# Electrical Contractor Leads: Best Sources Ranked

> There is no single best lead source for an electrical company, because electrical work has four different buyers: homeowners in trouble, general contractors, building owners, and other trades. Homeowners find you by searching, so Local Services Ads and Google Business Profile win. The other three never search at all. They use bid lists, vendor lists, and phone calls.

- Canonical URL: https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/best-lead-sources-for-electrical-companies
- Author: Om Patel
- Published: 2026-08-30 | Updated: 2026-09-25
- Topic: Lead Generation

The best source of electrical contractor leads depends entirely on which of four buyers you are selling to, and only one of those four ever types anything into Google. That one buyer is where every paid electrician lead comes from, and where most shops overspend on [shared leads](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/exclusive-vs-shared-electrical-leads) sold to four other electricians.

That is the part every ranked list of electrical lead sources gets wrong. They put Local Services Ads first, Google Ads second, SEO third, then bury general contractor relationships at number eight as a nice extra. For a shop doing residential service, that ranking is roughly right. For a shop doing anything else, it is close to backwards.

- Electrical work has four distinct buyers: the homeowner in trouble, the general contractor, the building owner, and the other trade. Each one discovers you a completely different way.
- Commercial, industrial and institutional work is 48.5% of electrical revenue against 39.1% residential, per the 2026 Profile of the Electrical Contractor. But single-family homes are roughly 50% of revenue for shops with fewer than 10 employees.
- The mix moved between 2023 and 2025: new construction fell from 36.6% to 31.7% of revenue, and the drop was sharpest at small firms.
- Maintenance contracts are shrinking (10.6% to 9.1%) while unscheduled repair grows (15.4% to 18.7%). Being first in line at the moment of failure beats a signed agreement.
- Prequalification gates the bid-list channel, but only 15% of 1 to 4 employee shops face it. The door is more open than most small owners think.
- Rank sources by reorder rate, not cost per lead. A source that produces a second job with no new spend is worth several times one that does not.

## The short answer

For residential service and repair, the ranking really is Google Business Profile first, then Local Services Ads, then reviews, then past customers. For new construction, the ranking is general contractor bid lists, then other electrical contractors, then nothing else that matters. For building maintenance, it is property manager and facility vendor lists. For high-ticket residential projects, it is the solar, HVAC and EV installer who just sold your customer a load their panel cannot carry.

Most electrical companies serve two or three of these at once and try to run one marketing plan across all of them. That is why the plan feels like it half works.

## Why one ranked list cannot be right

The clearest evidence comes from the trade's own census. The 2026 Profile of the Electrical Contractor, published by Electrical Contractor magazine and fielded online between January 28 and March 31 2026 with 926 completed responses, breaks electrical revenue down by where it comes from.

| Revenue by type of work | 2023 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| New construction | 36.6% | 31.7% |
| Maintenance, service or repair | 35.7% | 39.7% |
| Modernization and retrofit | 27.7% | 28.6% |

Two things in that table should change how you buy leads.

First, new construction fell almost five points in two years, and the Profile notes the drop "was especially pronounced in smaller firms." If you run a small shop and new-construction volume feels thinner than it did in 2023, that is not your imagination and it is not your marketing.

Second, look inside the maintenance and service number. Repair work climbed from 15.4% to 18.7% of total revenue, while maintenance and service contracts actually fell from 10.6% to 9.1%. The service side of electrical is growing, but it is growing through unscheduled failures, not through signed agreements.

Across all firm sizes, commercial, industrial and institutional work accounted for 48.5% of electrical revenue in 2025, against 39.1% residential. But single-family homes represent 33.4% of revenue on average and jump to almost 50% of revenue for firms with fewer than 10 employees. The smaller you are, the more of your money comes from the one buyer who searches.

Source: 2026 Profile of the Electrical Contractor, Electrical Contractor magazine.

That last number is the one to hold onto. If you are a four-truck shop, roughly half your revenue comes from homeowners, and Google channels genuinely are your best lead source. If you are past ten employees, commercial work climbs to about 30% of revenue and the ranking changes underneath you without anyone telling you.

## Buyer 1: the homeowner whose power just went out

**Best sources: Google Business Profile, Local Services Ads, review volume, your own past customer list.**

This buyer has one defining trait. They did not plan to call you today. Something failed, they are searching right now, and they will hire whoever answers. That is why every article ranks these channels first, and for this buyer they are right to.

Google Business Profile comes first because it is free, it is what people actually click in the map pack, and it feeds your Local Services Ads eligibility. Local Services Ads come second because they charge per connected call rather than per click and carry the Google Guaranteed badge, which matters more in electrical than in most trades. Reviews come third because they multiply both.

The trap is capacity. Local Services Ads bill you for calls, including calls that ring out. If nobody answers live, you are paying for the privilege of missing work. Before turning it on, be honest about who picks up at 2pm on a Thursday when both trucks are in an attic. We covered the full economics in [how much electrical leads cost](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-much-do-electrical-leads-cost), where the electrical benchmark works out to roughly $168 per paying customer.

The second trap is that this buyer's demand shrank on purpose. Two federal credits that had been generating panel and EV charger demand for free both ended within six months of each other, which we walk through in [how to get more electrical leads](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-to-get-more-electrical-leads). If your lead volume held but your average ticket fell, that is the cause, and no ad spend fixes it.

## Google Ads and Local Services Ads for electricians: what r/electricians says

**On r/electricians, Google Ads and Local Services Ads get the most mixed reviews of any channel: a few owners run their whole business on them, and more report paying for months with nothing to show.** The difference in those threads is rarely the platform. It is the market, the budget and whether someone answers live.

Start with what the leads cost. 99 Calls, an exclusive lead vendor, publishes the 10th to 90th percentile of what its own electrical clients paid per vetted lead over the last 12 months on its [electrician leads page](https://99calls.com/Electrician-Leads.htm):

| Channel | Published cost per electrical lead | What it depends on |
|---|---|---|
| Google Local Services Ads | $47 to $79 | Reviews, category, whether you answer |
| Google search ads | $80 to $278 | Keyword bids in your metro, match types |
| Exclusive organic leads (99 Calls' own) | $33.99 flat | Their site and SEO, not yours |

Now what owners report. A Seattle and Tacoma electrical contractor, 15 years in business, said that when Local Services Ads launched five years earlier they paid "$20-$40 per call roughly." After restarting the ads and raising the budget for six months: "I'm at $75 per lead budget currently, and we've gotten zero leads" ([r/electricians](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1h02br1/google_local_service_ads/)). Their guess was that competitors had pushed the going rate well past $100.

A licensed California electrician who had just launched a website and Google Business Profile reported: "We spent over $800 on Google Ads and only got 2 calls and no real work from it" ([r/electricians](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1lrzegc/how_to_bring_more_customers/)). The replies split cleanly. Owners pointed at word of mouth, property managers and Facebook community groups. The one strong defence of Google Ads, a claimed 5 to 7 times return "as long as you're a good closer and your pricing is on point," came from a commenter who describes himself elsewhere on the subreddit as a Google Ads specialist. Another reply made the point we would make: track which jobs came from where before you scale anything.

On the other side, a residential service electrician in Bozeman, Montana wrote that "the main way I get business is by running Google local service ads" ([r/electricians](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1p9bfum/where_to_run_my_own_resi_business/)), with consistent work in a town of about 50,000.

What separates the two outcomes, from these threads and from the numbers above:

- **Market density.** Local Services Ads bids rise with competitor spend, and the Seattle owner was told some rivals spend five figures a month.
- **Match types and budget.** An $800 test spread across broad keywords buys a sample, not a campaign. The case for exact and phrase match is in [should contractors use broad match keywords](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/should-contractors-use-broad-match-keywords-in-google-ads).
- **Live answer.** Both products bill for leads you fail to pick up. If you cannot answer at 2pm, fix [how fast you respond to a lead](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-fast-should-you-respond-to-a-lead) before raising the budget.
- **Knowing when it broke.** If a campaign that used to work has gone quiet, the usual causes are covered in [why did my Google Ads stop working](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/why-did-my-google-ads-stop-working).

## Buyer 2: the general contractor who needs a sub on Monday

**Best sources: bid lists you get on in person, other electrical contractors, prequalification with the GCs already building in your area.**

This buyer will never search for you. They have a list, and either you are on it or you are not.

Ask working operators how this actually happens and the answer is remarkably consistent. On an October 2025 r/Contractor thread from an electrical company one year into business, asking whether to sign up with Angi, the highest-voted reply was blunt: "Angie is trash. Go visit reputable GCs, send them your info, qualifications and availability."

Another commenter, writing from the general contractor's side of the table, described exactly how the list gets refreshed:

> "Get out to all the local General Contractors out there and develop some working relationships. I prefer working with small companies for my subs. I get better, more personalized service at better prices. I am also very loyal to my subs. Of course I have plenty of subs to work with, but I am always looking for new ones."

That is the buyer telling you the channel is open. A third reply gave the mechanics: "Spend a day or three door knocking the GCs in your area. Smaller Resi contractors or light commercial if you're just starting out. Give your info to their estimator(s) and get on their bid list."

Note the specific instruction: the estimator, not the office, not a contact form. The estimator is the person who assembles [the invitation-to-bid list](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-to-get-work-from-general-contractors), and adding a name to it costs them nothing.

### The prequalification gate is lower than you think

The usual objection is that bid lists require prequalification paperwork a small shop cannot produce. The Profile data says otherwise. Across all electrical contractors, 42% reported requirements to have prequalified standards and safety programs in place before bidding, down from 48% two years earlier. But that figure is almost entirely a large-company phenomenon:

| Firm size | Faces prequalification requirements to bid |
|---|---|
| 1 to 4 employees | 15% |
| 5 to 9 employees | 43% |
| 100+ employees | 82% |

At one to four employees, 85% of the bid work you would realistically chase has no formal prequalification gate at all. What it has instead is a relationship gate, and that is a different problem with a different solution: showing up.

### The lead source no published list includes

On a 2025 r/electricians thread from two partners trying to move from residential into commercial, one operator gave advice that appears on zero marketing agency rankings:

> "Start by approaching open shop electrical contractors in your area. Chances are they are busy AF and could use a subcontractor from time to time to handle the smaller projects they can't get to."

Your competitors are a lead source. A shop with a nine-month backlog is turning down small projects every week, and handing those to a known local licensed contractor is easier than telling the customer no. There is no lead fee, no auction, and no five other companies getting the same call.

The same thread also captured why this buyer cannot be bought through advertising. Asked how a resi shop breaks into commercial, a commercial-side electrician replied that connections to general contractor management "are paramount," and described how his own company won its last two large jobs: the project manager asked the GC for them directly, and got them because the relationship already existed.

The same thread contains the honest verdict on using search ads to reach this buyer. The owner wrote that they had "gotten the most commercial jobs from google leads but you have to hammer through a million bullshit resi calls before getting a shot at one." Search will occasionally deliver a commercial lead. It will make you pay for a hundred residential ones first.

Most electrical shops run one lead strategy across four buyers and then wonder why the numbers never add up. We map your revenue by buyer first, then build the channel mix and the tracking that tells you which one is actually paying. That is the whole engagement.

## Buyer 3: the building that has to keep running

**Best sources: property management vendor lists, facility managers, municipal and school district vendor registration.**

This is the buyer that produces the 18.7% repair number, and it is the most underrated channel in electrical because it inverts the economics of every other one.

With search, you pay per lead forever and each job is a fresh competition. With a property management account, you compete once, at onboarding, and then you are the electrician on file. A management company handling a few hundred units generates service calls continuously and sends them to whoever is already in the system.

Operators route people here constantly. From the same October 2025 thread: "Check with local property management companies, they're always looking for trades who will show up on time, sober, and not charge them an arm and a leg." It is not a sophisticated pitch. Reliability is the entire product, because the alternative they are comparing you to is a contractor who ghosted them.

Government work belongs in this bucket and is genuinely large. In the 2026 Profile, 58% of electrical contractors said they had done government work since 2024, with local government the most common client. Registering as a vendor with your city, county and school district is free, takes an afternoon, and puts you on the list that gets called for small repair contracts. Larger firms were about twice as likely to have done local or state work, which mostly reflects that they bothered to register.

## Buyer 4: the other trade that just sold a load your customer cannot carry

**Best sources: solar installers, HVAC contractors doing heat pump conversions, EV dealers, home inspectors, generator dealers.**

A large share of high-ticket residential electrical work is derivative demand. Nobody wakes up wanting a service upgrade. They want a heat pump, a car charger, a solar array, or a finished basement, and the panel is the obstacle discovered halfway through somebody else's sale.

That means the lead was generated by another trade, and the only question is whether they have your number. The Profile shows these categories held steady in 2025 while most other work declined: EV charging participation stayed at 47% of contractors, solar at 22%, energy storage at 14%, and HVAC controls at 34%. In a year when the survey found "a statistically significant decline across many major categories," flat points at where the residential project money still is.

Home inspectors are the cleanest version of this. They see every house that changes hands and write up every double-tapped breaker, so the buyer arrives already convinced the work is necessary. You are not selling. You are quoting against a written finding.

### Four referral lists r/electricians owners actually use

**Beyond other trades, the electrician leads owners on r/electricians credit most come from lists someone else maintains: the utility's contractor list, realtors' preferred vendors, retail installer programs and lighting stores.**

- **Your power company's authorized contractor list.** One contractor described registering as an "authorized contractor" with the local utility, which lists the company publicly and makes its EV charger, gas to electric and HVAC disconnect work rebate eligible. It took a license, proof of insurance and a business license, repeated for neighbouring utilities ([r/electricians](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1moabl9/for_the_contractors/)).
- **Realtors' preferred contractor lists.** The same owner said what "really opened the floodgates" was one realtor relationship, because agents keep public preferred contractor lists and pass both agents and buyers along. In the same reply, online ads barely registered: only Facebook produced any business (what makes [electrical Meta ads](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/electrical-meta-ads-that-actually-work) work is its own topic), and [Thumbtack](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/is-thumbtack-worth-it-for-contractors) was a firm no.
- **Retail installer programs.** In a thread from a new after-hours residential shop, owners suggested the Home Depot Pro Referral program and Nextdoor, where one electrician got a first job and three more from that customer ([r/electricians](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1gtu556/leads/)).
- **Fan and lighting stores.** From the same thread: "No one likes installing fans but it'll get you a good steady source of jobs," and those installs turn into other work in the same house.

All four are free, none of them is sold to five other electricians, and none of them appears on a paid lead ranking. The wider playbook is in [electrical lead generation without buying leads](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/electrical-lead-generation-without-buying-leads).

## The metric that ranks a source properly

Cost per lead is the wrong comparison across these four buyers, because the buyers do not repeat at the same rate. A better one is reorder rate: of the jobs a source produced last year, what share came back for a second job without you spending anything new?

| Source | Typical reorder behaviour |
|---|---|
| Property management or facility account | Very high. One onboarding produces calls for years. |
| General contractor bid list | High. Estimators reuse subs who bid on time and finish clean. |
| Trade partner referral | High. The partner keeps selling the job that creates yours. |
| Past customer list | Moderate. Depends entirely on whether you kept the records. |
| Google Business Profile and organic | Moderate. The asset persists even if the customer does not. |
| Local Services Ads and paid search | Low. Stop paying and the leads stop the same day. |
| Shared marketplaces | Lowest. You rent the customer and never own the record. |

This also explains the most common failure mode we see: a shop with a genuinely good reorder-rate channel that cannot use it, because nobody wrote down which property manager called in March or which estimator asked for a bid in June. If the record does not exist, the reorder does not happen. That is a records problem before it is a marketing problem, which is why we build tracking before channels. Start with [how to track where your leads come from](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-to-track-where-your-leads-come-from).

## The data center question, answered honestly

Every electrical trade publication in 2026 is writing about data centers, so it is worth saying plainly what it does and does not mean for a small shop.

The numbers are real. Data center construction is running at an annualized $50.7 billion, up 28.1% year over year against a 0.3% gain for nonresidential construction overall, per Associated Builders and Contractors. Electrical work is 45% to 70% of a data center's construction cost, making electrical contractors the largest single cost category on those projects. Firms holding data center contracts carry backlogs averaging 11.6 months against 8.6 months for those without.

None of that is a lead source you can act on next quarter with four trucks. This work is won through prequalification, bonding, medium and high-voltage competency, and Tier III or IV commissioning experience. The realistic entry is buyer 2: subcontract to the electrical contractor who did win the package.

The near-term data center effect on a small electrical shop is more likely to be a labour problem than a revenue opportunity. The Wall Street Journal reported electricians specializing in data center work can earn $200,000 or more annually, and premium pay on hyperscale projects pulls journeymen away from residential and light commercial employers. If your best tech left this year, this is probably why.

## What reliably produces nothing

The shared-marketplace channel is the one place where operator opinion is close to unanimous. Across the 17 top replies to that October 2025 thread from a one-year-old electrical company asking whether to sign with Angi, not a single reply said yes:

> "It's the first year. I highly advise to not pay for leads. Give it time, first 2 years are when you build that clientele."

> "If you want to pay for over 200 leads and not get a single customer then I'd say sign up for angi."

The structural complaint is never about price. As one commenter put it, the problem is "you are just being thrown into a pile with a bunch of other contractors." This matches the regulatory record: the FTC's January 2023 order required HomeAdvisor, an Angi company, to pay up to $7.2 million over claims about lead quality it could not substantiate. The trade-specific numbers are in [are Angi leads worth it for electrical](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/are-angi-leads-worth-it-for-electrical). If you are already locked in, [how to get out of an Angi contract](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/how-to-get-out-of-an-angi-contract) covers the mechanics.

The nuance worth keeping: marketplaces are a capacity filler, not a growth channel. Use them to plug a hole in a slow month with a date on which you stop.

## The 90 day build

Ordered so free assets and relationship channels compound while paid channels cover the gap.

1. **Split last year's revenue across the four buyers.** Tag each invoice as homeowner service, contractor, building account, or trade referral. Everything below is priced off this split.
2. **Finish the Google Business Profile.** Services, service areas, photos of real panels and real trucks, and a review request texted after every job. Free, top source for buyer 1, and it gates Local Services Ads.
3. **Door-knock ten general contractors and get on ten bid lists.** License, insurance certificate, one-page project list, handed to the estimator. A week of evenings, no per-lead cost.
4. **Register as a vendor with your city, county and school district.** Free, an afternoon, and 58% of the industry is already there.
5. **Sign five trade partners.** Two HVAC, one solar, one home inspector, one generator dealer. Ask each what their most common electrical blocker is and quote it fast.
6. **Turn on Local Services Ads last**, and only once someone answers live during working hours. Details in [Google Local Services Ads for contractors](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/google-local-services-ads-for-contractors).
7. **Record the source on every job.** Without it, none of the above can be ranked next year. A [CRM built for electricians](https://www.pavadotech.com/blog/crm-for-electricians) is the cheap version of this problem.

If your revenue split shows more than a third coming from contractors or building accounts, your best next investment is almost certainly not another ad channel. Send us your last twelve months and we will tell you which of the four buyers is actually paying for your business, and what to build next.

## Sources

- [2026 Profile of the Electrical Contractor](https://www.ecmag.com/magazine/articles/article-detail/2026-profile-of-the-electrical-contractor), Electrical Contractor magazine, 926 respondents, fielded January 28 to March 31 2026. Revenue mix, firm size, prequalification and government work data.
- [Associated Builders and Contractors, nonresidential construction spending, April 2026](https://www.abc.org/News-Media/News-Releases/abc-nonresidential-construction-spending-grows-on-public-sector-strength-in-april). Data center spending pace and growth rate.
- [ABC analysis of data center construction for electrical contractors](https://abccentraltexas.org/abc-s-june-construction-data-reveals-critical-insights-for-data-center-electrical-contractors-in-central-texas/). Backlog gap and state revenue growth.
- [IBEW, The Data Center Surge](https://ibew.org/electrical_worker/the-data-center-surge-a-new-generation-of-ibew-jobs/). Electrical share of data center construction cost.
- [Wall Street Journal, Data Centers Are a Gold Rush for Construction Workers](https://www.wsj.com/business/data-centers-are-a-gold-rush-for-construction-workers-6e3c5ce0). Data center electrician compensation.
- r/Contractor, [Small electrical business a year in needs advice](https://reddit.com/r/Contractor/comments/1oia4qk/small_electrical_business_a_year_in_needs/), October 2025.
- r/electricians, [Best way to push into all commercial clients](https://reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1mor7ch/best_way_to_push_into_all_commercial_clients/), August 2025.
- r/electricians, [Google local service Ads](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1h02br1/google_local_service_ads/), November 2024.
- r/electricians, [How to bring more customers?](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1lrzegc/how_to_bring_more_customers/), July 2025.
- r/electricians, [For the contractors](https://www.reddit.com/r/electricians/comments/1moabl9/for_the_contractors/), August 2025.
- [99 Calls, Electrician Leads](https://99calls.com/Electrician-Leads.htm). Published per-lead cost ranges by channel.
- [FTC order against HomeAdvisor](https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/01/ftc-order-requires-homeadvisor-pay-72-million-stop-deceptively-marketing-its-leads-home-improvement), January 2023.

## FAQ

### What is the best lead source for an electrical company?

It depends on which buyer you sell to. For residential service and repair, Google Business Profile and Local Services Ads are the best sources because that buyer searches at the moment something fails. For new construction, the best source is being on general contractor bid lists, which no amount of ad spend can buy. Most electrical companies serve both and need both.

### Where do electricians actually get most of their work?

Not from search, for most of the industry. The 2026 Profile of the Electrical Contractor, a survey of 926 contractors fielded between January and March 2026, found commercial, industrial and institutional work made up 48.5% of revenue against 39.1% for residential. That said, the mix flips by company size: single-family homes are about 50% of revenue for shops with fewer than 10 employees.

### How do I get on a general contractor's bid list as an electrical sub?

Visit the general contractors in your area in person and give your license, insurance certificate, bonding capacity and a short project list directly to their estimator, not to a general inbox. Then ask what their prequalification process is. Only 42% of electrical contractors face formal prequalification requirements, and just 15% of shops with 1 to 4 employees do, so the gate is lower for small shops than most owners assume.

### Are Angi and HomeAdvisor worth it for electricians?

Rarely, and contractors say so consistently. In an October 2025 r/Contractor thread from an electrical shop one year in, not one of the 17 top replies recommended buying leads. The advice instead was to visit local general contractors and property managers. The FTC's January 2023 order required HomeAdvisor, an Angi company, to pay up to $7.2 million over lead quality claims it could not substantiate.

### Should electrical companies sell maintenance contracts to get recurring work?

The industry is moving the other way, which is worth knowing before you build a program around it. Between the 2024 and 2026 Profile surveys, maintenance and service contracts fell from 10.6% to 9.1% of electrical revenue while unscheduled repair work rose from 15.4% to 18.7%. Growth in service is coming from failures, not from contracts, so being first in line when something breaks matters more than a signed agreement.

### Can a small electrical company get data center work?

Almost never as a prime, and usually not directly. Data center construction is running at a $50.7 billion annual pace, up 28.1% year over year, and electrical work is 45% to 70% of that cost, but the realistic entry for a small shop is subcontracting to a larger electrical contractor. The bigger near-term effect on a small shop is labor: data center electricians can earn $200,000 or more, which pulls your people away.

### Is Local Services Ads or SEO better for an electrical contractor?

Local Services Ads produce calls in about a week and Google Business Profile plus local SEO produce them in 60 to 90 days, so the honest answer is that they solve different problems. Run Local Services Ads when you need the phone to ring this month and you can answer live. Build the Google Business Profile regardless, because it is free, it feeds Local Services Ads eligibility, and it keeps working when you stop paying.

### What lead source do other electricians recommend that marketing articles never mention?

Other electrical contractors. On a 2025 r/electricians thread about breaking into commercial work, an operator advised approaching open shop electrical contractors nearby because they are busy and need someone to take the small projects they cannot reach. It costs nothing, it carries no lead fee, and it does not appear on a single published ranking of electrical lead sources.

### Do Google Ads work for electricians?

They can, but r/electricians is full of owners for whom they did not. A licensed California electrician reported spending over $800 on Google Ads for 2 calls and no work, and a Seattle and Tacoma contractor with 15 years in business ran Local Services Ads at a $75 per lead budget for six months with zero leads. The owners who report success run tight service-line campaigns, answer live and close well. Start with Local Services Ads and your Google Business Profile, then add search ads with exact and phrase match only.

### Where can electricians buy leads, and what do they cost?

From Google directly, from exclusive lead vendors, or from shared marketplaces. 99 Calls, an exclusive vendor, publishes $47 to $79 per electrical lead from Local Services Ads and $80 to $278 from Google Ads, the 10th to 90th percentile of its clients' spend over 12 months, and a flat $33.99 for its own organic leads. Shared marketplaces such as Angi and Thumbtack cost less per lead but sell the same request to several electricians, which is why r/electricians owners so consistently warn against them.