58–£4.79 |
| conservatory prices | 2,900 | £3.78 | £1.10–£4.05 |
| loft insulation installers | 480 | £6.67 | £1.82–£6.66 |
| cavity wall insulation | 14,800 | £3.27 | £1.35–£5.67 |
| loft insulation cost | 1,900 | £3.52 | £1.12–£4.13 |
| flooring fitters | 320 | £3.11 | £1.38–£3.24 |
| carpet fitters near me | 8,100 | £2.27 | £0.90–£2.50 |
| laminate flooring fitting cost | 480 | £1.25 | £0.50–£1.41 |
| house extension builders | 210 | £9.81 | £3.55–£17.80 |
| extension builders near me | 720 | £7.23 | £2.96–£16.84 |
| house extension cost | 1,900 | £3.48 | £0.84–£3.32 |
What the columns mean:
- Average cost per click is what Google Ads reports as average CPC: what advertisers paid for a click, on average.
- Top of page bid is the range advertisers bid to appear above the search results. Google describes the low end as roughly the 20th percentile of those bids and the high end as roughly the 80th, in its Keyword Planner help.
- UK searches a month is Google's monthly average for October 2025 to September 2026.
Three things stand out.
Searches for quotes and installers cost the most. "Solar panel quotes", "heat pump quotes" and "double glazing quotes" average £17–£23 a click. They're the searches closest to a job.
In solar, heat pumps and windows, searches about price cost a quarter to a third as much as the quote searches. "Solar panels cost" averages £4.95, "air source heat pump cost" £3.67 and "new windows cost" £7.19. Far more people make them, but many are pricing up an idea, not asking for a survey.
Flooring and conservatory clicks are cheap. "Carpet fitters near me" averages £2.27 and "conservatory prices" £3.78. That changes the sums below.
These are national figures. In your own postcodes, with your own ads and pages, you may pay more or less.
What does a click cost per enquiry? A worked example
Cost per enquiry = cost per click ÷ share of clicks that send an enquiry
Nobody can tell you that share in advance. It depends on the search, your page, your reviews and your area. So the table uses three: 1 in 5, 1 in 10 and 1 in 20 clicks sending an enquiry. They're assumptions to show how far the answer moves. They aren't benchmarks, and they aren't POCKLA data.
| Search (assumed rates) | Average cost per click | If 1 in 5 clicks enquires | If 1 in 10 | If 1 in 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| solar panel quotes | £21.07 | £105 | £211 | £421 |
| heat pump quotes | £16.92 | £85 | £169 | £338 |
| double glazing quotes | £22.59 | £113 | £226 | £452 |
| conservatory prices | £3.78 | £19 | £38 | £76 |
| loft insulation installers | £6.67 | £33 | £67 | £133 |
| flooring fitters | £3.11 | £16 | £31 | £62 |
| house extension builders | £9.81 | £49 | £98 | £196 |
The share of clicks that enquire matters as much as the price of the click: double it and your cost per enquiry halves. That's why the page a click lands on is worth as much work as the ad.
An enquiry from your own ad isn't a job yet, or even a qualified lead. Some will be outside your area, renting, or a wrong number, and you find out by calling. On top of the clicks, count your hours or an agency's fee, and the spend while you learn which searches work. Then follow each enquiry to a survey and a signed job: our guide to cost per job has the sum.
How does the price of a click compare with the price of a lead?
Set a bought lead's price against the price of a click, and you get a break-even: how many clicks the same money buys, and so the share of clicks that would have to enquire for your own ads to cost the same per enquiry.
A lead's price, counted in clicks
POCKLA's indicative band against the average click on each trade's quote or installer search
| Trade | Search | Average cost per click | POCKLA price per lead | Clicks that price buys |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Solar | solar panel quotes | £21.07 | £20–£50 | 1 to 2 |
| Heat pumps | heat pump quotes | £16.92 | £20–£50 | 1 to 3 |
| Windows and doors | double glazing quotes | £22.59 | £20–£50 | 1 to 2 |
| Conservatories | conservatory prices | £3.78 | £20–£50 | 5 to 13 |
| Insulation | loft insulation installers | £6.67 | £20–£80 | 3 to 12 |
| Flooring | flooring fitters | £3.11 | £20–£50 | 6 to 16 |
| Home extensions | house extension builders | £9.81 | £100–£300 | 10 to 31 |
Read the last column as the break-even. On "flooring fitters", £50 buys 16 clicks. If better than 1 in 16 of your clicks sent an enquiry, your own ads would cost less per enquiry than a lead at the top of our flooring band. Against the bottom of the band, £20 buys 6 clicks, and you'd need better than 1 in 6. On "solar panel quotes", £50 buys two clicks, so about every second click would have to enquire.
This compares prices, not leads. A homeowner who searched "solar panel quotes" and picked your site has chosen you. A bought lead came through someone else's ad, and may have started on Facebook or Instagram before they'd searched at all. Ours come from Meta and Google ads we run in our own consumer brands, and each one is sent only once it matches the criteria we agreed with you. Which route turns into jobs for less is something only your own figures can show, so compare them on cost per job, not on this table alone.
When does running your own ads make sense?
When you have most of these:
- A budget you can afford to learn with. The first weeks find out which searches and ads work, and you pay for the ones that don't. On Facebook, Meta says an ad set usually leaves its learning phase after about 50 results in a week.
- Time, or an agency. Someone has to check the search terms, block the ones that waste money, pause what isn't working and write new ads, every week. If that's an agency, its fee sits on top of the spend.
- A page made for the search. Someone who searched "replacement windows" should land on a page about replacement windows, with your installs, your reviews and a short form, not your homepage.
- Someone answering in minutes. A paid enquiry left until tomorrow has cooled; see speed to lead.
- Tracking to the job. You need to know which enquiries became surveys and jobs, and tell Google or Meta, so the spend follows the leads that book. Our guide to the lead feedback loop covers how.
What you get in return:
- Enquiries in your own name, from homeowners who chose you. No one else is sold them, though a homeowner may still ask other firms.
- All the data. Every search term, click and form, and an ad account whose history stays with you if it's in your name.
- Control. Change the area, the offer or the budget today, or switch it off.
- A lower cost per enquiry where clicks are cheap. In flooring and conservatories, a page that turns 1 in 10 clicks into an enquiry puts your cost per enquiry (£31 and £38 in the worked example) inside our price band.
For the set-up itself, our solar customers guide walks through a Facebook campaign step by step, and our guide to getting more home improvement customers covers search ads.
What does pay per lead take off your hands, and what does it cost you?
It takes off:
- Wasted clicks. The supplier pays for every click and view that never becomes an enquiry.
- Running the campaigns. Searches, audiences, ads, pages and testing are the supplier's work, not yours.
- First qualification. A lead should arrive already matching what you agreed: the job, the postcode, whether they own the home. Get that definition in writing; how pay per lead works lists what to put in it.
- Guesswork on price. You know what a lead costs before it arrives, and you can cap how many you take.
It costs you:
- The price per lead. That price covers the supplier's ad spend, the clicks that went nowhere and its margin.
- Control. You don't choose the searches or write the ads, and you see them only if the supplier shows you.
- The first introduction. The homeowner meets the supplier's ad first, not yours, unless the follow-up comes in your name.
- Exclusivity, if you don't ask. Some suppliers sell a lead to several firms. Exclusive vs shared leads explains what that changes.
Either way, reaching the homeowner, the survey and the close stay with you.
Can you do both?
Yes. It doesn't have to be one or the other:
- Run your own search ads where clicks are cheap or your page converts well, and buy leads where clicks are dear.
- Keep your ads in the area you know, and buy leads to test a new one before you build campaigns there.
- Tag every lead with its source, work out cost per job for each source every month, and move spend to whichever is cheaper.
Where POCKLA fits
POCKLA sells on pay per lead. We run Meta and Google ads in our own consumer brands. Every click lands on a page made for the ad or search that sent it, or in a WhatsApp chat, and what happens to each lead decides where the budget goes: see our ads and landing pages. The clicks that never enquire are our cost, not yours.
You pay per qualified web lead. The indicative bands are £20–£50 for solar, windows and doors, conservatories, air source heat pumps and flooring; £20–£80 for insulation; and £100–£300 for home extensions. They're ranges, not quotes: your exact price is agreed on a call, from your criteria, area and volume. There's no setup fee, no monthly fee and no minimum term. Every lead is sold once, to one buyer, and invalid numbers are returned with no time limit. Each one is followed up on WhatsApp in your business's name, or by SMS, and reaches your CRM or POCKLA Desk with every answer attached.
Already running your own ads? Our WhatsApp follow-up and Desk work on the leads you already have, with no setup fee. You pay for usage, and for each appointment booked through WhatsApp.
What we can't set is how many leads become jobs. That's the number to compare, whoever runs the ads.