HVAC lead generation.
One contractor per market.
Most HVAC lead generation is a race you pay to enter. “HVAC leads” draws 880 searches a month in the US at $56 a click, and SolarReviews states on its own page that its leads sell to 2.3 companies on average. We sell the opposite. A consumer brand we run takes the inquiry, and when it passes five published checks, confirmed by SMS in the homeowner's own words, it is warm-referred to exactly one HVAC contractor in that market, never resold. Fail a check, it is not sent and not billed.
What does an HVAC
referral look like?
It is 1 of 1: one homeowner, one contractor, one market. The inquiry is not dropped into a queue for whoever dials first; it is passed to the contractor who holds that market, after the homeowner has confirmed the detail over SMS.
HVAC demand arrives in two shapes and they are worth very different money. There is the no-heat call in the first cold snap and the dead AC in July, where the homeowner wants somebody today. Then there is the replacement decision: a furnace at the end of its life, a heat pump quote, ductwork that was never right, a maintenance plan. A form fill rarely tells you which one you are looking at. The homeowner’s own SMS words do, before you pick up the phone.
It also keeps the arrangement clean. You are not buying a place in a rotation; you are paying for a referral that passed the same published standard every time. The five published checks are the rule behind the handover, and they are the same rule the billing system enforces.
What a referral arrives with
- The homeowner’s name and direct number
- The job in their own SMS words: furnace, AC, heat pump, ductwork
- Repair or replacement, as they described it
- Their stated timeline
- “Nobody else booked”, confirmed
- Consent on record, delivered in real time
What does HVAC lead generation
cost in the US?
$56 a click. “HVAC leads” draws 880 searches a month in the US, and the auction bills you before anyone has confirmed a job, a timeline, or that the homeowner is even reachable.
Past the ad auction the numbers go dark. US home services marketplaces mostly publish nothing about what a lead costs or how many contractors get it. The one big exception is SolarReviews, which publishes its own figures on its own page. Those figures are about solar leads, not HVAC leads, and we cite them as SolarReviews’ own numbers for one reason: they describe the shared-lead mechanism plainly, and almost nobody else in the category will.
| What matters | Published US benchmark | OptiMAX |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | "HVAC leads" draws 880 searches a month at $56 a click. The click is auction access, not a customer. | One contractor per market. The referral is 1 of 1, never resold. |
| Marketplace price (SolarReviews, solar) | SolarReviews’ own page publishes $25-300 per lead, across 689k leads year to date. | No retainer, no lock-in. You are billed per referral that passed five published checks. |
| Resale (SolarReviews, solar) | SolarReviews states its leads are sold to 2.3 companies on average, with no returns. | One buyer only. The inquiry is delivered once and never sold again. |
| Outcome (SolarReviews, solar) | SolarReviews publishes an 80-85% contact rate and a 3-7% close rate, and states 93-97% will not close. | The homeowner confirmed the job, stated a timeline, and was told your company name. |
| What the money buys | A click, or a record several contractors are already working. | An SMS-confirmed homeowner, stated timeline, nobody else booked, consent on record. |
Read the columns as two different products rather than two prices. A click and a shared record are both access: you pay to start qualifying. A referral that cleared five checks is finished qualifying work, and it belongs to one contractor. We do not publish a per-market price on this page because the number depends on the market and the trade; what we publish is the rule that the money follows.
The unit difference is set out in shared vs exclusive leads, and the billing difference in pay per lead vs pay per call.
What gets an HVAC inquiry
through the five checks?
Five published checks stand between an inquiry and your phone, and the rule is mechanical: fail one, and it is not sent and not billed.
First, real and reachable. A number that rings out is not a referral, so contact is established before anything moves. Second, the job in their own words. “Looking into HVAC” gets binned. “Furnace quit overnight, original to the house, two-story colonial” does not. The check is not a lead score; it is whether a real HVAC problem has been described by the person who owns the system.
Third, timeline stated. A no-heat call and a heat pump they are costing for the fall carry different urgency, and the homeowner says which, in writing. Fourth, still an open job: a homeowner who has already signed with another contractor is binned, and one still comparing quotes arrives with that stated, not discovered on your first call. Fifth, one buyer only. Pass every check and the referral goes to exactly one contractor, in real time, and it is never sold again afterwards.
That is the whole of our HVAC lead generation model, and it is the same standard that runs across the one company per area model. The HVAC version just stays specific to the work: no-heat and no-cool calls, furnace and AC replacement, heat pumps, ductwork, and the maintenance plans that follow an install.
Why do shared HVAC leads
close so badly?
3-7%. That is the close rate SolarReviews publishes for its own solar leads, sitting next to an 80-85% contact rate, and the mechanism it describes is selling each lead to 2.3 companies on average.
Read those two numbers together and the problem is obvious. Contact is not the hard part; ownership is. SolarReviews states plainly that 93-97% will not close, and that it takes no returns. Those are solar figures published by a solar marketplace, and we quote them as theirs, but a shared HVAC lead runs the same way: reach the homeowner, then bid against the other companies who bought the same record. An inquiry that was confirmed over SMS, given a timeline, cleared of an existing booking and sent to one contractor is not a better lead. It is a different unit of work.
What do HVAC contractors ask
before holding a market?
$56 is what one unqualified click costs in the US auction, and every answer below follows from one mechanism: five published checks, one contractor per market, never resold.
What does HVAC lead generation cost?
Why only one HVAC contractor per market?
Why do shared HVAC leads close so badly?
What happens if a referral is bad?
Is there a contract or a retainer?
What happens in peak season?
Is your market
still open?
One HVAC contractor per market, first come. Every referral passes five published checks; fails one, it is not sent and you are not billed. If your market is taken, we tell you straight.