Google Ads for HVAC contractors in France: cost per client in 2026

On the trade's service queries, the bid to reach the top of the page runs from €4 to €10, with a median of €6.50. That's the first number to have in mind before running Google Ads for HVAC contractors in France, and it puts the trade halfway between landscapers, whose median bid falls under €2, and emergency plumbing, which sits around €12.

The second number matters more, and no competitor will give it to you: demand. The French word for "heating contractor" was searched 27,100 times in July 2026, and 368,000 times in November 2025. More than thirteen times as much. A heating contractor doesn't have one market, they have two, one in winter and one in summer, and the budget has to follow that calendar.

What a click costs for a heating contractor

Pulled on October 22, 2026 from Keyword Planner, location France, Search Network with partners. The queries are French, translated here. Volume is the monthly average over a year; the right-hand column is the high end of the Top of page bid range.

The reading is fairly clear. The bare word, "heating contractor," carries most of the volume at one of the lowest bids: it brings people looking for a tradesperson, but probably also the curious and job seekers.

Queries that name a job nearly all cost more, with one exception, boiler replacement at €4.04. Breakdowns come out on top, which won't surprise anyone who has taken a call on a December evening.

The same reminder as always in this series. The high bid is what you have to offer to reach the top of the page, and the actual cost comes in lower, in my experience often around half. How to read these columns is covered in the article on how to read Keyword Planner volumes.

What a client costs, from servicing to heat pumps

The math comes down to three numbers: the actual cost of a click, the share of visitors who contact you, and the share of contacts who become clients. The general mechanics are in the article on SEO vs PPC. Here I only apply them to heating, where they give two very different answers.

Servicing and repairs

Start from the median, €6.50, so an actual click around €3.25. I don't know of any reliable contact rate published for this trade, so reason on a range. At 5% of visitors who call or fill in the form, a contact costs you €65. At 10%, €32.50. At 15%, a little under €22.

For servicing and breakdowns, the intent is clear-cut: the person wants a date. Assuming one contact in two converts is reasonable, and it puts a client around €65 at a 10% contact rate. On "gas boiler repair," at nearly €4.90 per actual click, expect more like a hundred euros.

Heat pump installation

Here everything changes. At an €8.46 high bid, the actual click runs around €4.20. And the visitor doesn't commit over one phone call: they compare, they ask for several quotes, they sometimes wait months before signing.

Take 5% quote requests and one signed quote in four. A request then costs €84, and a signed job around €340. That's five times the price of a servicing client, for an invoice in a different league.

That's the question to settle before opening the account: are you buying servicing visits or jobs? The two campaigns aren't managed the same way, and mixing them in one ad group makes the numbers unreadable.

When Google Ads becomes profitable for a heating contractor

Here's the threshold, and it depends less on the price of the click than on what the client becomes afterwards.

On an installation, the answer is almost immediate. A heat pump job is billed in four figures, and €340 of acquisition weighs little against it, provided your signing rate holds. The risk lies elsewhere: paying for quote requests for three months without knowing which ones signed, because the signature comes long after the click.

On servicing, the first visit doesn't pay much. Run the numbers with your own price list: if the visit is billed at €120, a €65 acquisition eats more than half the price, before even counting travel time. On its own, it's a bad deal.

Except this trade has an advantage few others have. In France, annual servicing is mandatory for oil, gas, wood, coal or multi-fuel boilers from 4 to 400 kW, as the Service Public page on boiler servicing points out. A client won in October for their boiler therefore has a legal reason to call you back the following autumn.

The obligation comes back every year, whether the client thinks about it or not. It's up to you to make sure it comes back to you.

Over three years, the same €65 acquisition is spread over three visits. And the day the boiler gives out, the client already has your number instead of going back to Google. If you don't remind your servicing clients, Google Ads won't be profitable on servicing, whatever the price of the click.

What drives the bill in heating

Three factors specific to the trade weigh more than the choice of keywords.

The season, which multiplies demand by thirteen

Here are the monthly volumes for "heating contractor" in the data: 33,100 in May and in June 2026, 27,100 in July, 74,000 in September. Then, the previous winter, 110,000 in October 2025, 368,000 in November, 135,000 in December, 201,000 in January. The July low and the November peak are in a ratio of one to thirteen and a half.

Job queries follow the same pattern, less abruptly. "Gas boiler repair" climbs to 4,400 searches in December and falls back to 1,000 in June and July. "Gas boiler servicing" peaks earlier, at 18,100 in October, then holds around 6,600 from May to August.

The practical consequence comes down to one date: September. It's when servicing requests pick up again, and when a campaign still has time to find its pace.

A heating contractor's campaign launched in November learns during the peak, when every wasted click costs the most and the calendar is already full.

That's also the second winter trap, less often named. When your schedule is full three weeks out, every extra call is a client you won't be able to serve. Cutting the budget in December can then be the most profitable decision of the month.

Air conditioning, the trade's other season

In summer, the curve flips. "Air conditioning installer" goes from 590 searches in December to 12,100 in June, twenty times as many, before coming back down to 2,400 in September. If you install air conditioners or air-to-air heat pumps, that's your second season, and it falls exactly when heating is asleep.

If you don't, don't run ads on these queries to fill the gap: you'll pay for clicks from people you won't sell anything to.

Phone prospecting, banned since 2020

A French law of July 24, 2020 bans offering by phone the sale of equipment or work aimed at energy savings or renewable energy production. The French national consumer institute (INC), in its page on this ban, states the only exception: calls made in the course of an existing contract.

For a heat pump installer, that outbound channel is therefore closed. What's left is the client who searches on their own, and that's exactly who Google Ads brings you.

Which keywords should a heating contractor exclude?

Heating has a flaw that plumbing repair has less of: a good share of the searches that look like a job are actually looking for a product. Here are the families to exclude when you open the account, to adapt to your business:

• boiler and air conditioner brands, the search for one boiler brand's name alone weighs 14,800 searches a month, and mostly brings people comparing models;
• energy suppliers and big retailers, "engie boiler servicing" counts 1,600 searches, and these users are probably looking for their supplier's offer rather than a tradesperson;
• equipment sold off the shelf, "electric radiator," "water heater," "portable air conditioner," which are store purchases;
• price alone, "heat pump price" and its variants (9,900 searches), to keep only if your page actually shows prices;
• jobs and training, "becoming a heating contractor," "heating contractor salary."

Price deserves a nuance. Someone searching "air-to-water heat pump price" is in research mode, and may become a client six months from now. If you install, these clicks around €3 at the high bid can feed a separate campaign with a capped budget. If you only do servicing, exclude them without regret.

Read the search terms report every week during the first month, then every two weeks. The full method is in the article on negative keywords. A campaign that spends without converting doesn't stop on its own, and Pulzeo's alerts flag it with the campaign concerned and the gap in figures.

What Google Ads budget for a heating contractor starting out

Start from a number of clients, not a round amount. A heating contractor aiming for five new servicing or repair clients a month, at a 10% contact rate and one contact in two converted, needs ten contacts, so about a hundred clicks.

At €3.25 per actual click, that's €325. At the high bid, €650. Real spend will land between the two, closer to the bottom if your page is good.

That budget only makes sense spread across the year:

• from September to January, €325 to €650 a month on servicing and repairs, starting in the first week of September;
• from February to April, half that, with demand holding up through March before dropping clearly in April;
• from May to August, a minimum on repairs and servicing, which keeps a base of 6,600 monthly searches, plus the air conditioning budget if you install it.

Heat pumps get their own budget. At €340 per signed job, a campaign aiming for two a month needs about €700 in actual clicks, and above all patience: the first month of quotes tells you almost nothing.

For comparison with neighboring trades, the same method gives very different benchmarks for plumbers, whose clientele partly overlaps yours, and for electricians. The general reasoning on budget is in the article on the real cost of a Google Ads campaign.

Limit your ads to your service area. Pulzeo's keyword research gives the volumes for your city or your local area, with the cost-per-click range, without creating a campaign. Pulzeo's pricing is to be compared with this ad budget, not with an agency's fee.

And keep, from the first month, the list of your servicing clients who came from Google Ads. How many come back the following autumn: that number, not the cost per click, will tell you whether the channel is worth it.