Yelp Ads Cost for Contractors: What You Pay, What You Get and When It Pays

Yelp Ads charge per click, at an auction price that changes through the month, until your monthly budget is spent. Yelp's pricing page lists four options:

The page adds: "Minimum budgets subject to change."

How the price per click is set

From Yelp's help center:

• Auction. "The cost per click is determined dynamically through an automated auction that is designed to optimize pricing based on the circumstances."
• What moves it. "How many other businesses like yours are competing for the same clicks, available ad inventory, and consumer interest," plus seasonality, the number of Yelp searches and the number of advertisers in your area.
• Estimates. The estimated cost per click you were given at sign-up "may have been higher or lower than your actual cost-per-click."
• Where ads run. In your own categories and "other similar categories that our ad delivery system has identified as relevant."
• Pacing. Spend is not even: "You could spend $5 one day and $7 another day."
• The cap. "We will never charge you more than the monthly budget you've set," and Yelp says to plan on spending all of it.

Yelp's ad pages put the floor as "as little as $5 a day on average." Yelp's article on advertising adds that "you simply set a monthly budget, and Yelp maximizes your ad clicks, leads, and projects within that amount."

Where Yelp ads appear

Yelp says ads show in the "Sponsored Results" sections above and below search results and on competitors' business pages. You can write the ad text and pick the photo, or let Yelp test photos and use snippets of your positive reviews. Depending on your ad goal and category, the button sends people to call you, message you, visit your website or request a quote.

Contracts, cancelling and invalid clicks

Yelp's Master Advertising Terms were last updated October 28, 2026. What they and the help center say:

• No term contract for self-serve ads. Yelp's Ads page says "there are no term contracts with self-serve advertisers," and you can cancel at any time. The terms say self-serve clients end ads by selecting "End Campaign" in their account.
• Delivery. Yelp intends to spend your full monthly budget but does not guarantee it.
• Refunds. Fees for ads already delivered are non-refundable. Yelp reimburses fees prepaid for ads that would have run after you cancel.
• Invalid clicks. Yelp's help center says it filters fraudulent clicks and does "not bill for clicks that come in rapid succession from the same user." Its terms say Yelp "has systems that attempt to detect and filter certain click activity," and limit the remedy for invalid third-party clicks to replacement advertising, not cash.

Yelp does not publish a cost per click, and its help center says the price changes through the month. The ranges below come from agencies that run Yelp campaigns. They are their figures, not Yelp's.

The two ranges differ widely, and that is the point: your trade, city and season set the price, and the only reliable number is the one in your own Yelp Ads dashboard after a month.

How that compares with Google search ads

For a sense of scale, LocaliQ's 2025 benchmarks for Google and Microsoft search ads, from 3,211 home services campaigns run April 2024 to March 2025, give these median figures. They are search engine numbers, not Yelp's:

The full channel comparison, including Google Local Services Ads and Facebook, is in our contractor advertising guide.

Request a Quote is Yelp's form for service businesses, and it is free to set up. Yelp's article on it says that after a customer clicks the button on your page, "consumers are prompted to fill out an industry-specific questionnaire," and the request lands in your Yelp for Business inbox with the project details and contact information.

How the leads reach you:

• Direct requests. A customer on your Yelp page sends you a request. It appears in the "My Leads" section of your inbox, with email and push notifications.
• Projects sent to several businesses. Customers can "start projects, where their requests get sent to multiple businesses on Yelp." When a customer sends you a direct request, Yelp gives them the option to send the same request to other related businesses.
• Nearby Jobs. Requests where the customer opted into more quotes go into a Nearby Jobs feed. Yelp says businesses can "browse a feed of available jobs in their area for free, and they pay for the jobs they choose to respond to." A job expires "after 14 days of being active or if 6 other businesses have already responded." Yelp does not list a price per response on these pages; you add payment details when you activate the feature.
• From ads. Yelp says ads can encourage people to "get pricing and availability through Yelp's Request a Quote feature," and that Yelp Ads help you "get matched to quote requests."
• Into your CRM. Yelp's Leads API and a Zapier app can send requests into tools such as ServiceTitan, HubSpot or Salesforce.

Yelp's own figures, which it does not source to a named study: "84% of Yelp users prefer using 'Request a Quote' instead of calling businesses directly," and "82% of users hire or buy from a business they found on Yelp within a week." Yelp also offers customers Yelp Guaranteed, which "covers eligible projects up to $2,500 when customers hire through Request a Quote."

The practical point: a Request a Quote lead from your own page is yours alone, but a project request or a Nearby Job can reach several businesses, and a Nearby Job stays open until six other businesses have responded. Reply fast, with a price range and a next step.

Yelp for contractors works where homeowners search Yelp for the trade and can describe the job in a short questionnaire. Yelp runs trade pages for painters and home remodelers, and quotes its own figures there: it says it "drove 1.3 million painting leads last year." Those are Yelp's numbers.

Two things raise Yelp's value for any trade: a strong review profile, and someone who answers the Yelp inbox within minutes. Yelp's guidance for responding to requests is to "respond quickly and often" and to send "detailed price estimates."

Yelp charges per click, so the cost of a job depends on three rates: price per click, how many clicks turn into a lead, and how many leads you win. The inputs below are made-up round examples, with the click price inside the agency ranges above. Replace them with your dashboard numbers.

Now change one input at a time:

Hold the result against gross profit. At $400 per won job, Yelp works on a $3,000 garage floor coating at a 45% margin ($1,350 gross profit, 30% spent on ads). It does not work on a $900 repair at 40% ($360 gross profit). The click-to-lead rate is the input you control most: complete the page, answer every message, and add Request a Quote so ad clicks have somewhere to go.

A 60-day Yelp test

1. Claim and complete the free page first: services, service area, hours, at least a page of project photos, and replies to every review.
2. Turn on Request a Quote and app notifications. Decide who answers within minutes during work hours.
3. Start Yelp Ads at a budget you can lose for two months. Use keyword boosting for the jobs you want and exclude services you do not offer.
4. Log every Yelp lead: date, source (ad, page or Nearby Job), reply time, quoted, won, job value, gross profit.
5. After 60 days, divide Yelp spend by jobs won and compare it with your other sources in the lead economics calculator.

A free Yelp page gets you listed, reviewed and contactable without paying for ads. Yelp's business page says there is "no charge for listing your business on Yelp" and lists what is included:

• Organic listing. You can "show up in search results by business category, service, and location."
• Direct contact. Customers can send "messages or requests for phone calls, quotes, or consultations," including Request a Quote.
• Reviews. You can respond to all reviews.
• Photos. "Unlimited photos with captions."
• Business details. Phone, address, website and hours, editable anytime.
• Tracking. Page visits, leads and other customer activity.

Rules worth knowing:

• Most new pages are approved "within 24 hours," after review by Yelp's moderation team.
• Claiming a page is free, and "a claimed page does not mean that the business is a paid advertiser."
• A claimed page "may be automatically updated by Yelp to show as unclaimed if the business owner hasn't logged into their Yelp for Business account in the last 90 days." Log in at least once a quarter.
• On a free page, competitors' ads can appear. Removing them is part of the $180 Upgrade Package.

Your Yelp page also feeds other places customers search: Yelp says it has partnerships with Amazon Alexa+, Apple Maps, Siri and BMW. Keeping your name, phone and hours consistent there is part of local SEO for contractors.

Sourci sells marketing services to contractors, so it is not neutral on paid directories. It is a marketing agency in Austin, Texas for painting, roofing, flooring and coatings and general contractors. Sourci does not sell leads, and it does not run Yelp Ads inside its plans: ads, paid placements and directories are separate costs the client approves.

Inbound (website fixes, SEO and AI-search visibility; residential and commercial), detailed on our inbound lead generation page:

• Foundation: $1,950 a month + $1,000 onboarding. 4 page deliverables a month for one website and one primary service area, up to 2 eligible profile updates or corrections a month, and 24 buyer questions checked monthly across ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.
• Growth: $3,450 a month + $1,500 onboarding. 8 page deliverables a month across up to two service areas, up to 4 profile actions a month, and 48 buyer questions tracked.

Outbound (researched email outreach to property managers, facilities teams and commercial owners, with interested replies qualified and handed to your team; commercial accounts only), detailed on our outbound lead generation page:

• Foundation: $2,950 a month, up to 500 researched contacts a month.
• Growth: $4,450 a month, up to 1,000 researched contacts a month across two segments.

Plans are month-to-month with 30 days' written notice. A commercial painting contractor in Dallas grew revenue 234% in six months of Sourci's SEO and AI-search work: read the Dallas commercial painter case study.

Get a free AI-search check to see whether ChatGPT, Google AI and Perplexity recommend you, a competitor or a directory when buyers ask for a contractor in your area.

• Yelp for Business, "Local Business Pricing", checked November 9, 2026
• Yelp for Business, "Yelp Ads"
• Yelp for Business, "5 things to know about advertising on Yelp" (August 11, 2025)
• Yelp for Business, "How much does an ad cost online for small businesses?" (March 6, 2024)
• Yelp for Business, "How to get job requests from customers on Yelp" (August 11, 2025)
• Yelp for Business, "Request a Quote"
• Yelp for Business, "Prime your painting business for more leads"
• Yelp for Business, "Build new leads for your home remodeling business"
• Yelp for Business, "Why Claim Your Business Page on Yelp"
• Yelp Support, "How is the cost-per-click for Yelp Ads determined?"
• Yelp Support, "How does Yelp's Cost Per Click (CPC) advertising program work?"
• Yelp Support, "How do I know my competitors are not driving up my traffic and clicking on my Yelp ads?"
• Yelp Support, "What is Nearby Jobs?"
• Yelp Support, "What is the difference between Request A Quote and Nearby Jobs?"
• Yelp, Master Advertising Terms (last updated October 28, 2026)
• iCatch Marketing, "How Much Do Yelp Ads Cost in 2026? Complete Pricing Guide" (August 2, 2024)
• SuperDupr, "Is Yelp Advertising Worth It in 2026?" (updated October 18, 2026)
• LocaliQ, "2025 Search Ad Benchmarks for Home Services" (last updated July 15, 2026)
• Networx Help Center, "Pay Per Lead"
• Angi Help Center, "Opportunities and Leads: Frequently Asked Questions"
• Thumbtack Help, "Thumbtack's Quality Commitment Terms"

Checked November 2026.