How can an HVAC company get more service leads?

HVAC lead generation is a seasonal fight over a small number of urgent searches. When the first heat wave or cold snap hits, “AC repair” and “furnace repair” spike, phones ring faster than most shops can answer, and the companies that win are the ones that pick up. The rest of the year, the work is building the base that keeps trucks busy in spring and fall: maintenance members, reviews and replacement pipelines.

They search for the broken thing and add “near me.” In the Strive analysis of Google Keyword Planner data (Sep 2025 to Aug 2026), HVAC covers 1,790 distinct customer search terms nationally, after brand, retailer and DIY terms are removed¹. Keyword Planner reports volume as ranges, so treat the volumes below as bands.

What the data shows:

• Repair is the biggest demand. “AC repair” sits in the 100K to 1M monthly band with a $100 top-of-page bid, and an AC or air conditioner repair term appears in the top searches of 49 of the 50 state reports¹. “Furnace repair” is also in the 100K to 1M band at about $69 and appears in the top searches of 22 of the 50 state reports¹.
• Emergency searches cost the most. “Emergency air conditioner repair” and “emergency ac repair” carry the highest bid in the national top 12 at about $130, well above “AC repair” at $100¹. “HVAC companies near me” is in the 100K to 1M band at about $80, and a “company” term appears in the top searches of 25 of the 50 state reports¹. Someone searching for a company is ready to book.
• Some big terms are not service leads. “Mini splits ac” is in the 100K to 1M band but bids only about $5.57¹, a sign that most of those searchers are shopping for equipment. In the raw Texas data, before supply-house terms are filtered out of the published tables, “heating and cooling supply near me” is a 10K to 100K term at about $11¹. These are mostly DIY buyers and other contractors. Keep them out of service campaigns with negative keywords.
• Climate shapes the mix. In Florida, no furnace or heating-repair term makes the state’s top 12; AC and general HVAC terms fill the list, and “hvac repair near me” carries a $150 bid¹. In Ohio, “AC repair” ($92) and “furnace repair” ($89) are both in the 10K to 100K band¹, so an Ohio shop runs two peak seasons.

Bid figures are Google’s top-of-page bid estimates. The high range used here is Google’s 80th percentile estimate for the keyword³¹. They show how hard advertisers compete, not what a lead costs.

Where competition is hottest. The national median top-of-page bid across HVAC terms is $26.32¹. The highest state medians are in Idaho ($110.74), Washington, D.C. ($102.21), Delaware ($99.31) and Nevada ($90.00), and among larger markets Utah ($72.22), Oregon ($64.74), Arizona ($56.35) and Washington ($51.71) stand out¹. The broadest markets by distinct search terms are California, Texas and Florida, with medians of $20.14, $30.29 and $39.07¹. New York ($16.38), Iowa ($19.27) and Michigan ($19.64) are among the cheapest larger markets¹.

HVAC tickets split into small repairs and large replacements, and the replacement is what makes the lead math work.

Fixr also notes that emergency AC repair can cost 2 to 3 times the standard hourly rate⁹, and that furnace replacement is worth considering once a furnace passes 15 to 20 years old¹⁰.

Worked example: value of a repair lead. Inputs are illustrative. Use your own.

Without the four replacements, the same 100 leads produce about $7,088 of gross profit, or $71 per lead. That is the most important number on this page: if your technicians do not recommend replacement on old, failing systems (honestly, with options), you cannot afford the leads your competitors buy. LocalIQ’s 2026 benchmarks put the average Google Ads cost per lead for home and home improvement at $90.92¹⁵. At $228 of gross profit per lead it works. At $71 it does not.

Maintenance agreements add a second layer. Fixr’s 2026 cost data puts maintenance agreements at $150 to $500 a year, typically including tune-ups, service call discounts, priority scheduling and reduced emergency fees¹⁴. Illustrative math: 200 members at $200 a year is $40,000 of prepaid revenue and 400 scheduled visits, each one a chance to find repairs and aging equipment without paying for a lead.

Google Business Profile

Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity (its help page heads the third factor “Prominence”), and says more reviews and positive ratings can help⁵. You cannot pay for better local ranking⁵. Service-area businesses run from a home should clear the address and set a service area, and virtual offices are not eligible⁶. Keep the business name exactly as customers know it. Adding “AC Repair 24/7” to the name is against the guidelines⁶.

Reviews decide many HVAC calls. BrightLocal’s 2026 survey found 97% of consumers read reviews for local businesses, 31% will only use businesses with 4.5 stars or more, and 74% seek reviews written in the last three months⁷. Peak season is when you run the most jobs, so it is also when to ask for the most reviews.

Local Services Ads

“HVAC (heating or air conditioning)” is an eligible Local Services Ads category in the U.S., and you pay per lead². Google ranks LSA in an auction that weighs your bid, your responsiveness, your profile quality (rating, review count, response time, photos and verification checks) and the search context, and it says missed calls can hurt responsiveness³. Calls outside business hours and requests for services you do not offer are among the leads Google lists as not charged or eligible for credit⁴.

Google began moving Local Services Ads into Performance Max campaigns with pay-per-lead goals in August 2026, and HVAC is in the first group of U.S. categories. You still pay per valid lead and ads keep the same placements, but management moves into Google Ads and your average weekly budget is divided by 7 into a daily average³². Check your account notices before you set budgets.

Paid search

Paid search is where replacement and heat pump work is won. Build separate campaigns for repair (tight radius, staffed hours only) and replacement (wider radius, landing page with financing and rebate information). Use negative keywords for “supply,” “parts,” “jobs,” “school,” “certification,” “DIY” and equipment-only searches like “mini split” when you do not sell equipment-only installs.

Organic SEO

Homeowners research replacements for days or weeks. Pages that explain repair-versus-replace, real price ranges, heat pump options and the rebates available in your state answer those questions. BrightLocal found 45% of consumers now use AI tools like ChatGPT for local recommendations⁷, and those tools tend to cite pages that state specific facts.

Maintenance agreements and repeat work

ENERGY STAR advises having the cooling system checked in spring and the heating system in fall, and notes that contractors get busy once summer and winter arrive¹⁷. That is the case for selling agreements: members fill the shoulder months, and every tune-up is a documented look at system age and condition.

Lead marketplaces

Angi’s 2025 annual report says pros pay for consumer matches whether or not they end up providing the service²⁹. Thumbtack has no membership fee and lets pros set their own lead budget³⁰. Both can fill gaps for a new shop. Judge them by cost per booked job, and watch whether the jobs are small repairs or replacement opportunities.

Rebates and tax credits as lead hooks

The rules changed. The IRS says the 25C energy efficient home improvement credit is not allowed for any property placed in service after December 31, 2025¹⁸. ENERGY STAR’s tax credit page also describes the credits as available through December 31, 2025¹⁹. Any ad, page or sales script that promises a federal tax credit on a 2026 install is wrong and should come down.

What remains:

• State Home Energy Rebates. Federal law caps the high-efficiency electric home rebate at $8,000 for a heat pump for space heating or cooling and $14,000 in total per household²⁰. Households under 80% of area median income can get up to 100% of costs covered, and households from 80% to 150% up to 50%²⁰. States run the programs, and the Department of Energy says they are available only in select states, so check your state energy office²¹.
• Utility rebates. Many utilities offer their own heat pump and high-efficiency equipment rebates. Amounts and rules change often, so link to the utility page rather than quoting a number that may expire.

A rebate page that names your state program and your utilities, with eligibility in plain language, is one of the few HVAC pages that earns links and AI citations.

Federal: EPA Section 608. Technicians who maintain, service, repair or dispose of equipment that could release ozone-depleting refrigerants must hold Section 608 certification, which covers Type I (small appliances), Type II (high-pressure) and Type III (low-pressure) equipment, plus a Universal option²². Listing the certification on technician bios and your website is a simple trust signal, and it is a legal requirement for the work.

Texas. The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR) licenses air conditioning and refrigeration contractors. All advertising by an AC and refrigeration contracting company designed to solicit business must include the affiliated licensee’s license number²³. Exemptions include national TV ads that state the license is available on request, phone book listings with only name, address and phone, promotional items of nominal value, letterheads and signs at a permanent business location²³. TDLR lists failing to include the license number in an ad as a Class A advertising violation with a $500 to $1,000 penalty, and unlicensed contracting as a Class C violation with $2,000 to $5,000 penalties²⁴. Invoices must show the company name, address, phone and license number, and proposals and contracts must carry TDLR contact information²³.

Florida. Florida licenses Class A and Class B air-conditioning contractors. Class B work is limited to 25 tons of cooling and 500,000 Btu of heating in any one system²⁵. The contractor’s license number must appear in every offer of services, proposal, bid, contract and advertisement, regardless of medium, and on vehicles that carry the business name²⁶.

California. HVAC work falls under the C-20 Warm-Air Heating, Ventilating and Air-Conditioning Contractor classification²⁸. The CSLB reminds contractors to put their license number on all advertisements, including websites and online postings, and on commercial vehicles, and not to advertise outside their classification or advertise that they are bonded²⁷. Civil penalties for advertising violations range from $100 to $5,000²⁷.

These are examples. Licensing for HVAC varies by state and sometimes by city, so check your own state board, and talk to a lawyer when a rule decides how you advertise.

Watsco, the largest HVAC distributor in North America by its own description, reports that sales of residential central air conditioners, heating equipment and parts are seasonal, that weather in summer and winter can swing profitability, and that residential central AC replacement demand is typically highest in the second and third quarters while heating equipment demand is usually highest in the first and fourth quarters¹⁶. ENERGY STAR’s advice to schedule cooling checks in spring and heating checks in fall points to the shoulder seasons as the time to sell maintenance¹⁷.

The Strive keyword data is a 12-month average and does not show monthly swings¹, so check Google Trends for “AC repair” and “furnace repair” in your state before you set a budget calendar. A practical approach many operators use: raise paid budgets just before your local peak, cap them at dispatch capacity during the peak, and move spend to tune-up and replacement campaigns in spring and fall.

1. Missing calls in a heat wave. In an HBR audit of 2,241 U.S. companies, only 37% responded to a web lead within an hour, and the average response among those that replied within 30 days was 42 hours⁸. In a separate study of 1.25 million leads described in the same article, firms that tried within an hour were nearly 7 times as likely to qualify the lead as those that tried even an hour later⁸. Instead: add overflow answering and text-back before peak season, not during it.
2. Buying leads with no replacement path. At $71 of gross profit per repair-only lead, most paid channels lose money (see the worked example). Instead: train technicians to document system age and present repair and replace options on every call to an older system.
3. Advertising an expired tax credit. 25C ended for property placed in service after 2025¹⁸. Instead: replace it with your state’s rebate program status and utility rebates.
4. Leaving the license number off ads. Texas, Florida and California all require it in most advertising²³²⁶²⁷. Instead: put it in ad copy or assets, the website footer, trucks and proposals.
5. Letting shopping searches into service campaigns. Low-bid product terms like “mini splits ac” attract equipment shoppers¹. Instead: build negative keyword lists and separate equipment-only and service campaigns.
6. Selling agreements and never renewing them. Instead: auto-renew with consent, schedule the next visit before the technician leaves, and track renewal rate monthly.

Start this plan in a shoulder season so it is in place before the next peak.

• HVAC demand is repair-led and seasonal: “AC repair” and “furnace repair” lead the data, and emergency repair terms carry the highest bids¹¹⁶.
• A repair lead is only affordable when some repair calls become replacements, so the replacement rate is the number that sets your lead budget⁹¹¹¹⁵.
• Local Services Ads suit HVAC, but they reward live answering and fresh reviews as much as bid²³⁷.
• The federal 25C credit ended after 2025, so lead with state Home Energy Rebates where they exist and with utility rebates¹⁸²⁰²¹.
• Maintenance agreements fill shoulder months and turn every tune-up into a free look at the next replacement¹⁴¹⁷.