The Radius Slider Is the Most Expensive Free Lever.
Widening the targeting radius costs nothing in the ad account and plenty everywhere else — fuel, wages paid to people sitting in traffic, and a schedule that fits fewer jobs. This prices all three and finds the mileage where the next job stops being worth driving to.
Your Service Area
One way, from your shop. On Meta, many contractor ads fall under the Housing special ad category, which sets a 15-mile minimum radius; below that, enforce the limit with a minimum ticket or travel charge instead.
Door to door, including traffic and parking. Check it against your own job history or a mapping app's drive times for typical jobs.
One for a single-visit service call. Two or three when you quote first, then return to do the work.
Everyone being paid while the truck moves. Two techs double the labour cost of every mile.
Revenue on a typical job; higher tickets absorb far more drive time. Starts at $1,800, close to SearchLight's $1,826 LSA average ticket — use your own.
Before drive time. This is the pot the mileage comes out of.
What one crew completes locally. Used to show what the wider radius does to the schedule.
Paid hours in a crew day.
Per person per hour, wages plus benefits. Starts at $46.60 — the BLS private-industry average total compensation per hour worked, March 2026.
Ad spend per paying job. Starts at $286: the published $42.95 Home & Home Improvement Facebook cost per lead (WordStream/LocalIQ 2026) ÷ a 15% lead-to-job planning assumption. Use your own.
Starts at $0.76, the IRS standard business mileage rate effective 1 July 2026. Covers fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation.
How far a job still pays
0 mi
Plan: costs ≤ a quarter of gross profit
5 mi
Half line: beyond it, overhead rarely gets covered
29 mi
Break-even before overhead
Distances are for a $1,800 job at the edge of your area, including the $286 it costs to win it. Winning the job already takes 40% of its gross profit, more than a quarter, so no radius meets the plan — lower the cost to win it or raise the ticket.
At 25 miles, per job
What each extra band of radius costs
| Radius | Round trip | Drive time | Drive cost | Left after winning + reaching a job at the edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 mi | 20 mi | 0.6 h | $73 | $361 (winning and reaching the job costs 49.9% of its gross profit: thin cushion) |
| 10 mi | 40 mi | 1.3 h | $147 | $287 (winning and reaching the job costs 60% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 15 mi | 60 mi | 1.9 h | $220 | $214 (winning and reaching the job costs 70% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 20 mi | 80 mi | 2.5 h | $294 | $140 (winning and reaching the job costs 81% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 25 mi | 100 mi | 3.1 h | $367 | $67 (winning and reaching the job costs 91% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 30 mi | 120 mi | 3.8 h | $441 | −$7 (winning and reaching the job costs 101% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 40 mi | 160 mi | 5.0 h | $588 | −$154 (winning and reaching the job costs 121% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 50 mi | 200 mi | 6.3 h | $735 | −$301 (winning and reaching the job costs 142% of its gross profit: over half) |
| 60 mi | 240 mi | 7.5 h | $881 | −$447 (winning and reaching the job costs 162% of its gross profit: over half) |
Vehicle cost uses the IRS standard business mileage rate, which already covers fuel, maintenance, insurance and depreciation — do not add those again. Crew wages in transit use total compensation per hour worked, so the benefits are already included too.
The radius also costs you jobs, not just margin
At 25 miles the crew spends 3.1 hours a job in the vehicle, which drops the day from 3 jobs to about 1.4 — roughly 1.6 fewer jobs per crew per day. That capacity loss usually outweighs the per-job margin loss, and it never appears in the ad account, so the campaign looks fine while the schedule quietly shrinks.
Jobs at the edge of this radius take more than half their gross profit
Winning a $1,800 job ($286) and getting to it 25 miles out ($367) uses 91% of its $720 of gross margin — more than half, so overhead rarely gets covered. Either pull the radius back toward 5 mi (on Meta's Housing category the minimum is 15 miles), set a minimum ticket for the outer band, or add a travel charge.
Talk through your service area
Free 60-second application to talk through these numbers.
How far should a contractor target ads?
As far as the job still covers winning it and driving to it, with enough left for overhead. For an $1,800 ticket at a 40% margin, break-even before overhead lands around 30 miles, but the distance that keeps those costs under half the job's gross profit is far shorter; the number depends on your ticket, your cost to win a job and your traffic, not on a rule. A $600 service call and a $12,000 install running on the same road have completely different answers, and trades that do both should target them as separate campaigns.
Why does a wider radius look free?
Because none of its cost is visible where the decision gets made. The ad account reports more reach and more leads. The cost appears in fuel, in wages paid for hours in transit, and in a crew day that now fits fewer jobs — three numbers nobody reconciles against the campaign. The result is a channel that reads as healthy while gross margin quietly falls.
What does drive time actually cost per job?
Vehicle cost plus the wages of everyone in the truck. At the IRS standard business mileage rate of 76 cents and a two-person crew at BLS-average loaded pay, a 25-mile job with two trips runs roughly $76 in vehicle cost and around $290 in wages — close to half the gross margin on an average home-services ticket, before anyone picks up a tool.
Keep going
- Contractor Service Area Strategy — how to structure campaigns and pages once you know the radius.
- Lead Capacity Planner — what the schedule can absorb once drive time is priced in.
- Contractor Margin Calculator — the margin this planner is spending.
- Cost Per Booked Job Calculator — what the outer-band leads really cost to convert.
- Budget optimization service — geo targeting built around margin rather than reach.
Service Area Questions.
How far should a contractor target ads?
As far as the job still pays for winning it and driving to it. With the tool's defaults ($1,800 ticket, 40% margin, about $286 to win the job, two trips, a two-person crew), a job at the edge breaks even before overhead at about 30 miles — but keeping the cost to win and reach it under half the job's gross profit (this site's rule for covering overhead) only works to about 5 miles, because winning the job already uses 40% of it. The tool shows all three distances for your inputs. The honest answer depends on your ticket and your traffic, not on a round number — a $600 service call and a $12,000 install have completely different economics on the same road.
Why does widening the radius look free in the ad account?
Because none of the cost lands there. The ad account shows more reach and more leads; the cost shows up in fuel, in wages paid to people sitting in traffic, and in a schedule that fits fewer jobs. Nobody reconciles those two reports, so the campaign reads as a success while margin falls.
What is the real cost of drive time per job?
Vehicle cost plus crew wages for the hours in transit. At the IRS standard business mileage rate of 76 cents and a two-person crew at BLS-average loaded pay, a 25-mile job with two trips runs about $76 in vehicle cost and roughly $290 in wages — just over half the gross margin on an average home-services ticket ($1,826 at a 40% margin).
Why use the IRS mileage rate instead of just fuel?
Because fuel is roughly a quarter of what a mile actually costs. The IRS rate is set from a study of the full fixed and variable cost of running a vehicle — fuel, maintenance, tyres, insurance and depreciation — which is why it is 76 cents rather than the 20 or so cents fuel alone would suggest.
Should I add insurance and maintenance on top of the mileage rate?
No, and doing so is the most common way this calculation gets double-counted. The standard mileage rate already includes them. Add only things it genuinely excludes, such as parking, tolls and the cost of a vehicle sitting idle.
Which matters more, the margin loss or the capacity loss?
Usually the capacity loss, and by some distance. Losing half a job per crew per day to windshield time costs far more over a month than the fuel does, because every one of those lost slots was a full ticket. The planner shows both so the comparison is explicit.
Does a higher average ticket justify a wider radius?
Yes, and it is the single strongest lever here. Drive cost is fixed per mile while margin scales with the ticket, so a $12,000 install absorbs a 50-mile trip that would destroy a $400 service call. Trades running both should target them as separate campaigns with different radii.
What should I do about leads in the outer band?
Three options, in order of preference: set a minimum ticket for that zone, add a travel charge that covers the round trip, or exclude the zone from targeting (possible on Google; Meta's Housing category allows no ZIP exclusion and has a 15-mile minimum radius). What you should not do is serve them at your standard price and assume volume makes up the difference — it does not, because the cost scales with every job.
Should quote visits count as a trip?
Absolutely, and forgetting them is why so many contractors underestimate this. If you quote in person and then return to do the work, that is two round trips — and if the quote does not close, you paid the drive cost for nothing. Trades that quote on site should run this at two or three trips per job.
What average speed should I use?
Door to door including traffic and parking, which is always slower than people guess. Dense metros realistically run 18 to 25 mph, suburban areas 30 to 40, rural 40 to 50. Using a highway speed here is the fastest way to make a bad radius look acceptable.
Does this replace excluding areas in the ad platform?
No, it tells you where to draw the exclusions. Once you know the break-even radius, implement it as a targeting radius. On Meta, many contractor ads fall under the Housing special ad category (its definition includes housing repairs), which allows no ZIP targeting or exclusion and sets a 15-mile minimum radius, so enforce a tighter limit with a minimum ticket or a travel charge instead; on Google you can exclude postcodes directly. Revisit it whenever your ticket or your crew cost moves materially.
How does this interact with cost per lead?
It sits underneath it. A $42.95 lead from the outer band and a $42.95 lead five miles away cost the same to buy and completely different amounts to serve. Cost per lead is blind to geography, which is exactly why a channel can look stable while your margin drifts.
What if my competitors advertise across the whole metro?
Then some of them are losing money on the edges and have not worked it out yet. Matching a competitor's radius without matching their ticket, crew cost or drive times copies their exposure rather than their strategy.
Are any of these numbers Elev8 Operations data?
None of the defaults. Vehicle cost is the IRS standard business mileage rate, labour cost is the BLS private-industry average total compensation per hour worked, and the ticket reference is from SearchLight's LSA dataset. Your radius, speed, crew size and margin are yours.
Sources
The two cost defaults are federal datasets rather than industry estimates — the IRS standard business mileage rate and the BLS measure of employer compensation cost per hour worked. Your radius, speed, crew and margin come from you. Last verified 2026-07-30.
- 1Internal Revenue Service — Standard Mileage Rates (IR-2026-29)
Effective 1 July 2026 · Annual rate set from an IRS-commissioned study of the fixed and variable costs of operating an automobile; 72.5 cents per mile applied 1 January – 30 June 2026, raised to 76 cents from 1 July 2026. Source for the $0.76 vehicle cost per mile default. The rate already covers fuel, maintenance, insurance, tyres and depreciation, which is why the tool warns against adding those separately.
- 2US Bureau of Labor Statistics — Employer Costs for Employee Compensation — March 2026 (USDL-26-0827)
March 2026 reference period; released 12 June 2026 · National Compensation Survey of employer-reported costs per hour worked; private industry workers averaged $46.60 total compensation, $32.60 wages and salaries, $14.01 benefits. Source for the $46.60 loaded labour cost per person per hour used to price crew wages in transit. It is total compensation, so benefits are already included.
- 3SearchLight Digital — Home Services LSA Benchmark — Google Local Service Ads Cost Per Lead by Trade
February 2026 · 888 contractors, $6.72M tracked spend, 126,650 leads, $52.7M closed revenue. Source for the $1,826 average ticket across 888 contractors' LSA jobs, which the $1,800 job-value default approximates.
- 4WordStream / LocaliQ — Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2026
2026. Reference point in the FAQs for what a lead from the outer radius band costs before any of it is driven to — $42.95 for Home & Home Improvement.
- 5Meta Business Help Center — About ads for housing
Current. Housing ads include housing repairs; the category allows no ZIP-code targeting and sets a 15-mile minimum radius.
Related Tools & Guides
Keep going — these pair well with this calculator.