Sydney plumbing leads: 112 enquiries in Sydney Choice Plumbing's first month

Why a plumbing enquiry in Sydney costs what it does

Plumbing is the hardest paid-search category in any Australian city, and Sydney is the hardest version of it. The reason is not mysterious. A plumbing job can be a washer, a hot water system, or a full drain replacement, and the operators making their money at the top of that range can afford to bid on every search in it. Everybody else competes at prices set by the biggest jobs in the category.

Stack the bidders up and it gets worse. Franchised networks with national marketing budgets. Multi-van operations with a sales team behind the phone. Lead brokers who buy the click, take the call and sell it to three plumbers at once. Every local independent trying to hold their own suburbs. All paying for the same finite set of searches, which are urgent enough that nobody is willing to be absent.

A wrong enquiry costs you twice

This is the part only tradespeople feel properly. You pay once for the click. Then you pay again when a van rolls to a job that was never real, or was already booked with someone else, or turns out to be a tenant who cannot authorise the work.

Time on the road is the scarcest thing a plumbing business owns. Nothing on an invoice recovers a wasted morning.

Starting from zero in the hardest category there is

A brand-new account has no history whatsoever. Nothing to lean on, and every click priced at full market rate from the very first one. The conventional expectation is that month one is tuition — you pay it, you learn from it, you hope month two pays. At the budget a Sydney plumbing account has to run on, that is an expensive education. Sydney Choice Plumbing came to us with exactly that problem and no appetite for a slow start.

The account went live from a standing start and ran across two campaigns. Over the wider account it was served 20,429 times, drew 1,016 clicks at a 4.97% click-through rate, and recorded 131 enquiries, 25 of them as tracked phone calls. Taken over the whole account, 12.89% of clicks became an enquiry. The period we single out below was chosen deliberately and is reported without its dates.

The approach from day one was narrow rather than broad. An account that tries to be visible for everything spends its first month learning the wrong lesson from the wrong traffic, and that lesson is expensive to unlearn. We started tight on the jobs Sydney Choice most wanted the phone to ring about, and let it earn its way outward. The mechanics are not something we describe.

112 enquiries in the first month on air

That first month gave the account 24 days of trading from a standing start.

112 enquiries at $129.31 each, from 794 clicks and 17,489 impressions — in the first month the account had ever run.

Of the clicks it bought in that period, 14.11% became an enquiry, ahead of the 12.89% recorded across the account's wider run, which is the right direction for a young account. Twenty-three of those 112 enquiries came in as tracked phone calls. Most of the volume came through the larger of the two campaigns, which account-wide carried 118.5 enquiries at $112.48 each.

Why the click-through rate looks low, and why we left it there

At 4.97% over the wider account, this looks unremarkable next to the towing and scrap accounts elsewhere on this site, which run at roughly double it. That gap is deliberate.

Fewer of the people who see the ad click it. Far more of the ones who do turn out to be worth answering. A broader account would show a prettier click-through rate and a worse cost per enquiry, and only one of those pays a plumber.

The numbers, in one place

• 112 enquiries across a 24-day period in 2026, from a standing start
• $129.31 cost per enquiry in that period
• 14.11% of clicks became enquiries in that period, against 12.89% over the wider account
• 23 tracked phone calls in that period, and 25 across the account's wider run
• 17,489 impressions and 794 clicks in that period
• 131 enquiries in total from 1,016 clicks and 20,429 impressions, taken over the whole account

Worth saying plainly: this is one month, presented as one month. No before-and-after, no trend to point at, because the account has not run long enough to earn one. The few extra days sitting outside it are a few days, and we are not calling them a month either. What that period shows is a launch that worked first time, at a cost per enquiry a Sydney plumbing business can build on.

What it changed for the business

Most trades write off the first month of a new lead channel in advance, as the price of learning. Producing 112 enquiries in that month instead means the channel started contributing immediately rather than being carried by the rest of the business while it warmed up. The internal argument shifts from “how long do we give it” to “how much of it can we handle”.

Those 23 calls are the part that changes a working day. A plumbing enquiry arriving as a phone call is usually the job happening right now, where the customer wants a time rather than a quote. Nothing like a form filled in at 11pm. A call is a booking not yet written down; a form is a lead you still have to win, often against two other plumbers who got the same enquiry from a broker.

On cost: $129.31 an enquiry reads high next to the other accounts on this site, and it is not comparable to them. A towing enquiry and a plumbing enquiry are not the same object. Plumbing carries a job value most trades do not, the range is wide, and the auction is priced accordingly. What matters to the owner is what share of 112 enquiries turn into booked work and what that work is worth — a question they can now answer with real volume instead of a theory.

There is a staffing consequence too, and it lands faster than people expect. A hundred-odd enquiries in a month is enough to expose whether the phone is being answered properly, whether after-hours is genuinely covered, and whether the second van is a want or a need. Volume tests the operation.

Key takeaways

• Sydney plumbing is the most contested local search category there is, and a new account pays full market rate from the first click with no history to lean on.
• The first month on air — a 24-day period in 2026 — produced 112 enquiries at $129.31 each, including 23 tracked phone calls.
• 14.11% of clicks became an enquiry in that period, ahead of the 12.89% recorded across the account's wider run.
• Over the wider account, 131 enquiries and 25 tracked calls came from 1,016 clicks.
• One month is one month. There is no trend here yet and we are not inventing one.

Frequently asked questions

What does a plumbing lead cost in Sydney?

In this account, $129.31 per enquiry in the measured period. That is one Sydney plumbing account in its first month, not a market rate. Plumbing enquiries cost more than most trades because the jobs are worth more and the auction is priced by the operators chasing the biggest of them.

How long before a new plumbing account produces work?

This one produced 112 enquiries in its first month, from a standing start with no history behind it. We will not promise the same timing to anyone else. What it shows is that the standard advice — write off month one — is a choice rather than a law.

Why is the click-through rate only 4.97%?

Because the account is deliberately not chasing every plumbing-adjacent search in Sydney. A broader account would show a prettier click-through rate and a worse cost per enquiry. In that period, 14.11% of the clicks it did buy turned into an enquiry.

How many of the enquiries were phone calls?

25 of the 131 over the wider account, 23 of them inside that period. In plumbing those are usually the urgent jobs, where the customer wants a time and not a quote.

Thinking about starting from scratch?

New plumbing accounts are the most likely to be set up badly and the most expensive to repair afterwards, because a category this competitive punishes a loose account immediately and quietly. If you are about to launch in Sydney, or the first month has not gone the way you were told it would, send it to us before more money goes through. We will tell you what we would change and what we would leave alone.