Yelp Ads vs Google Local Services Ads: paying per click or per lead

What is the main difference between Yelp Ads and Local Services Ads?

It comes down to what triggers the charge. Yelp Ads bill you when someone clicks your ad, whether or not that person ever calls. Google Local Services Ads (LSA) bill you when a customer actually reaches out through the ad and Google counts the contact as a valid lead. Yelp sells you a click. Google sells you a contact.

The second difference is the crowd. Yelp ads reach people browsing Yelp, plus visitors to third-party sites in the Yelp Ad Network. Google's migration article says LSA shows only on Google Search and Google Maps. Which crowd your customers belong to matters more than any feature below, and it can differ by town and by trade. Before spending a dollar, run the search a customer would run, once on Yelp and once on Google, and note which results look busier and better reviewed.

How does each one charge you?

Yelp Ads. Yelp's article on click pricing says each click is priced by an automated auction that responds to how many similar businesses are competing for the same clicks, how much ad inventory is available and how interested consumers are. It also warns that the estimated click price quoted at signup can turn out higher or lower than what you actually pay. You set a monthly budget. Yelp's overview of its cost-per-click program says spending won't be paced evenly day to day, that you will never be charged above the monthly figure, and that you should expect the full amount to be used.

Yelp's pricing page puts the starting point for Yelp Ads at $150 a month, and the Yelp Ads product page says you can spend as little as $5 a day on average (both as listed in October 2026). If you start partway through a month, Yelp's partial-month billing article says that month's budget is prorated.

Local Services Ads. Here the bill comes per contact, and the How leads work page, which we re-read on October 31, 2026, names the contacts Google counts: calls where you speak with the customer, whether you answered or called back; missed calls in your business hours where the caller stays connected for more than 20 seconds; messages and emails; voicemails; and booking requests, which apply in the U.S. and Canada only. Voicemail doesn't change the math, since a call that reaches it counts on the same timer with or without a message, and business hours are the hours on your Google Business Profile. Our page on this year's LSA changes explains that rule step by step. Each lead's price moves with where you work, the kind of job, whether it arrives by phone or as a message, and your bidding setup, and Google notes that a message lead is typically priced below the equivalent phone lead. Your budget is set as a weekly average; one week can run past it, but the month stays under your monthly max, and once you reach that max your ad is hidden for the remainder of the month unless you adjust the budget.

Google's bidding article describes three modes: let Google bid for the most leads (its recommendation), aim at a target cost per lead, or cap what you pay per lead by hand. That is changing. Google's migration plan began moving a first group of U.S. home service and storefront accounts into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns in August 2026. Manual bidding isn't supported there, and billing stays per valid lead, according to Google.

Neither company publishes a table of click or lead prices for contractors. The numbers that count are the ones in your own dashboard after a few weeks of spending.

Who are you up against on each platform?

On Yelp, an automated auction prices your clicks, and the number of similar businesses chasing the same clicks is one of its inputs. Yelp's article on where ads deliver lists sponsored results at the top and bottom of search pages, themed carousels, the map card people see when they ask for directions, third-party sites in the Yelp Ad Network, and the business pages of competitors that haven't bought page upgrades. That last placement works in both directions. Your ad can sit on a rival's page, and a rival's ad can sit on yours unless you pay for the Upgrade Package, which the pricing page lists at $180 a month and describes as keeping competitor ads off your page.

Quote requests add another layer. Yelp's guide to Request a Quote says a customer who sends a request from your page is offered the option of sending the same request to other related businesses. Customers can also start a project that goes to several businesses at once, and you can opt in to some of those shared requests through a feature Yelp calls Nearby Jobs.

On Google, you compete with the other LSA advertisers in your category and area for a spot in the ad unit. Google's ad rankings article says the order comes from an auction that weighs your bid against the odds that your ad turns into a lead. Those odds draw on your responsiveness (Google says missed calls may count against it), plus the search itself, how relevant your services are, and profile quality, meaning your rating, how many reviews you have, how fast you reply, your photos and the verification steps you've finished. Google also says ranking is tuned for the overall health and diversity of the LSA ecosystem.

Google's getting started page says you only hear from customers who picked your profile out of the others shown. That customer may still contact other advertisers too, and Google lists "whether the customer has contacted other Local Services advertisers" among the factors behind message lead prices.

What happens with bad charges, and can you cancel?

Yelp. The product is the click, so the protections are about clicks. Yelp's answer on competitor clicking says it uses industry-standard measures to detect and block invalid traffic, filters activity from known offenders, looks into reports of bad clicks, and does not bill for clicks that come in rapid succession from the same user. A genuine shopper who reads your reviews and leaves is still a billable click.

The pricing page labels each paid plan "Cancel anytime." Yelp's cancellation article says advertisers in the non-term program can stop a campaign whenever they want from the Billing page, while those under contract cancel by calling Yelp, so read the term on anything a sales rep sends you. Per Yelp's guide to canceling paid products, click ads end immediately on cancellation, the final bill arrives on the first of the following month, and your free business page stays up. One timing catch: the budget is prorated when you start mid-month, but delivery isn't prorated when you cancel, and Yelp says it may already have used up the month's budget by the time you quit.

Google. Google filters leads when the contact first comes in and doesn't bill the ones its systems mark invalid or low quality. Charged leads are then reviewed again, and Google's automated credits page says it may credit poor-quality leads to your account balance, in most cases within 30 days, while the original charge still shows on your invoice. The same page says Google no longer credits leads disputed as outside the jobs or the territory you cover. Its lead page bills a missed call only when it falls within your ad schedule as well as your business hours, and neither page treats your missing the call as a reason to credit it. Health care businesses, tax specialists and EMEA-region advertisers (Europe, Middle East, Africa) can't get lead credits at all. Google's Lead Feedback Survey lets you flag a poor lead, and Google says a charged lead is sometimes credited as a bonus for leaving feedback. The decision is Google's.

None of the Google help pages we read mention a contract term. Per Google's lead management page, you turn your ad off from the Local Services inbox today, and Google's migration article says that after the move you pause the campaign in Google Ads settings. One dependency to know: Google says a suspension of your Google Ads account also suspends your Local Services Ads.

Which features matter most to a contractor?

Yelp Ads and the Yelp tools around them:

• A choice of ad button. The product page says you can point the ad at a call, a message, your website or map directions, and target by location and keyword. You can write the ad yourself or let Yelp's system choose the photo and text.
• Request a Quote. Yelp says it is free to set up. The customer answers trade-specific questions before the request lands in your inbox, so you see the job details up front. Yelp's Leads API and a Zapier connector can push those requests into the CRM you already use.
• Yelp Guaranteed. The program page says businesses in select service categories that run Yelp Ads with Request a Quote turned on may show the badge, at no cost to the business, and are enrolled automatically unless they opt out. Under the consumer terms, a customer who first contacts a covered business through Request a Quote and then hires it may be reimbursed, at Yelp's sole discretion, up to the lesser of their documented payments or $2,500, a lifetime cap per customer. Yelp says it asks the business for its side before deciding.
• Verified License. The pricing page includes it with the combined Ads and Upgrade Package.
• Tracking numbers that stay with Yelp. Under Yelp's Master Advertising Terms, updated May 11, 2026, tracking numbers Yelp provides belong to Yelp or its service providers and can't be kept by the business.

Local Services Ads:

• The Google Verified badge. Google's screening article says checks vary by category and location and may include background, business registration, insurance and license checks, plus minimum reviews. Google doesn't charge for the background check. Its getting started page adds that some businesses can run pre-badge ads while finishing checks, listed below fully verified providers.
• Your Google reviews on the ad. The LSA overview says the reviews on your listing include those from your Google Business Profile, so the same reviews help your free map listing and your paid ad.
• A Google forwarding number. Google's lead management page says the number on your ad is a dynamic number you can't choose, calls open with a "Call from Google" message, and in the U.S. and Canada Google records those calls after notifying the caller. Message leads share the customer's name, ZIP code, job details and phone number, with replies routed through an anonymized alias.
• Bookings and lead export. Booking requests are limited to the U.S. and Canada, and after migration Google says you can download leads to import into your own CRM.
• No more money-back guarantee. Google's badge page says Google is ending the Money Back Guarantee that came with the old Google Guarantee badge; customers can request reimbursement only for services booked through Local Services Ads before December 7, 2025. That leaves Yelp Guaranteed as the only one of the two that still covers new bookings.

LSA is also limited to certain service categories, and the getting started page asks you to check your business's eligibility before signing up.

Who does each one suit?

Yelp Ads tend to fit:

• trades and towns where Yelp searches return busy pages full of recent reviews;
• companies whose Yelp page already has strong reviews and real job photos;
• jobs customers like to describe in writing first, where Request a Quote questions help you price the work;
• owners who want the option of sending ad traffic to their own website;
• businesses in categories LSA doesn't cover.

Local Services Ads tend to fit:

• urgent, phone-first trades where the customer wants a person on the line today;
• companies that can pass the license, insurance and background checks their category requires;
• businesses with a strong Google rating and a healthy review count;
• crews that answer every call, because Google weighs responsiveness in ranking, missed calls may hurt it, and Google may bill a business-hours call that nobody picks up (our speed-to-lead guide covers the habits);
• owners who would rather pay for contacts than for clicks.

You can run both at once. If you do, record the source on every lead and compare cost per booked job, not cost per click or per lead. The "Call from Google" greeting makes LSA calls easy to tag (Google notes it may not play if your line uses call forwarding or VoIP), and our call tracking guide shows how to separate the rest. Plug the totals into the lead cost calculator after two or three months. For deeper single-platform write-ups, see Yelp Ads alternatives and Local Services Ads alternatives.

The owned alternative to both

Yelp rents you clicks and Google rents you contacts. Both are fair products, and both end the day the budget does. The pieces underneath them are yours to keep:

1. A complete Google Business Profile. It runs your free map listing and supplies reviews to your LSA ad. Our Business Profile guide covers every field.
2. A finished, free Yelp page. Accurate hours, real photos and replies to reviews cost nothing and help whether or not you buy ads.
3. A website with service and town pages that turn searchers into calls. See our websites and local SEO work.
4. Phones that never go to a dead end. Calls that ring several phones at once, an automatic text when one is missed, and an AI receptionist after hours protect paid and free leads alike. A missed LSA call can still be billed. If you buy leads, answer every one of them.
5. A customer list you control. Whichever platform brings the first job, move the customer into your own CRM so the second job doesn't cost another click or lead fee.

Our own service companies run on this same stack, including a CRM we built for them first. We don't run Yelp Ads or LSA campaigns for anyone. What we build is the list above. If you want to see which of your channels is earning its keep, start with a free system quote.

Frequently asked questions