How Much Should an HVAC Company Spend on Marketing?
If you want to grow your HVAC business, you are likely considering doing some marketing.
Before you spend any money on HVAC marketing, you must know the costs and what is worth spending money on.
Here are the average HVAC marketing costs in 2025:
| HVAC Marketing Costs in 2025 | |
|---|---|
| Average cost per HVAC customer acquisition | $300 per sale |
| Average HVAC PPC ad cost per customer | $150 – $250 per lead |
| Average HVAC LSA cost per customer | $85 – $100 per lead |
| Average HVAC website cost | $7,000 – $15,000 one-time fee |
| Average HVAC SEO cost | $1500 – $5000 per month |
| Average HVAC social media cost | $1000 – $5000 per month |
| Average HVAC technician system commission | $500 – $1000 per system |
| Average HVAC technician spiff on upsells | $50 – $150 per sale |
Whether you look at PPC, SEO, social media ads, print ads, or traditional advertising, you must first understand what your return on marketing investment will be.
Without getting too technical, you need to know how much it costs you to get a customer to buy, and then how much they will buy from you in the future.
When it comes to HVAC marketing costs, you need to factor in the customer acquisition cost (CAC) and also the lifetime value (LTV) of your HVAC customers.
Once you know these numbers, it is easier to understand what your HVAC Marketing costs should be.
What is a Good HVAC Marketing Budget?
If you want your HVAC company to grow, you will need more customers. To get those customers, you will need to spend some money on ads and ongoing markting.
Before you start spending money on HVAC marketing, it is wise to work out a budget.
As a rule, you should aim to spend about 5-10% of your revenue on HVAC marketing.
Any higher than 10% spend means you are not being smart with your marketing, and if it is lower than 5%, you might be missing out on opportunities.
You can create a monthly budget; however, because the HVAC industry is very seasonal, creating an annual HVAC marketing budget might make more sense.
Depending on your location (and how long your shoulder season is each year) you should aim to allocate at least 50% of your marketing spend on advertising, and the other 50% towards online presence, traditional marketing, and technician or CSR spiffs.
Some HVAC companies spend as much as 80% of their HVAC marketing budget on PPC and LSA, which makes them dependent on one lead source.
It is much wiser to focus on building a database of existing customers from whom you can upsell, service, and gain referrals.
Investing in growing the lifetime value of your HVAC customer base is the key to higher profitability.
How to Grow Your HVAC Customer Lifetime Value
The true goal of HVAC marketing is to keep customers, and to continue upselling and reselling them over many years.
On average, an HVAC system will be replaced every 10-15 years, and if you can keep a customer through at least one changeout cycle, you have succeeded in creating high lifetime value.
The biggest benefit of retaining existing HVAC customers is a dramatically lower HVAC marketing cost.
The more HVAC services you can sell to the same person, the lower your HVAC marketing spend will be.
Perhaps the best method for growing an HVAC customer’s lifetime value is to focus heavily on maintenance agreements rather than one-time repairs and replacements.
Become an HVAC maintenance company that does repairs and installs, rather than an AC repair company that does maintenance.
The peak HVAC demand season is the best time to build trust with new customers through repairs and to increase the volume of HVAC maintenance plans your company has on the books.
As a rule, if you can have 300 – 500 maintenance customers per HVAC technician, you can lower your HVAC marketing costs significantly.
On top of this, offering additional services such as IAQ, duct cleanings, smart home thermostats, surge protectors, and filter replacements are excellent sources of additional revenue.
Building a 12-Month HVAC Marketing Plan
Alongside planning you HVAC marketing costs, it is very wise to plan out exactly what promotions and touch points you will have with your existing customers for at least 12 months out.
Many HVAC companies do not bother to think more than a few weeks ahead when it comes to marketing plans, and this causes them to blast their customers with useless or annoying offers that don’t convert.
Work out a year in advance what a customer will need in which seasons. Plan out your peak times for servicing all HVAC maintenance customers so that you are free in the Summer to take care of the increased demand for AC repair.
You can also segment your existing customer list to ensure that you target people with the right offers, depending on what they have already bought from you.
If you don’t have time to plan out a 12-month HVAC Marketing plan, you might consider working with an HVAC Marketing consultant to help you.
How an HVAC Marketing Consultant Saves You Money
It might seem like the cost to hire an HVAC marketing consultant is an additional expense you don’t need. But similar to your accountant, bookkeeper, attorney, or other professional service, they often save you time as well as helping save you money.
An HVAC marketing consultant can help you figure out what your annual HVAC marketing budget should be, based on your location, competition, and business goals.
Once you have an annual budget, you can start to look at how to keep your HVAC advertising costs reasonable alongside your other HVAC marketing activities.
The costs for a professional to manage your HVAC marketing costs you up-front but saves a lot of stress and uncertainty. Having a 12-month plan, and someone who understands the nuances of the different marketing channels is key to the success of any HVAC marketing.
Blindly throwing money at PPC, LSA, or SEO and hoping something ‘hits’ is like gambling away your hard-earned profits. Google and other ad platforms will happily take all the money you want to give them with no guarantee of return.
An HVAC marketing consultant can help navigate the confusion, keep you on track with reporting, and also set you up for 12 months of consistent marketing to grow your customer lifetime value.
What Does it Cost to Work with an HVAC Marketing Consultant?
Each HVAC company is unique and therefore you must have a unique way of working with a marketing consultant. In our experience, we have found a tiered offering of services is the best way to break down the HVAC marketing consulting costs.
| HVAC Marketing Services | Fees |
|---|---|
| HVAC Marketing Strategy + Monthly Reporting | $1500 / month |
| HVAC SEO + Management + Reporting | $2500 / month |
| Full HVAC Marketing Managment | $5000 / month |
| HVAC Website Rewrite | $2500 up to 10 pages |
| New HVAC Website SEO Writing | $5000 up to 15 pages |
| One-Time Marketing Consultation | $1500 per company |
If you only need a 12-month HVAC marketing plan, you can work with an HVAC marketing consultant for as little as $1500 per month. Or if you need more help to manage SEO, PPC, and your email campaigns, you can spend as much as $5000 per month.
If you add up the cost, an HVAC marketing consultant can cost you $60,000 per year, but they can likely help you boost sales and recurring revenue by $200K – $500K or more per year.
Whatever you are planning to spend on HVAC marketing, be sure to get some good advice, and to have a plan in place before you start. The time investment is likely to save you thousands of dollars per month, and the right HVAC marketing strategy could make you hundreds of thousands more per year.
We hope this guide to HVAC Marketing costs was helpful. If you have questions or need help creating your HVAC marketing plan, reach out to us to book a call together.