With us, pay per booking costs £60 for each booked heating or plumbing install quote visit and £100 for each booked roofing quote visit, plus the daily ad budget you pay Google direct. You pay us nothing until we reach the number of booked visits we agreed in writing.
Key takeaways
- Two fees are fixed and published: £60 for a boiler, heating or plumbing install quote visit, and £100 for a roofing quote visit. For heat pumps, solar, air conditioning, builders, bathrooms, kitchens, windows and doors, the fee is agreed in writing before we start.
- Your ad spend goes from you to Google and is never part of our fee. We never refund it. The number of visits we agree depends on that budget, so a bigger budget means a bigger agreed number.
- A booked visit is a named customer with a phone number and an address, in your diary for a quote visit or a call-out. If they cancel and don't rebook within 7 days, you don't pay for that visit.
- If we don't reach the agreed number in the agreed days (14 for most trades, 30 for builders and extensions), you have paid us nothing.
- Google's own pay-per-enquiry ads charge you when someone calls or messages, whether or not a visit is ever booked, and Google's help pages say UK advertisers can't get credits for poor-quality enquiries.
What you pay, line by line
There are two bills, and it helps to keep them apart.
The ad budget. Your Google ads run on your own account, and Google bills every click to you. We agree a daily budget with you before anything starts. Google's own help page explains that what you pay for a click is set in an auction, and that you're "often charged less, sometimes much less" than your maximum bid (Google Ads Help). On a busy day Google may spend "up to twice your average daily budget", but over a month you'll have spent "no more than 30.4 times your average daily budget" (Google Ads Help). Keep the same daily budget all month, and that budget times 30.4 is the most a month of clicks can cost you. That money is yours, it goes to Google, and we never refund it.
Our fee. We get paid only for booked visits, and only after we've reached the number we agreed. The published fees are on our home improvement page:
- Plumbing, heating and boiler installs: £60 a booked quote visit
- Roofing: £100 a booked quote visit (roofers)
- Heat pumps and solar, air conditioning, builders and extensions, bathrooms and kitchens, windows and doors: a fee per booked quote visit, agreed in writing before we start
Before we start, we put two numbers in writing: how many booked visits we'll get you, and in how many days. Most trades get 14 days. Builders and extensions get 30. Until we reach that number, you pay us nothing. Once we reach it, every booked visit after that costs the fixed fee. If the days run out first, you've paid us nothing, and only the ad spend has gone.
For a roofer, that means nothing to us while we work towards the agreed number, then £100 for each booked roofing quote visit after it, and nothing for a visit the customer cancels and doesn't rebook within 7 days.
What we set up first: your Google ads for the jobs you want, your Google Business Profile, a page for those jobs for the ads to send people to, the calls you miss answered, every quote chased and review requests to your customers. Nothing goes live until you've seen it and said yes.
What counts as a booked visit
This is the line the whole price rests on, so we wrote it down plainly. A booked visit is a named customer with a phone number and an address, booked into your diary for a quote visit or a call-out.
A form someone filled in counts for nothing on its own, and so does a call where nobody booked, or a number that doesn't answer. If the customer cancels and doesn't rebook within 7 days, you don't pay for that visit.
You still have to turn up and win the job. We get the homeowner into your diary. The quote, the survey and the price are yours.
Paying per enquiry versus paying per booked visit
Some of what gets sold to trades as "pay for results" charges per enquiry: a call, a message or a form. The gap between an enquiry and a booked visit is where the money goes.
Google runs its own pay-per-enquiry ads, the ones that sit above the normal results for searches like "roofer near me". Its UK help pages are open about how they charge:
- You're charged for each valid enquiry, and the price "may vary depending on your location, the job type", the type of enquiry or your bidding mode (Local Services Help).
- A missed call can count. Google's page lists a call you missed during your opening hours where "the customer stays on the line for more than 20 seconds" (same page).
- Booking requests through those ads are "only available in the United States and Canada" (same page).
- Credits for poor-quality enquiries "aren't available for healthcare verticals, tax specialists or advertisers in EMEA", which takes in the UK (Local Services Help).
- Google also says that if you "regularly fail to answer calls or respond to messages, your ad ranking may be affected" (getting started, UK).
None of that makes those ads a bad buy. They suit a firm with someone always on the phone and a quick way to turn a call into a visit. But you're paying for the chance of a job, and the work of turning it into a visit is still yours. With pay per booking, that work is ours, and our fee comes after the visit is in your diary.
The options side by side
| Option | Who does the work | What you pay for | If nothing gets booked |
|---|---|---|---|
| Run Google Ads yourself | You: keywords, ads, budget, tracking, answering, chasing | Clicks, billed by Google | You've paid for the clicks and your evenings |
| Monthly Google Ads management | An agency runs the ads; you answer and chase | Clicks, plus a monthly fee (ours is £249 a month and £249 setup) | You've paid for the clicks. With ours, the first month's fee comes back if the tracked enquiries agreed in writing don't come in during the first 30 days live |
| Google's pay-per-enquiry ads | Google shows the ads; you answer and chase | Each valid call or message, set by Google | You've paid for every enquiry that counted |
| Pay per booking with us | We set up the ads, profile and page, answer missed calls, chase quotes, ask for reviews | Clicks, billed by Google, plus £60 or £100 a booked visit (other trades agreed in writing), only after the agreed number | You've paid us nothing; the ad spend has gone to Google |
The last row moves the risk. On the first three, you pay whether or not a homeowner ever ends up in your diary. On pay per booking, our side of the bill only starts when they do.
Why answering the phone is part of the price
A booked visit often starts with a phone call, and the call doesn't wait until you're down off the ladder. When our caller rang 238 UK local businesses between 21 Sep and 30 Sep 2026, 216 (91%) did not pick up on the latest call: 119 rang out and 97 went to voicemail. More of those calls rang out with no voicemail at all than reached one, so the caller had nowhere to leave their name.
That's why answering the calls you miss sits inside pay per booking rather than being sold on top. A paid click that turns into an unanswered call costs you the click and earns us nothing, so we both want it picked up. Call answering handles the calls you can't take and books the visit or takes the details. Our post on whether calling back within a minute really works covers why the first few minutes matter.
To put your own figure on it, try the missed call calculator: three numbers from your week, and it shows the working.
Quote chasing is in there for the same reason. A quote nobody follows up is easy to lose, so every quote gets chased. Our post on how many times to follow up goes into how often is too often.
When pay per booking isn't the right fit
We say yes when three things are true: your average job is £2,000 or more, you'll fund the agreed daily ad budget, and there's more than one person in the business.
That rules some work out. Call-out-only plumbing isn't part of this offer. A one-person firm with a full diary doesn't need more visits. If you won't fund the ads, there's nothing to agree a number against.
If your work is big jobs and your diary has gaps, it's built for you. Our home improvement page lists every trade it covers.
How to choose
Whoever you're talking to, ask these before you sign anything:
- What exactly am I paying for: a click, an enquiry, or a visit in my diary with a name, phone number and address?
- Is the number agreed in writing before I pay, and over how many days?
- What happens if that number isn't reached? Do I pay anything?
- Whose account do the ads run on, and who gets billed for the clicks?
- If a customer cancels, do I still pay for that visit?
- Who answers when I can't get to the phone, and who chases the quotes I send?
- Do I see and approve everything before it goes live?
If the answers are vague, the price is too. Our pricing page lists every published price we charge.
Before you book a call
You don't need a new website for this: the ads send people to a page we build for the jobs you want. If your own site also brings in work, the 48-check scan shows where it stands, with the fixes in order. To talk it through, book a 20-minute call with a member of our team. Nothing is paid on the call.
Sources
- Google Ads Help, Actual cost per click (CPC): Definition, read 27 Oct 2026.
- Google Ads Help, About overdelivery and your average daily budget, read 27 Oct 2026.
- Local Services Help, how you're charged, and what counts, read 27 Oct 2026.
- Local Services Help, credits for poor-quality enquiries, read 27 Oct 2026.
- Local Services Help, Getting started, United Kingdom, read 27 Oct 2026.
- Build My Digital, our own call records: 238 UK local businesses rung between 21 Sep and 30 Sep 2026.
Common questions
How much does pay per booking cost?
With us, £60 for each booked plumbing, heating or boiler install quote visit and £100 for each booked roofing quote visit, paid only after we reach the number of visits agreed in writing. For other home improvement trades the fee is agreed in writing before we start. Your ad budget is paid to Google separately.
Do I pay anything if you don't hit the number?
No. If we don't reach the agreed number of booked visits within the agreed days, you've paid us nothing. The ad spend you paid Google isn't refunded by us.
Is pay per booking the same as paying per enquiry?
No. Paying per enquiry charges you for a call, message or form, whether or not it turns into a visit. Pay per booking charges only for a named customer with a phone number and address booked into your diary.
Who owns the Google Ads account?
You do. The ads run on your own account and Google bills every click to you direct.
How long before I know if it's working?
The number of days is agreed in writing before we start: 14 days for most trades and 30 for builders and extensions.
What your missed calls cost you.
£780 a month
£180 a week, £9,360 a year, going to whoever answers first.
As an example from these numbers, £631 a month is left over after the receptionist’s £149 starting price. Illustrative only, not a promise of earnings.
These are example numbers. Change them to your own. Worked out as 5 missed calls a week, times £120, times the 30% who would have booked, then over a month (52 weeks divided by 12).
A receptionist that answers every call in seconds, day or night, is £149 to £399 a month. It has to pay for itself in the first month, or you get every penny back, setup included.
Hear it answer as your businessBoth calculators, calls and messages, on one page: the missed call cost calculator.
Want more booked jobs?
We get high-ticket home improvement firms and private clinics more booked jobs, and we’re only paid when the bookings come in. We set up your Google ads and profile, answer the calls you miss, chase every quote and bring in the reviews. You fund the ads direct with Google. Not sure where your site stands? Run the free scan first: 48 checks, no charge.
9 things that decide whether your phone rings.
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