How much does contractor marketing cost in 2026? Published prices, grouped by model

This guide answers the cost question with published prices only. We read every dollar figure below on that vendor's pricing page, help pages, FAQ or legal terms on October 31, 2026, and each source is linked at the bottom with that date. We left out third-party estimates and survey averages. Where a vendor publishes no price, the page says so. Prices change, so check the live page and the contract before you sign anything.

The vendors fall into five models: software you run yourself, a flat done-for-you bundle, an agency SEO retainer, a full-service agency, and per-lead or per-click platforms. They are not the same product at different prices. Each one moves a different share of the work, the risk and the ownership onto you.

What does contractor marketing cost in 2026, by model?

The table is the short version. The sections after it give each price in the vendor's own terms, with what it includes and what it leaves out.

What does a flat monthly bundle cost?

A bundle puts the website, search work and a few tools on one monthly bill. It is the cheapest done-for-you option in this set, and the one where reading the cancellation terms matters most, because the tools usually live on the vendor's platform.

Footbridge Media headlines its program at $249 a month, with the website "included at no cost in our monthly fee". The feature list covers a custom site with unlimited pages, local SEO, content, review management, a CRM, online scheduling and payments. It works month to month with no contract and refunds clients who cancel inside 90 days. Its FAQ is plain about the trade-off: the review system, the dashboard, web forms, the CMS and hosting stop working without an active subscription, and you get your site files as HTML. The same FAQ sets a minimum Google Ads budget of $775 a month, which is ad spend on top of the program. By our arithmetic, a year of the program alone is $2,988.

Plumbing Webmasters shows a "$99 to Start" banner on its home page. The page explains that service begins with a one-time setup fee, and the monthly rate starts after the site goes live, typically two to three weeks after signup. Neither the setup fee nor the monthly rate is listed; the page asks you to contact the team for current pricing. It describes month-to-month agreements and says you can cancel before launch without the monthly fee starting.

A bundle suits a new or small company that needs a working site and a Business Profile handled for a known monthly cost. The question to ask is what still works on the day you stop paying.

What does an agency SEO retainer cost?

An SEO retainer pays an agency each month to write pages, build citations and links, manage your Google Business Profile and report on rankings. Four contractor agencies publish a figure, and their entry prices sit within $800 of each other.

• WebFX lists SEO and local SEO at "Pricing starting at: $3,000/month" on its home services page. The smallest budget option on the same page's proposal form is $2,500 to $5,000 a month. Its marketing terms (section 8) allow cancelling or downgrading after an initial six-month term, with written notice 15 days before the end of the month.
• Contractor Growth Network, which works with remodelers, prices SEO by market size on its pricing page: $3,150 a month for a small market, $4,900 for a mid-market and $6,400 for a large market. The commitment is 12 months, then month to month.
• Hook Agency prices its Local SEO + AEO plan at $3,750 monthly on its pricing page, with heavier SEO options available. Its home page FAQ describes a yearly commitment, and Hook says it works with growth-mode companies of $3M to $15M in revenue.
• Contractor Marketing Pros says on its pricing page that SEO packages start at $3,797 a month. Its three packages are labeled for contractors doing $1M to $3M, $3M to $5M and $5M+ a year. The page states no contract length or setup fee.

Put a minimum term next to a monthly fee and the real commitment appears. By our arithmetic, six months of WebFX's starting SEO price is $18,000, and twelve months of Contractor Growth Network's large-market tier is $76,800. That is money committed before you know whether the work brings booked jobs, which is why the term matters as much as the monthly number. Our local SEO guide covers what the work should include, so you can judge what a retainer buys.

What does a full-service agency cost?

A full-service agency runs search, paid ads and the website together. Its total is the sum of several lines, and the ad budget is a separate bill again.

Hook's pricing page is the most complete example. It lists Google Ads + LSA from $2,000 a month (a starting price that "scales based on service scope & ad spend"), Meta Ads from $3,000 a month, a Standard Website at $1,000 a month and a Custom Website at $2,000 a month. The website figures are $12,000 and $24,000 totals split into 12 monthly payments, and the page says that split is available only when paired with a recurring service. More complex sites can cost up to $50,000. Hook's own summary: most clients invest $5,000 to $8,000 a month across search, paid ads and their website.

The FAQ on Blue Corona's electrician marketing page gives a range instead of a price: $2,500 to more than $10,000 monthly, depending on the package. Contractor Growth Network prices its websites separately from SEO, starting at $15,000 with an average of about $26,000, spread over the first six months and discounted by $5,000, $7,500 or $10,000 when bundled with an SEO tier. WebFX lists paid search from $650 a month and email marketing from $300 a month on its home services page.

Two large agencies publish no price at all. Scorpion's FAQ says the investment depends on your business goals. It names 12 months as the usual contract for its marketing technology and for some services, SEO included, while digital advertising usually runs month to month. Hibu's pricing page shows three tiers, each with a "Request custom pricing" button, and puts typical contract terms at 6 to 12 months for a custom plan.

What does marketing software cost if you run it yourself?

Software carries the lowest monthly prices in this guide because you supply the labor. Someone in your company builds the pages, writes the posts, sets up the automations and answers the leads. For an owner who likes that work, it is a fair trade. For one who is on a roof all day, the subscription gets paid and the work doesn't get done.

• Durable, an AI website builder, shows Launch at $25 a month and Grow at $49 a month on its pricing page plan cards. The same page's comparison table shows lower figures ($22 and $41) without explaining the difference, and a yearly option is marked "Save 15%". A Free plan is listed at $0, and the comparison table includes a free durable.site subdomain.
• Thryv lists Starter at $99 and Signature at $399 per month on its pricing page. The page has an annual option that saves 15% but doesn't say which billing period the listed prices reflect. Our Thryv and HighLevel comparison covers what each plan includes.
• HighLevel lists Starter at $97 a month ($970 a year), Unlimited at $297 ($2,970) and Founder at $497 ($4,970) on its pricing page, with a 14-day free trial. Email, SMS, calling and voice AI carry usage-based charges on top of the plan, and a Premium Support add-on is $500 a month.
• LocaliQ sells its Dash lead platform at $119 a month (Manage) and $199 a month (Convert) on its product page, and says you can cancel any time from the platform's settings.

What do per-lead and per-click platforms cost?

Lead marketplaces and ad platforms charge for each lead or click instead of a monthly service fee, so the total depends on volume. Most of them publish no price list, which makes a budget hard to set in advance.

• Angi shows no per-lead price, membership fee or subscription price on its pro sign-up page. Our guide to what Angi leads cost collects what Angi's filings say and the ranges pros report, labeled as such.
• Thumbtack's page for pros says joining is free, with no annual or membership fees, and that you control your lead pricing and budget, which decides how many leads you get. It shows no lead prices. Our Thumbtack guide explains the settings.
• Google Local Services Ads charge for valid leads. Google's help page says prices depend on your location, the job type, the lead type and your bidding mode, and that leads judged low quality may be credited automatically. When each one pays off is the subject of Local Services Ads or SEO.
• Networx is the one marketplace here with a published range. By its help article, a lead costs $10 to $100+ on the Pay Per Lead plan and $15 to $120+ on the Exclusive Leads plan.
• Yelp Ads start at $150 a month on Yelp's pricing page, with an Upgrade Package at $180 a month and both together from $270, each marked "Cancel anytime" and with a note that minimum budgets are subject to change. Yelp's support article on cost per click says each click on your ad is charged at a price that moves with supply and demand, capped by the monthly budget you set.

The lead price is the wrong number to compare. What you need is the cost of each booked job, which means dividing the spend by the jobs you won from that source. The math, with a worked example, is in cost per lead vs cost per job.

What is usually left out of the price?

The monthly figure on a pricing page is rarely the whole bill. These gaps show up most often in the pages and terms we read.

Ad spend. A management fee pays someone to run your ads; the clicks are paid to Google, Meta or Yelp on top. Hook's pricing page says its PPC management fee rises as you spend more on ads. Footbridge Media's $775 monthly Google Ads minimum sits outside its $249 program.

Setup and implementation fees. Hibu's pricing page mentions an implementation fee without an amount. The amount is in its Hibu One service terms (section 2(b)): $299, non-refundable. Plumbing Webmasters charges a one-time setup fee it doesn't price on the page. Thryv's comparison table mentions a "$250 onboarding fee waived" without making clear which plan it applies to.

Minimum terms. Hibu's terms set six months as the minimum for Hibu One and 12 months for Smart Sites. WebFX's initial term is six months, Contractor Growth Network's SEO commitment is 12 months, Hook describes a yearly commitment, and Scorpion typically requires 12 months for its technology and SEO.

Early termination fees. Hibu's General Terms set fees for cancelling before a minimum term ends: for Search (the Standard, Classic, Plus and Premium plans), the greater of $399 or your monthly budget; for Display and Social, the greater of $149 or the monthly budget; $120 for stand-alone Listings, $90 for Reviews and $150 for Reputation (or the remaining minimum-term charges, if less); and $99 to $449 for website packages paid monthly.

Prices that only show up in the quote. LocaliQ lists prices for its Dash lead software ($119 and $199 a month). Its home services page lists websites, SEO, listings and search, social, display and video ads, with no price, minimum budget or contract term shown for any of them. Hibu's three tiers each end in a "Request custom pricing" button. When the main service has no list price, ask for the setup fee, the term and the exit fee in writing along with the monthly quote. If you already work with LocaliQ, our LocaliQ cancellation guide covers its US terms for leaving.

That last item is a cost too, even though no invoice shows it. Hibu's Smart Sites terms (section 8(b)) register the domain Hibu supplies for your site in Hibu's own name. If you leave without moving it, rebuilding a site and a domain is the bill you pay later. Our contract red flags guide lists the clauses to look for, and the Hibu cancellation guide shows what to move first if you already signed.

How do you set a marketing budget from these numbers?

Start from your stage, not from an agency's menu. Several agencies in this guide say who they are built for: Hook's FAQ puts its clients between $3M and $15M of revenue and says it doesn't work with early-stage companies, and Contractor Marketing Pros labels its smallest package for $1M to $3M. Contractor Growth Network's pricing page calls 3% to 7% of revenue the industry standard for marketing and treats 3% as the minimum. That is one agency's figure, not a rule, but the arithmetic is useful. At 3% of $1 million in revenue, a company would spend $30,000 a year, or $2,500 a month, which is below every published SEO retainer in this guide before any ad spend.

A practical order for most owners:

1. Own the basics first. A domain in your company's name, a fast site with a page for each service, a complete Google Business Profile and a phone that gets answered. Our website cost guide covers the build, and the instant website checkup shows what your current site is missing.
2. Track every lead by source before you add spend, so you can see the cost of each booked job. Our lead source tracking guide shows a simple setup.
3. Add one paid channel at a time, sized to a term you can carry. A six- or twelve-month minimum at $3,000 a month or more needs the cash to ride out the months before search work shows results.
4. Compare quotes line by line, with every item from the checklist above filled in for each vendor. A cheaper monthly fee with a long term and an exit fee can cost more than a higher fee you can stop.

What does Dillard's Digital charge?

We publish no price list. We quote each job in writing, and the pricing page lists what goes into one. Details of the search work we do are on our SEO and AI search service page.

Frequently asked questions