What does a cleaning lead cost on Google Ads in Australia?

End-of-lease, house and other residential cleaning typically costs A$12–A$25 per lead on Google Ads once campaigns have run three to six months, in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and other cities. Commercial cleaning (offices, gyms and regular contract cleans) runs on Search campaigns with exact-match keywords at A$80–A$120 or more per lead, which is worth paying because one contract brings monthly recurring revenue. Figures are ad spend per lead on Google Ads, before GST and our management fee. A lead is a phone call or an enquiry form.

Key facts

• Residential cleaning: A$12–A$25 per lead once campaigns have run three to six months, in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and other cities.
• Commercial cleaning: A$80–A$120 or more per lead on Search campaigns with exact-match keywords. Treat that as the minimum to plan for.
• A commercial lead costs more because a contract is cleaned every week and billed every month, not booked once.
• Only 26% of cleaning enquiries in SoudCoh's research sample were phone calls; 74% were forms.
• 75% of ad clicks came from mobile phones.

Definitions. A lead is a recorded phone call or a submitted form, not a booked job. Cost per lead is ad spend divided by leads, in Australian dollars before GST and management fees. The research sample mixes end-of-lease and bond cleaning, regular house cleaning, carpet and upholstery cleaning, and commercial and office cleaning.

A commercial cleaning lead typically costs A$80–A$120 or more, against A$12–A$25 for residential work, and the gap is the value of the job. An end-of-lease clean is one booking. An office, gym or regular contract clean is done every week and billed every month, so one won contract brings monthly recurring revenue for as long as the client stays. Paying more for the lead that can win that contract is the efficient choice.

Commercial runs on Search campaigns with exact-match keywords. Exact match keeps the ads on the searches a business buyer types for the service, rather than on residential, job-seeker and DIY searches that share words like “cleaning” or “office”. The aim is fewer, better-matched leads, not volume.

Judge commercial on contracts won, not lead count. A commercial lead usually goes through a site visit and a written quote before it becomes work, so the path is longer than for a residential booking. Measure what each won contract cost in ad spend against its monthly value. Our commercial cleaning site brief covers what those buyers look for.

Residential is a volume business. End-of-lease and house cleaning leads cost far less, but each job is smaller, so the work is in handling many quote requests quickly and turning them into bookings. The residential figures apply once campaigns have run three to six months; the first months cost more while searches are filtered and the campaign learns which suburbs and services book.

There is no single cost per lead across industries. A removalist lead and a commercial cleaning lead are different jobs with different values, so the figures are given industry by industry. The full list is in What a lead costs on Google Ads in Australia, industry by industry.

Two differences stand out. A residential cleaning lead costs well below a plumbing or electrical lead, and far fewer cleaning enquiries are phone calls. Cleaning is rarely an emergency. People book it around a moving date, an inspection or a regular routine, and they want a price first, so they fill in a quote form, often in the evening. Commercial cleaning is the exception on cost: a lead costs about as much as a plumbing lead, or more, because it can win a contract rather than a single clean.

A cheaper lead is not automatically a better deal. A residential clean is usually worth less than a plumbing or electrical job, and quote requests include more price shoppers. The number to manage is cost per booked clean, which needs your quote-to-booking rate alongside the cost per lead.

With 74% of enquiries arriving as forms, the quote form does the job a phone call does for a plumber. Four things follow:

• The form is the sales conversation. Ask for what a quote needs: suburb, property size, bedrooms and bathrooms, carpets, the service and the date. Our guide to the property details an end-of-lease quote needs lists them.
• Speed of reply decides who wins. People often send several quote requests at once. A reply the same evening with a clear price beats a call-back the next afternoon.
• Prices and inclusions reduce wasted enquiries. A page that shows packages or starting prices and a checklist of what is included filters out people whose budget does not fit.
• Form tracking must be clean. Count a form once, on a confirmed submission, not on every visit to a thank-you page. Double counting makes cost per lead look better than it is.

The phone still matters. Commercial clients and urgent move-out cleans often ring, and 75% of clicks come from phones, so the number and call button belong at the top of every page. Our guide to a trade website that converts calls and forms covers both.

How long the campaign has run. The residential figure of A$12–A$25 applies once campaigns have run three to six months. Before that, cost per lead is higher while job-seeker and DIY searches are found and excluded and the campaign learns which services and suburbs book.

Which services it covers. End-of-lease and bond cleaning is searched close to a fixed date by people who need it done. Clear packages by property size, an inclusion checklist and availability around the move-out date turn those clicks into quote requests. Carpet and upholstery cleaning responds to specifics: the surface, the stain, pet odour, a rug or a lounge. Ads and pages that name the problem outperform a generic “carpet cleaning” message; see why carpet cleaning ads should name the surface and the problem. Commercial cleaning sits at A$80–A$120 or more per lead on its own exact-match Search campaigns, so keep it separate from residential work.

Campaign size and scale. Campaigns built for volume, split by service and by the suburbs the team covers, with a landing page for each service rather than the home page, reach the lower end of the residential range. A small campaign with one generic ad struggles to get there.

How fast quotes go out, and whether calls get answered. Quote requests often go to several cleaners at once, and commercial buyers and urgent move-out cleans often ring. A slow reply or a missed call is a paid lead handed to a competitor.

What counts as a lead. Count confirmed form submissions and real calls, each once. Counting thank-you page visits or taps on a phone number makes cost per lead look cheaper than it is.

We review enquiry costs alongside lead quality and booked work, so the campaign reflects the jobs your business wants. That is the work described on our page on Google Ads for cleaning businesses.

Dividing each budget by the typical ranges gives a planning range for leads a month. It is a planning range, not a forecast.

Read it with three limits in mind:

• It is a straight division. Extra spend reaches dearer suburbs and less motivated searchers, so each additional lead tends to cost more, and not every lead becomes a booking.
• The residential column assumes a campaign that has run three to six months. Expect fewer leads in the first months.
• Commercial leads can cost more than the top of the range, so read that column as a ceiling. Won contracts keep paying through monthly recurring revenue, so judge this column on contracts won.

We recommend a minimum of A$5,000 a month in ad spend for most businesses. For a residential cleaning company that is roughly 200 to 417 quote requests a month once the campaign has settled, which is also a question of capacity: can the team quote and clean that many? Our guide to how much a trade business should spend on marketing covers scaling spend to the crew you have.

Two cleaning businesses from SoudCoh's case studies, each compared with itself over time.

FacilityWorx is a business-to-business commercial cleaner on the Gold Coast. Its account was built by service and by place, ads were matched to the job searched, and searches that would never book were cut. 58% of its enquiries came by phone, a reminder that commercial buyers often want to talk before they book a site visit.

EOL Melbourne works end-of-lease and bond cleaning in Melbourne. Only 19% of its enquiries were calls, so the quote form, which asks for property size, suburb, service and date, carries the account. Its click-to-enquiry rate of 27.9% shows what a quote journey built around the move-out date can do.

For carpet and upholstery work, the Retro WC Cleaning case study covers a Melbourne business cleaning carpets, upholstery and tiles for homes and businesses. None of these results is a forecast for another business.

If your website is where quote requests stall, we build cleaning websites around the quote form, and our lead generation work connects the ads, pages, tracking and follow-up. The account set-up itself is covered on our Google Ads management page. For how quickly a new account builds, see how long Google Ads takes to get leads.

A cleaning lead's cost is half the picture. SoudCoh's analysis of won-job records follows each cleaning enquiry from Google Ads to the job the business marked as won, valued at the agreed price:

• Quote forms brought in 56% of the won-job revenue traced to the ads, and became won jobs about 1.1× as often as calls.
• Enquiries made before noon were won 1.4× as often as enquiries from noon onward.
• First jobs traced to an ad were worth about 1.5× the ad spend, before any repeat cleans.
• The biggest tenth of jobs carried only 30% of won-job revenue, so steady volume and a good close rate matter more than one big contract.

A cheap lead that is answered in the afternoon can be worth less than a dearer one answered first thing. The full analysis is in what cleaning enquiries turn into won jobs.

How much does a cleaning lead cost on Google Ads in Australia?

End-of-lease, house and other residential cleaning typically costs A$12–A$25 per lead on Google Ads once campaigns have run three to six months, in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and other cities. Commercial cleaning (offices, gyms and regular contract cleans) runs on Search campaigns with exact-match keywords at A$80–A$120 or more per lead, which is worth paying because one contract brings monthly recurring revenue. A lead is a recorded call or form, and the figures are ad spend only, before GST and management fees.

Why do commercial cleaning leads cost more than residential ones?

Because a commercial contract is worth more. Offices, gyms and regular contract cleans run on Search campaigns with exact-match keywords at A$80–A$120 or more per lead, against A$12–A$25 for residential cleaning, and one won contract brings monthly recurring revenue rather than a single booking. Judge commercial campaigns on contracts won, not lead count.

Why do cleaning businesses get more forms than phone calls?

Cleaning is rarely an emergency. People book around a move-out date, an inspection or a routine, and want a price first, so they send a quote request. In SoudCoh's research sample, only 26% of cleaning enquiries were phone calls, which makes the quote form and the speed of reply the main levers on cost per booking.

How many quote requests will A$5,000 a month get a cleaning business?

At A$12–A$25 per lead, A$5,000 a month is roughly 200 to 417 residential quote requests once the campaign has run three to six months. For commercial cleaning at A$80–A$120 or more per lead, it is at most about 63. It is a planning range, not a forecast: the service mix, suburbs, form design and how fast quotes go out all move the real figure.

Are cheaper cleaning leads better value than plumbing leads?

Not automatically. A residential cleaning lead costs less on Google Ads, but the job is usually worth less and quote requests include more price shoppers. Compare cost per booked clean against the value of the work, using your own quote-to-booking rate, rather than comparing cost per lead across trades.

What should a cleaning quote form ask for?

Ask for what a quote needs and nothing else: suburb, property type and size, bedrooms and bathrooms, carpets or extras, the service and the preferred date. Show inclusions or starting prices nearby so people with a mismatched budget self-select out before they submit.