Social Media Advertising Sydney: 2026 Costs for Tradies

What Social Media Advertising Actually Costs a Sydney Service Business in 2026

"How much should I spend on Facebook ads?" is the question we get asked most, usually right after "Do Facebook ads even work for tradies?"

The honest answer to the second one is yes, when they're set up properly. The first one deserves real numbers, not "it depends". So here's what social media advertising in Sydney actually costs in 2026, based on the campaigns we run every week for electricians, plumbers, builders, landscapers and other service businesses.

The two costs you're actually paying for

Every paid social campaign has two separate costs, and mixing them up is where a lot of confusion starts.

• Ad spend. The money that goes straight to Meta (Facebook and Instagram) to show your ads to people.
• Management. What you pay an agency or freelancer to plan, build, write, design, track and optimise those ads.

Some agencies bundle these together into one monthly figure. That's fine, as long as you know how much of it is actually reaching Meta. If you're paying $2,000 a month and only $600 is going to ads, you're not really running a campaign, you're funding a retainer.

Realistic monthly ad spend for Sydney service businesses

Sydney is one of the more expensive places in Australia to advertise. More competition, higher incomes and denser suburbs all push costs up. Here's what we typically see:

• $500 to $1,000 a month: Enough to test an offer in a tight service area. You'll get leads, but not much data to optimise from.
• $1,000 to $2,500 a month: The sweet spot for most solo tradies and small teams. Enough volume to learn what works and keep the calendar full.
• $2,500 to $6,000+ a month: Multi van operations, builders chasing bigger projects, or businesses covering several regions of Sydney.

A rule of thumb: Meta needs roughly 50 results a month in a campaign to properly learn who to show your ads to. If your budget can't get anywhere near that, keep the campaign simple and the audience focused rather than spreading thin across five ad sets.

What management usually costs

Management fees across Sydney vary a lot, but most land in these brackets:

• Freelancers: $500 to $1,200 a month. Can be great, but check who's doing the creative and the reporting.
• Boutique agencies: $900 to $2,500 a month, often including ad creative, copywriting and monthly reporting.
• Larger agencies: $2,500 to $5,000+ a month, usually with minimum spend requirements.

Expect a one off setup fee too, typically $500 to $1,500, to cover pixel and conversion tracking, lead forms, audiences and the first round of creative.

The question isn't "what's the cheapest fee?" It's "what am I getting for it?" At a minimum you want new ad creative regularly, proper lead tracking, and someone who'll tell you straight when something isn't working.

Electrician vs landscaper: what a typical month delivers

Two businesses can spend the same money and get very different results, because the jobs, buyers and decision times are different.

The electrician

Electrical work is often urgent or small enough that people book quickly. Switchboard upgrades, lighting, EV charger installs and safety inspections all perform well.

On a $1,500 monthly ad spend in Sydney, we commonly see:

• Cost per lead: $25 to $60
• Leads per month: around 25 to 55
• Typical job value: $300 to $3,000, with EV chargers and switchboards at the higher end

High volume, quick turnaround. The catch is that leads go cold fast. If you don't call back within the hour, someone else will.

The landscaper

Landscaping is a considered purchase. People scroll past your before and after photos for weeks before they enquire, and they often get three quotes.

On the same $1,500 ad spend, we commonly see:

• Cost per lead: $40 to $120
• Leads per month: around 12 to 35
• Typical job value: $5,000 to $60,000+

Fewer leads, higher cost each, but one won job can pay for six months of advertising. Landscapers also benefit more from retargeting, showing ads to people who've already watched your videos or visited your site. (We covered this in our guide to warm vs cold audiences.)

A real world example

A Northern Beaches landscaping business came to us spending $800 a month boosting posts. They were getting likes from people in Perth and the occasional enquiry asking for a $500 garden tidy.

We moved them to a structured lead campaign:

• $1,800 a month in ad spend, targeting homeowners within 25km
• Video walkthroughs of finished outdoor projects, filmed on a phone
• A lead form asking for project type and rough budget, so tyre kickers filtered themselves out
• Retargeting to anyone who watched 50% or more of a video

After three months their cost per lead settled around $68. That's higher than when they were boosting, but the leads were real. From 26 enquiries a month they were quoting on 11 and winning 3 to 4 jobs averaging $18,000. Spending more per lead made them far more money per month.

How to tell if your cost per lead is healthy

A "good" cost per lead doesn't exist on its own. A $150 lead is terrible for a gutter cleaner and brilliant for a pool builder. Work it out backwards from your own numbers instead.

1. Find your average profit per job. Not revenue, profit.
2. Know your close rate. If you win 1 in 4 quotes, that's 25%.
3. Decide what share of profit you're happy to spend winning a job. Many trades are comfortable with 15% to 30%.

Then do the maths. Say your average job profit is $1,200, you close 25% of leads, and you're happy to spend 25% of profit on acquisition:

$1,200 x 0.25 x 0.25 = $75

That's your maximum healthy cost per lead. Anything under it is working. Anything consistently over it needs fixing.

Warning signs your numbers are off

• Your cost per lead is low but nobody books. That's a lead quality problem, usually loose targeting or a vague offer.
• Costs creep up every month. Your audience is tired of the same ads. Time for fresh creative.
• You can't say how many jobs came from ads. That's a tracking problem, and it's the first thing to fix.

The hidden costs nobody mentions

Ad spend and management fees aren't the whole picture. The biggest leaks we see are on the business side:

• Slow follow up. A lead contacted within five minutes is far more likely to convert than one called the next day.
• No content. Ads need photos and videos of your actual work. Stock images of smiling electricians don't cut it.
• No tracking. Without knowing which leads became jobs, you're optimising for enquiries, not revenue.

Fix these and the same budget will go noticeably further.

Want real numbers for your business?

Every trade, suburb and service is a bit different, and the ranges above are a starting point, not a promise. If you'd like us to look at what social media advertising in Sydney could realistically deliver for your business, what you should spend and what a healthy cost per lead looks like for your jobs, we're happy to have a straight chat about it.

No jargon, no lock in pitch, just honest numbers from people who run these campaigns every week. Start the conversation with the Grab Social team.