Yelp vs Thumbtack cost per lead: what service businesses actually pay
Yelp charges $5-$30 per click. Thumbtack charges $10-$70 per lead. But neither number tells you what matters: your cost per booked job. That depends on how fast you respond and how many leads you actually convert.
Paying for leads you never close? Try NZ Leads free and cut your cost per job in half with 60-second auto-responses.
How Much Does Yelp Advertising Cost?
Yelp uses a cost-per-click model. You pay when someone clicks your ad, not when they contact you.
| Yelp cost type | Typical range |
|---|---|
| CPC ads | $5-$30 per click |
| Enhanced profile | $200-$600/month |
| Request-a-Quote | Varies by market |
The problem: you pay for clicks that never turn into messages. A 10% click-to-contact rate means your real cost per lead is 10x your CPC. At $15/click, that’s $150 per actual inquiry.
Yelp works best for trades where customers research and compare (HVAC, roofing, remodeling) and in markets with strong Yelp adoption, mostly West Coast and urban areas.
Thumbtack Cost Per Lead by Trade
Thumbtack charges per lead. You pay for every customer who submits a quote request, whether they respond to you or not.
| Trade | Cost per lead |
|---|---|
| Cleaning | $10-$25 |
| Electrical | $20-$45 |
| HVAC | $20-$50 |
| Plumbing | $25-$55 |
| Roofing | $30-$70 |
At a 20% win rate, you’re paying 5x the listed price for each job you book. A $35 HVAC lead becomes a $175 customer acquisition cost.
Thumbtack works better for shorter sales cycles (cleaning, handyman, painting) and for newer businesses building a customer base.
Real Cost Per Job: Slow Response vs. Fast Response
The gap between what you pay per lead and what you pay per job comes down to conversion rate. Response speed is the single biggest factor.
| Metric | Manual response | With NZ Leads |
|---|---|---|
| Lead cost (HVAC example) | $35/lead | $35/lead |
| Monthly leads (25) | $875 | $875 |
| Response time | 2-4 hours | Under 60 seconds |
| Win rate | 22% | 50% |
| Jobs booked | 5.5 | 12.5 |
| Cost per job | $159 | $78 |
Same leads. Same ad spend. Half the acquisition cost. The only difference is response speed and automated follow-ups.
Why Most Businesses Overpay for Yelp and Thumbtack Leads
Four things burn through your ad budget without producing jobs:
- Slow replies. Leads that don’t hear back in 5 minutes move on. That’s a paid lead, wasted.
- No follow-up sequence. Day-3 and day-7 follow-ups convert 25-40% of leads that went cold. Most businesses never send them.
- Missed after-hours leads. Yelp and Thumbtack run 24/7. If you only respond during business hours, evenings and weekends are dead money.
- No CRM sync. Manual data entry means leads slip through cracks. That’s 100% waste on those specific leads.
NZ Leads Break-Even: Less Than One Extra Job
At $99/month, NZ Leads pays for itself fast.
| Average job value | Extra jobs needed to break even | Typical monthly gain |
|---|---|---|
| $200 (cleaning) | 0.5 | 3-8 jobs |
| $500 (plumbing) | 0.2 | 3-7 jobs |
| $800 (HVAC) | 0.12 | 4-10 jobs |
| $2,000 (roofing) | 0.05 | 1-4 jobs |
For a business averaging $450/job with $800/month in Yelp and Thumbtack spend, automating responses adds roughly $4,500/month in revenue. That’s a 22x return on the $198/month NZ Leads cost.
Stop Overpaying for Leads You Already Buy
You’re already spending money on Yelp and Thumbtack. The question is whether you’re converting those leads or letting them go to your competitors. Set up a free trial at NZ Leads and see what happens when every lead gets a response in under 60 seconds.