What is the average cost per lead by industry in 2026?

At the top of LocaliQ and WordStream's 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks report sit Attorneys and Legal Services at $131.63 per lead, Furniture at $106.70, Real Estate at $102.51, Apparel, Fashion and Jewelry at $97.51, Business Services at $93.69, and Home and Home Improvement at $90.92. Every one of these sells an outcome worth thousands of dollars or more, which supports a much higher price per lead.

The middle band includes Industrial and Commercial at $75.19, Education and Instruction at $77.48, Finance and Insurance at $74.44, Dentists and Dental Services at $72.97, and Career and Employment and Health and Fitness, both at $67.36, essentially matching the $66.69 all-industries average.

Below the average sit Personal Services at $54.60, Shopping, Collectibles and Gifts at $49.40, Travel at $44.70, Sports and Recreation and Automotive For Sale, both at $44.26, Physicians and Surgeons at $40.04, and Beauty and Personal Care at $39.25. At the very bottom, Animals and Pets averages $31.50, Restaurants and Food $30.57, Automotive Repair, Service and Parts $29.96, and Arts and Entertainment the lowest of all 23 categories at $26.84.

A lead is worth what the business behind it can turn that lead into, and that varies enormously by category. A law firm or a home improvement company can often close one client worth many thousands of dollars, which supports bidding well past $100 for a single lead and still profiting. A restaurant or a pet groomer sells a much smaller ticket per visit, so a cost per lead anywhere near the legal or real estate figures would erase the profit on the transaction entirely.

Competition compounds the effect. Categories with high-value outcomes tend to attract more advertisers willing to bid aggressively for the same searches, which pushes cost per click, and in turn cost per lead, upward independent of conversion rate. That's part of why Attorneys and Legal Services sits at the top despite a below-average 5.55% conversion rate in the 2026 report.

Conversion rate alone does not explain the ranking either. Automotive Repair, Service and Parts converts at 15.51%, one of the higher rates in the report, yet still lands near the bottom on cost per lead, because its cost per click, $4.35, is also comparatively low. Cost per lead is the product of cost per click and conversion rate together, not either number by itself.

Start by matching your business to the closest category in the 2026 report rather than assuming the $66.69 all-industries average applies to you. A dental practice should compare itself to the $72.97 Dentists and Dental Services figure, not the blended average, since dental leads behave nothing like restaurant leads.

If your category isn't a clean match to any of the 23 listed, use the nearest comparable one and treat the number as a directional reference rather than an exact target. A specialty trade adjacent to Home and Home Improvement, for example, is more likely to land somewhere near that category's $90.92 than near Arts and Entertainment's $26.84.

Once you have a reference point, your own market's competitiveness, your service area's size, and how well your landing page converts will move your actual number above or below it, sometimes considerably, which is normal and expected rather than a sign something is broken.