The situation
LSA is where contractors are putting new money. In the SearchLight Spend Index, LSA spend per contractor rose 30% from September 2025 to September 2026, while Google Ads rose 9%. The median contractor now spends $1,518 a week on LSA.
On October 1, Google also widened what it charges for: missed calls over 20 seconds during business hours, and follow-up calls when the first call didn't qualify.
This operator runs LSA across several HVAC and plumbing brands. Between September 3 and October 12, Google's automatic review credited 12 of its LSA leads. Its other unbookable leads had never been rated back to Google.
What Nexus did
- Lead Grading flagged the unbookable leads that Google credits: wrong numbers, spam, sales calls, out of service area, and services the business doesn't offer.
- Nexus waited a week. A lead qualifies only if the customer never booked anything and Google charged for it, between day 7 and day 30.
- Nexus rated each one back to Google as dissatisfied, with the matching reason from the call transcript. Google answered each rating on the spot.
Because SearchLight matches every rating to Google's lead ID, the operator can see exactly which credits came from Nexus and which came from Google's own review. Google's dashboard only shows "Credited."
The result
Across every account in the first run, Google answered 158 Nexus ratings and credited 122 of them. Credits apply to next month's LSA spend.
Book a Nexus demoThe benchmark behind the calculator
In September 2026, SearchLight graded 23,031 LSA calls and messages across 123 contractors. 41% were unbookable, but only 8.9% of all LSA leads fall into reasons Google credits. At a $61 average cost per lead, that's about $8.90 of every $100 in LSA spend.
| Region | Contractors | Credit-eligible | Cost per lead | Per $100 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| West | 29 | 10.9% | $77 | $10.86 |
| Northeast | 18 | 8.7% | $57 | $8.69 |
| Southeast | 45 | 8.3% | $54 | $8.35 |
| Midwest | 11 | 8.1% | $49 | $8.12 |
| Southwest | 14 | 5.8% | $55 | $5.85 |
Dollar figures for this operator are estimated from Google's credit total and average cost per lead, because Google doesn't report a value per credit. The first run cleared a backlog, so ongoing monthly credits will be lower. Regional samples are small for the Midwest and Southwest. Full methodology in The Data-Driven Trades.