Google Keyword Planner · July 2026
Google Ads cost per click by trade
A Google Ads click does not have one price. It has a range, and where you land in it is a decision you make. Below are Google Keyword Planner's top-of-page bid ranges for 44 keywords across 15 Australian trades, and how your bidding decides what you actually pay. Retrieved 21 July 2026.
Every figure on this page is a range, not a price. These two frame the rest: the widest sweep across all 44 keywords, and what a single "plumber near me" click spans on its own.
A$1.97 to A$68.92
the full sweep of top-of-page bids across all 44 keywords: handyman near me at the low end, emergency plumber at the top
A$11.30 to A$53.95
what one "plumber near me" click spans, from the cheaper end of the auction to the top of the page
Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026
What does a "near me" click cost in your trade?
One click from someone searching "plumber near me" has cost advertisers anywhere from A$11.30 to A$53.95 to show at the top of the page. For a fencer it runs A$2.72 to A$9.39. That gap between the low and the high is the auction, and you position yourself inside it. Here are all 15 trades, sorted by the top of their range, dearest first.
"Near me" top-of-page bid range by trade · Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026
Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026
| Keyword | Searches a month (AU) | Top of page bid (AUD) | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|
| plumber near me | 49,500 | A$11.30 to A$53.95 | High |
| electrician near me | 40,500 | A$10.01 to A$38.73 | Medium |
| locksmith near me | 49,500 | A$3.75 to A$33.81 | Medium |
| solar installer near me | 1,300 | A$9.75 to A$31.63 | Medium |
| roofer near me | 5,400 | A$6.71 to A$30.20 | Medium |
| painter near me | 4,400 | A$5.64 to A$22.46 | Medium |
| air conditioning near me | 3,600 | A$5.25 to A$22.28 | Medium |
| pest control near me | 14,800 | A$6.34 to A$21.73 | Medium |
| tree removal near me | 2,900 | A$4.58 to A$19.59 | High |
| builder near me | 6,600 | A$5.30 to A$19.25 | Medium |
| concreter near me | 9,900 | A$4.14 to A$14.67 | Medium |
| landscaper near me | 2,400 | A$3.84 to A$12.85 | Medium |
| carpenter near me | 5,400 | A$3.24 to A$10.80 | Medium |
| handyman near me | 9,900 | A$1.97 to A$10.02 | Medium |
| fencing near me | 5,400 | A$2.72 to A$9.39 | Medium |
Top of page bid is Google Keyword Planner's record of what advertisers have paid for their ad to show at the top of the page for that keyword: the low end and the high end of that spread, in Australian dollars. Competition is Google's advertiser-density rating, Low, Medium or High. Full detail in the methodology below.
How your bid decides what you pay
This is why the tables show a range and not a single price. A Google Ads click is not sold at a sticker price. It is auctioned, and you help set what you pay.
It's an auction, every single search
You tell Google the most you are willing to pay for a click, and each time someone searches, Google runs an auction to decide who shows and in what order. You usually pay less than your maximum, not a flat fee, so two clicks on the same keyword rarely cost the same.
You choose how hard to push
Bid up and you can win the top spot and show on more of the searches, which wins more of the work but costs more per click. Bid conservatively and you take cheaper clicks further down the page and show less often. The same keyword can land you near the low end of Google's range or near the high end, depending on how aggressively you bid. You control that lever.
The lever you control
Bid lower
cheaper clicks, lower on the page, seen less often
Bid higher
dearer clicks, top of the page, seen more often
Quality Score changes the maths
Google rates how relevant your ad is and how fast and on-topic the page behind it is. A higher rating means you pay less for the same position, or hold a better position for the same bid. Two tradies bidding the identical amount do not pay the same or show in the same spot. This is the honest reason a website built to convert makes your ads cheaper, not just nicer to look at, and it is the part KINGTRADIE builds for.
Same bid, two tradies
Why it's a range, not a number
Put those together and the single "CPC" disappears. The low end of Google's range is roughly what a tight, high-quality campaign pays for a modest position. The high end is roughly what it costs to fight for the very top in the busiest moments. Any tool that hands you one average number is smoothing over the decision that actually decides your cost.
What does an emergency click cost?
The basket carries five after-hours terms, for the trades with genuine emergency demand. Emergency plumber is the dearest keyword on the page: advertisers have paid from A$13.09 to A$68.92 to sit at the top for it. Its low bid alone, A$13.09, sits above the starting bid of every trade in the near-me table.
Emergency term against the trade's "near me" term · Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026
plumber
locksmith
electrician
Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026
| Keyword | Searches a month (AU) | Top of page bid (AUD) | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|
| emergency plumber | 4,400 | A$13.09 to A$68.92 | High |
| 24 hour plumber | 480 | A$13.53 to A$65.02 | Medium |
| emergency locksmith | 1,600 | A$4.83 to A$50.04 | Medium |
| emergency electrician | 2,900 | A$6.18 to A$40.76 | High |
| emergency roof repairs | 170 | A$4.25 to A$27.30 | High |
The two dearest highs in this table are both plumbing after-hours work: emergency plumber at A$68.92 and 24 hour plumber at A$65.02. Emergency roof repairs sits far cheaper at the top, A$27.30, on just 170 searches a month.
What does a click cost by city?
The same trade can command very different money in different capitals. Each cell is the top-of-page bid range for the trade plus the city name, for example "plumber sydney" at A$7.18 to A$38.47.
Three trades the analysis calls out · top-of-page bid range, AUD · Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026
plumber
locksmith
pest control
Google Keyword Planner (AU) · retrieved 21 July 2026 · top of page bid range, AUD
| Trade keyword | Sydney | Melbourne | Brisbane |
|---|---|---|---|
| plumber | A$7.18 to A$38.47 | A$9.04 to A$50.49 | A$11.66 to A$65.64 |
| locksmith | A$4.54 to A$16.41 | A$10.05 to A$49.48 | A$8.50 to A$38.48 |
| electrician | A$6.48 to A$35.90 | A$6.35 to A$42.42 | A$8.28 to A$45.15 |
| roof repairs | A$10.34 to A$44.99 | A$8.01 to A$35.30 | A$7.84 to A$25.36 |
| air conditioning | A$6.07 to A$29.67 | A$4.79 to A$20.95 | A$8.08 to A$23.65 |
| painter | A$4.10 to A$14.48 | A$1.97 to A$20.40 | A$3.62 to A$27.70 |
| pest control | A$8.59 to A$23.15 | A$6.69 to A$26.53 | A$7.03 to A$21.15 |
| landscaping | A$5.16 to A$13.28 | A$2.62 to A$8.55 | A$3.37 to A$11.66 |
Rows are sorted by the dearest of their three city highs, dearest first. City terms use the highest-volume phrasing for each trade, which is why a row reads "roof repairs" rather than "roofer".
Methodology
Every figure on this page comes from Google Keyword Planner, pulled on 21 July 2026 from a KINGTRADIE Google Ads account, set to Australia and the Google network, for the twelve months from July 2025 to June 2026. Nothing is blended in from overseas benchmark reports, and nothing is modelled beyond arithmetic you can check against the tables.
- Top of page bid, low to high range
- Google Keyword Planner's record of what advertisers have actually paid for their ad to show at the top of the page for that keyword, given as a low end and a high end, in Australian dollars. It is a spread, not a quote, because your real cost per click depends on how you bid and how relevant your ad and page are.
- Searches a month
- Google's own count of average monthly searches in Australia, grouped with close variants like plurals and near-spellings.
- Competition
- Google's advertiser-density rating for the keyword: Low, Medium or High.
We moved this page to Keyword Planner because it is Google's own auction data, the most direct read on what a click has actually cost. One honest side effect: Keyword Planner groups close variants together, so its search volumes run higher than the exact-term estimates a tool like Semrush reports. Plumber near me shows 49,500 searches a month here against 22,200 on the exact-match pull we published on 20 July 2026. Neither count is wrong. They measure differently.
These are planning figures, not a Google rate card. What your campaign actually pays moves with your suburb, the time of day, your Quality Score, the competition in the moment and how you bid, which is exactly what the bidding section above walks through.
Basket design: 44 keywords across 15 trades. For each trade, the "near me" head term; emergency variants where the trade has genuine after-hours demand; and, for eight of the 15 trades, the trade paired with Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (15 near-me, 5 emergency and 24 city terms). The same basket is re-pulled quarterly so editions stay comparable.
What this means if you're a tradie
Five things the ranges above establish.
- There is no single price, only a spread you position into
- In the near-me table, every trade's high bid runs at least three times its low. For locksmith near me it is nine times, A$3.75 to A$33.81. Plumber near me spans A$11.30 to A$53.95, nearly five times over. Where you land in that spread is set by your bid and your Quality Score, not by the keyword.
- Plumbing is the dearest click in the trades, top to bottom
- The five highest top-of-page bids on the page are all plumbing: emergency plumber at A$68.92, plumber brisbane at A$65.64, 24 hour plumber at A$65.02, plumber near me at A$53.95 and plumber melbourne at A$50.49. Only one non-plumbing keyword, emergency locksmith at A$50.04, even reaches A$50 at the top.
- The emergency premium shows up at the top of the auction
- Fighting for the top spot after hours costs more: emergency plumber tops out at A$68.92 against A$53.95 for plumber near me, and emergency locksmith at A$50.04 against A$33.81. Electrician is the exception at the cheaper end, where the emergency term starts at A$6.18, below the A$10.01 that plain electrician near me starts at.
- Volume and price are separate levers
- Locksmith near me and plumber near me are both searched 49,500 times a month, the busiest terms on the page, yet the locksmith range starts at A$3.75 against A$11.30 for the plumber. The number of people searching does not set the click price. The advertisers bidding do.
- City matters for some trades and barely at all for others
- A locksmith click in Melbourne tops out at A$49.48, three times the A$16.41 top in Sydney. Pest control barely shifts across the capitals: A$8.59 to A$23.15 in Sydney, A$7.03 to A$21.15 in Brisbane. Check your trade's row before you assume your city runs dear or cheap.
Where to from here depends on the question you are answering. If it is "who should run these keywords for me", how we build and manage campaigns is on Google Ads for tradies. If it is "should I be buying clicks at all", advertising for tradies sets every channel tradies use side by side, and digital marketing for tradies maps how ads, SEO and your website fit together. If it is "what does the feed cost instead", the same treatment for Meta is on what Facebook ads cost in Australia.
Click-cost questions
Straight answers, every figure from the tables above.
How much does a Google Ads click cost for a plumber in Australia?
There is no single number, there is a range. Google Keyword Planner puts the top-of-page bid for plumber near me at A$11.30 to A$53.95 and for emergency plumber at A$13.09 to A$68.92, with the city terms at A$7.18 to A$38.47 in Sydney, A$9.04 to A$50.49 in Melbourne and A$11.66 to A$65.64 in Brisbane (retrieved 21 July 2026). What you actually pay per click sits inside that range, set by how you bid and your ad quality, which is why plumbing is the dearest trade we measured.
Why is it a range and not one set price?
Because a click is auctioned, not sold at a sticker price. Google runs an auction on every search, and where your ad shows, and what you pay, depends on how much you bid and how relevant Google judges your ad and landing page. The low end of the range is roughly what a well-run, high-quality campaign pays for a modest position. The high end is what it costs to fight for the very top in the busiest moments. The bidding section above walks through it.
Can I pay less than the numbers in these tables?
Often, yes. A higher Quality Score, which comes from a relevant ad and a fast, on-topic landing page, means you pay less for the same position. Tighter targeting and smarter bidding keep you off the most expensive clicks. A well-run campaign usually lands in the lower half of Google's range, though chasing the very top spot in a competitive suburb pushes you toward the high end. What we will not do is promise you the low end every time. The auction does not work that way.
Are these the exact prices I'll pay on my campaign?
No, treat the ranges as a market reference, not a quote. They are Google's record of what advertisers have paid to show at the top of the page across Australia. Your own cost per click moves with your suburb, the time of day, your Quality Score, the competition in the moment and your bid strategy, which is exactly why this page shows a range instead of one tidy figure.
Which trades get the cheapest Google Ads clicks?
At the low end of the range, the top-of-page bid starts at A$1.97 for handyman near me and A$2.72 for fencing near me (retrieved 21 July 2026). Cheap clicks are not automatically good business, though: handyman near me draws 9,900 searches a month while fencing near me draws 5,400, and neither figure tells you how many of those searchers turn into paying jobs.
Sources
- Google Ads Keyword Planner, Australian historical metrics: top-of-page bid low and high range, average monthly searches and competition rating for all 44 keywords, pulled 21 July 2026, period July 2025 to June 2026, location Australia, Google network.
- Basket design (first-party): for each of 15 Australian trades, the "near me" head term; emergency variants where the trade has genuine after-hours demand; and, for eight of the 15 trades, the trade paired with Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane (8 by 3 = 24 city keywords; 15 near-me plus 5 emergency plus 24 city = 44). All retrieved in a single same-day pass so every figure is directly comparable.
Keyword Planner figures are Google's own planning data and move over time. Quote the retrieval date with any figure you reuse.
See where your own clicks land in the range.
If you're already running ads, put your account's real cost per click against your trade's range above. Sitting near the high end usually means there is room to move, on your bidding or your Quality Score. Book a call and the team will walk you through what a managed campaign looks like for your trade and area. No obligation.
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