Calculators

What your ad budget is really buying.

Three free calculators for installation work, in your own numbers: what a month of ads turns into, what one install really costs, and what slow follow-up is quietly handing to your competitors.

Calculator one

From ad budget to installs.

Follow one month of spend all the way to sold jobs. Every number is yours to change; the starting values are typical for residential replacement work.

Your numbers

Monthly ad budget$1,500

Average install value$9,000

Cost per lead$45

Home improvement averages about $43 a lead on Facebook (LocalIQ, 2026).

Leads you actually reach60%

Set by your follow-up. One call reaches about 35%, a week of calls about 62%, the full system about 75%. See calculator three.

Reached leads who book an estimate30%

Estimates that actually happen85%

Your close rate on installs30%

$13,770 a month from 1.5 installs. Full breakdown below.

Where the budget goes, each month

Leads$45 each
33
Reached60% of leads
20
Estimates booked30% of those reached
6
Estimates that happen85% show up
5.1
Installs sold30% close
1.5

The gold bar is the one you control. A form lead has to be reached before it can book, and most of what separates a profitable campaign from a wasted one happens between those two rows.

$13,770

Install revenue a month

9.2x

Revenue for every ad dollar

$294

Ad spend per estimate that actually happens

$980

Ad spend per install sold

Revenue, not profit. Take your margin off before comparing it with the ad spend. These values also feed calculators two and three below.

Calculator two

What one install really costs, by channel.

Cost per lead is the number every platform quotes and the one that matters least. This is what you spend in ads for each installation you actually sell.

Your shop, shared with calculator one

Estimates that actually happen85%

Your close rate on installs30%

Facebook leads you reach60%

Only moves the Facebook and Instagram row. Watch what better follow-up does to it. Linked to calculator one.

Ad spend per install sold

Facebook and Instagram$980
Homeowners who were not searching yet. Cheap leads, won or lost on the follow-up. $45 a lead, 18% book. Your numbers from calculator one.
Google Local Services$455
Google's own marketplace, ranked on how fast you answer. $51 a lead, 44% book. Searchlight 2026.
Branded search$242
People typing your name. Cheap, but it only harvests demand you already made. $34 a lead, 55% book. Searchlight 2026.
Non-brand search$1,538
'AC replacement near me'. High intent, and the most contested click there is. $149 a lead, 38% book. Searchlight 2026.

The cheapest install is not the same as the most installs. Branded search only reaches people who already know your name, and Local Services only the homeowners searching this month. Both run out. Paid social reaches homeowners before they search, which is where new installs come from, and its cost per install falls fastest when the follow-up improves.

Google rows use Searchlight book rates across all job types, which flatters them slightly for replacement work.

Free: the follow-up system

The follow-up we run on every lead.

This is the cadence behind the numbers above. Free, no email needed. Print it, hand it to whoever answers your phones, and run it on every form lead from today.

Day 1
Within 5 minutes
Double dial (2 calls)VoicemailTextEmail
Before they forget they asked. This is the most valuable contact in the whole sequence, and it uses all three of the day's touches.
Days 2 to 4
Once a day
Double dial (2 calls)VoicemailText
A different time each day: morning, lunch, early evening. Always between 8am and 8pm their time.
Day 5
Once
CallVoicemail
Day 8
Once
CallVoicemailText
Day 14
Once
CallVoicemailText
Day 30
Once
CallVoicemailEmail
Then, with the season
Up to 12 months
CallText
The first cold night of autumn and the first real heat of summer, when a 'not yet' becomes a 'now'. Then close the file.

What a double dial is

If the first call is not answered, ring again straight away. Most phones let a repeat call from the same number ring through Do Not Disturb, so the second call often gets answered when the first did not. It counts as two of your three touches for the day.

Stay inside the calling rules

Between 8am and 8pm in the homeowner's time zone, and never more than three calls or texts in any 24 hours. That is the law in Maryland and Florida, and a sensible ceiling everywhere. A double dial counts as two. Check your own state's rules; this is practical guidance, not legal advice.

Stop the moment they book

Every sequence ends when the estimate is on the calendar. Nobody who has booked should ever get another chase message.

Stop the moment they say stop

No sooner, no later. STOP ends everything, calls included. Silence is not a no: people are busy, and they filled in the form for a reason.

Book inside two to four days

Offer the soonest slot you have, today if you can. Momentum is the whole game, and a date two weeks out is a date that gets cancelled.

Use more than one channel

Call, text and email. Different people answer different things, and email does not count toward the three.

Text only people who asked

A form lead has given you permission to follow up on their request. Say who you are in every text.

Once it is booked: protect the estimate

The moment they book

Calendar invite, confirmation text and email with the technician's name.

The day before

A confirmation call. Voicemail and a text if they do not pick up.

The morning of

A text with the arrival window.

If they no-show or cancel

Straight back into the follow-up above, from day 1.

Worth knowing

Four things that decide the numbers.

A form lead is not a phone call

Someone who rings you is ready now. Someone who fills in a form on Facebook raised a hand between two other things. They will book, but only if you reach them while the hand is still up.

Judge the campaign on estimates, not leads

Cheap leads that nobody reaches are the most expensive thing you can buy. The only numbers that matter are estimates that actually happen and installs that sell.

Protect the show rate

An estimate booked two weeks out gets cancelled. Book inside two to four days, confirm the day before, and text the morning of. Every no-show is ad money spent twice.

Replacement is seasonal. Follow-up is not

The homeowner who says 'not yet' in a mild May is the one whose system quits in July. Keep them in a light seasonal touch and they come back to you, not to whoever advertises that week.

The toolkit

Three more things you can fix this week.

No email required. The negative keywords stop wasted search spend, the checklist raises your Local Services rank, and the templates wake up the customer list you already own.

Not a customer

job, jobs, career, careers, hiring, salary, apprentice, union, school, training, certification, license, licensing, epa 608, resume, employment

They want to do it themselves

diy, do it yourself, how to, tutorial, youtube, fix my own, repair my own, troubleshoot, manual, wiring diagram, schematic, parts diagram

Shopping for parts, not service

parts, capacitor, contactor, compressor for sale, refrigerant for sale, r22 for sale, filter, filters, thermostat for sale, replacement parts, home depot, lowes, amazon, ebay, costco

Wrong equipment class

window ac, window unit, portable ac, room air conditioner, ptac, evaporative, swamp cooler, rv air conditioner, camper, boat, car ac, automotive

Price shoppers and free hunters

free, cheap, cheapest, discount only, coupon only, used, second hand, craigslist, facebook marketplace, rent, rental

Commercial and new construction (unless you do that work)

commercial, industrial, warehouse, chiller, rooftop unit, rtu, new construction, builder, spec home

Review before blocking, never blanket block

Competitor names. Bidding on them can work, but it is a deliberate strategy, not a default. Decide it on purpose.

Manufacturer brands. Never block a brand you are an authorized dealer for. Blocking your own brand's terms is the single most common own-goal we see in HVAC accounts.

Ductless and mini split. Only block these if ductless is genuinely a low-value job for your shop. Plenty of contractors install ductless at a healthy ticket, and blocking the terms kills real install demand. This is a per-company call, not a rule.

Read this first, it matters

Only text people who gave you permission. Past customers who provided a number for service usually qualify; a purchased list never does.
Every message needs a way out. Include opt-out language and honor STOP immediately and permanently.
Identify yourself in the first message. Name the company in the opening line, every time.
Respect quiet hours: 8am to 8pm in the customer's time zone, and no more than three messages in 24 hours. That is the law in Maryland and Florida, and a safe ceiling everywhere.
One conversation at a time. Do not blast the whole list at once; you will not be able to answer the replies, and unanswered replies are worse than no message.
This is general guidance, not legal advice. Rules change, and your carrier registration matters too.

Template 1: The maintenance nudge

Hi {FirstName}, it's {Company}. Our records show your system is due for a tune-up. Want me to check what we have open this week? Reply STOP to opt out.

Template 2: The seasonal check

Hi {FirstName}, {Company} here. Before the heat really hits, we're doing pre-season checks in {Area}. Want one on the schedule? Reply STOP to opt out.

Template 3: The lapsed customer

Hi {FirstName}, it's {Company}. It's been a while since we were out to {Address}. Everything running okay? Reply STOP to opt out.

Template 4: The aging system

Hi {FirstName}, {Company} here. If your system is 10 or more years old, we'll put together a free replacement estimate, no pressure. Want one? Reply STOP to opt out.

Template 5: The quiet reactivation

Hi {FirstName}, it's {Company}. Just checking in. If anything's not cooling right, reply here and we'll take a look. Reply STOP to opt out.

What makes these work

Short. One question. No paragraph, no emoji, no exclamation marks. The company is named in the first six words so it does not read as spam, and each one asks a real question so replying is easier than ignoring. Send them from a number a human actually watches, because speed of reply matters more than the wording.

Where the numbers come from

LocalIQ, Facebook advertising benchmarks (2026). Home and home improvement lead campaigns: $42.95 cost per lead, 5.32% conversion rate. Re-checked 23 September 2026.
Searchlight Digital, HVAC advertising dataset (2026). 816 contractors, $14.9M of tracked media. Cost per lead and book rate by Google channel.
Oldroyd, MIT / InsideSales, Lead Response Management Study (2007). 15,000+ leads: odds of contacting a lead called in 5 minutes are 100x those at 30 minutes; odds of qualifying, 21x.
Oldroyd, McElheran and Elkington, Harvard Business Review (2011). 'The Short Life of Online Sales Leads': a response within an hour was nearly 7x as likely to qualify the lead as a later one, and 60x as likely as waiting 24 hours. 23% of the 2,241 firms audited never responded at all.
RPC planning assumptions. The reach, response-time and close-rate defaults are our own working figures for residential replacement, deliberately more conservative than the studies above. Change any of them to match your shop.

Want those estimates on your calendar?

A short call is the fastest way to see what these numbers look like in your market, and how we would run the ads and the follow-up for you.

Book a call

You pay on results. You own your account and data. No obligation.