Painter PPC Where a Wasted Click Costs Real Money
Painting has the most expensive clicks of any trade we manage: around $13.74 each, with a good cost per lead between $172 and $229. That changes how an account has to be built. A hundred irrelevant clicks is $1,374 gone, which is most of the profit on a small job.
We manage it for $1,000 a month flat, with your ad spend going directly to Google.
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How We Run Paid Search for Painting Contractors
Iwebs Design builds painting ad accounts with unusual discipline about exclusions, because this trade has the highest click cost in our work at about $13.74 and the largest volume of worthless adjacent search. Interior, exterior, cabinet, and commercial run as separate campaigns, since job values and seasons differ and one bid strategy cannot serve them. Then the negative keyword list does heavy lifting: DIY tutorials, paint colour research, brand and product searches, and job seekers all get excluded, because in painting those queries dwarf the commercial ones. Landing pages match the specific job searched rather than a general homepage. Conversion tracking counts booked estimates, not form fills, given a solid cost per lead runs $172 to $229 against interior repaints of $3,000 to $8,000. Our fee is $1,000 a month flat whatever your budget.
Book a Free 30-Min Growth CallThe Negative Keyword List Is the Campaign
In most trades negative keywords are hygiene. In painting they are close to the whole strategy, because the search space around your commercial terms is enormous and almost entirely worthless to you.
Think about who else searches painting words. People choosing a colour. People watching how-to videos. People pricing a tin of paint. People looking for painting jobs. Art students. At about $13.74 a click, every one of those you fail to exclude is money burned.
So we build the exclusion list before the ads and keep working the search terms report weekly. It is unglamorous and it is where most of the return comes from in this trade specifically.
Painting Click Costs Against Other Trades
Useful context if you have run ads in another trade or compared notes with contractors who have.
| Trade | Average cost per click | Typical cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Painting | About $13.74 | $172 to $229 |
| HVAC | About $9.12 | About $104 average |
| Plumbing | About $8.45 | About $183 non-branded |
| Landscaping | About $7.50 | $94 to $125 |
| Home services overall | About $7.85 | About $91 |
Figures from 2026 Google Ads benchmark research across the home service trades.
Where Painting Ad Budgets Leak
Four leaks, and the first one is far larger in painting than in any other trade.
DIY and colour searches
Enormous volume, zero customers. How to paint, best colours, paint brand comparisons, spray gun reviews. Without aggressive exclusions this alone can consume half a budget.
Interior and exterior blended
Different seasons and different job values. Running them together means exterior bids compete with interior ones during the wrong months.
Traffic to a general homepage
Someone searching cabinet painting who lands on a homepage bounces, and that bounce cost $13.74. Matching pages matters more when clicks are expensive.
Optimising for form fills
Cheap conversions are people wanting a number for a single room. Track booked estimates instead, or the account will chase the smallest jobs available.
Why We Charge Flat Instead of a Percentage
Most agencies charge a flat fee or 15% to 20% of spend. We charge $1,000 flat and your budget goes straight to Google on your own card.
In this trade the percentage model is especially poorly aligned. Most of the value we add is spending less of your money on the wrong clicks. A percentage fee makes exclusion work — the highest-return activity in painting PPC — directly against our own revenue.
Flat means the only way we look good is a lower cost per booked job, which is the number that decides whether painting ads are profitable at all.
Why Contractors Work With Us
We work with the trades only, publish our pricing, and report in booked jobs rather than impressions.
A complete contractor website, designed, written, and launched for one flat fee. No monthly lock-in, and the domain, content, and design stay yours if you ever leave.
$950From kickoff to a live site. Design in week one, content and build across weeks two and three, then launch. The only thing that stretches it is waiting on your photos.
2-4 wksTrades we serve, and nothing else. That means we already know how your customers search, what your jobs are worth, and which season your phone rings before we start.
20Average rating across 43+ Reviews. Every campaign reports in calls and booked jobs, using the same Search Console numbers you can open yourself.
5.0What Clients Say About Working With Iwebs Design
Website Design • SEO • Landscaping
“Working with Iwebs Design changed how people find us online. Our Google rankings and calls from new customers went up noticeably, and Haseeb actually understands the landscaping business — not just SEO theory.”
Joe Andolina
Owner, JPM Landscape
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Written by Haseeb Iqbal, Founder & CEO at Iwebs Design
Published · How we research and write
Stop Paying $13.74 for the Wrong Click
Book a free 30-minute growth call. We'll look at your search terms report and show you what you are actually buying.
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Or email haseebiqbal5133@gmail.com.