Tunnel = a 1-mile stretch of road you own. Zone = a neighborhood-sized area of about 0.28 square miles that you own. Background = the whole member network, no geography limit. Full glossary
Customer acquisition cost is the number that decides whether a channel pays for itself, and it is also the number the tree-service lead vendors are most willing to make up. None of the CAC ranges circulating for the trade come from a publisher that states a method or a sample, so none of them are on this page. What exists at our sourcing bar is category level: LocalIQ's home-services benchmark, drawn from 3,211 US home-services search campaigns run between April 2024 and March 2025, puts home services overall at $90.92 per lead and $7.85 per click. The per-trade categories in that edition are HVAC, heating and furnaces, plumbing, roofing and gutters, and electricians. Tree services is not one of them.
You can still do the arithmetic honestly. An operator paying the home-services category median of $90.92 per search lead and closing a quarter to a half of what they pay for is spending roughly $182 to $364 to land one customer. That is our arithmetic on LocalIQ's median, not a published tree-service figure, and it moves with your own close rate. Tree work carries higher equipment cost, liability exposure and ticket size than lighter home-services trades, which is an argument for measuring your own CAC rather than borrowing a blended one.
The other thing a blended annual CAC hides is the storm calendar. Auction-priced channels price on demand, so the moment a named storm enters the forecast both homeowner search volume and the clearing price rise together. Nobody at our bar publishes a multiplier for how much, so we do not quote one. The structural point stands without a number: on an auction, your cost goes up at exactly the moment your demand does.
Our arithmetic: LocalIQ home-services median CPL $90.92 at a 25% to 50% close rate
LocalIQ Home Services Search Advertising Benchmarks, Apr 2024 to Mar 2025No benchmark at our bar breaks tree services out as a category
LocalIQ Home Services Search Advertising BenchmarksGoogle Local Services Ads charge per lead, but Google publishes no prices. Its help center says only that 'you're charged for each valid lead you receive through your Local Services ad' and that 'lead prices may vary depending on your location, the job type, the type of lead, or your bidding mode'. Anyone quoting you a tree-service LSA range is quoting an agency, not Google. From August 2026 Google is also migrating Local Services Ads into Performance Max with pay-per-lead goals for US home-service businesses, and manual maximum cost-per-lead bidding is going away.
Google Search Ads is the channel with a real published benchmark, but only at the category level. LocalIQ's home-services study puts home services overall at $90.92 per lead and $7.85 per click for April 2024 to March 2025; WordStream's newer 2026 edition, covering April 2025 to March 2026, puts Home and Home Improvement at $90.92 per lead and $8.33 per click as a single combined row. Both are national medians on an auction-priced channel, so a specific metro, a specific quality score and a regional storm event all move them.
Both channels are moment-of-search channels: they win the homeowner who is already holding a phone after the limb comes down. Neither builds any presence with that homeowner before the storm, which is the gap a permanent hyperlocal presence is built to fill.
Home services overall, US campaigns, Apr 2024 to Mar 2025; CPC $7.85
LocalIQ Home Services Search Advertising BenchmarksGoogle states prices vary by location, job type, lead type and bidding mode
Google Local Services Ads HelpThe primary cross-channel CPM comparison, published by Solomon Partners and hosted by the OAAA in 2025, puts out-of-home bulletins at $3 to $10 per thousand and posters at $3 to $13. Worth knowing before anyone sells you a board on price: the same table puts social media at $2 to $8 and digital display at $5 to $6, so billboards are not the cheap channel per impression, and neither is WilDi. We sell a different unit. As a live market example, the AdQuick 2026 Jacksonville guide lists static bulletins at $1,800 to $6,500 per four-week flight and posters at $800 to $2,200, on a blended local traditional-billboard CPM of $5 to $12, with digital running $5 to $12 CPM on freeway bulletins and $12 to $22 on downtown LEDs, giving each advertiser about 8 seconds of exposure every 64 to 80 seconds. AdQuick is a marketplace rather than a measurement body, so those are asking prices.
The composition problem stands whatever the price. Geopath, the body that defines the out-of-home impression, is explicit that impressions include vehicle passengers, 'include duplicated views', and 'are not the number of people who see the advertisement, they are the gross count of all the exposures'. The share of that count who are homeowners with a hazard tree over their roof is smaller still.
Bulletins $3 to $10, posters $3 to $13; social media $2 to $8 on the same table
Solomon Partners / OAAA Major Media CPM Comparison, 2025AdQuick 2026 guide, Jacksonville asking prices: freeway digital $5 to $12, downtown LEDs $12 to $22; about 8 seconds of exposure every 64 to 80 seconds
AdQuick: Jacksonville DOOH listings (secondary)Lead marketplaces mostly do not publish prices. Networx is the exception: its help center lists $10 to $100+ per lead on Pay Per Lead and $15 to $120+ on Exclusive Leads, and states that a single Pay Per Lead 'will go to up to 4 contractors in total' (its page was last updated in 2023). Thumbtack publishes no dollar figures but does state a cap of five pros contacted in the first four hours of a customer's search, after which the customer can contact more. Angi's FY2025 annual report describes lead revenue as fees paid by pros for consumer matches 'regardless of whether the Pro ultimately provides the requested service', which is the model stated in a securities filing.
The FTC alleged in 2022 that HomeAdvisor had for years made false or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of the leads it sold; those allegations were resolved by consent order in 2023 with up to $7.2 million in refunds, and were never findings of fact. Nobody at our sourcing bar publishes shared-lead close rates, so we do not quote one. The structural point stands without a number: you are paying for the introduction, not the job, and you are rarely the only one paying for it.
Pay Per Lead; goes to up to 4 contractors in total (Networx help center, 2023)
Networx: How much do leads costThe defining feature of auction-priced channels in tree services is that price and demand move together. The moment a named storm enters the forecast, homeowner search volume rises and so does the clearing price for the same lead, because every crew in the metro is bidding on the same emergency-removal demand at once. No publisher at our bar quantifies that spike, so we put no multiplier on it, but the mechanism is simply how an auction works.
Hyperlocal, corridor-level delivery through Cost Per Verified Delivery (CPVD) breaks that link. The operator owns a road segment (a tunnel) or a residential cluster (a zone) at from $0.25 per GPS-verified delivery, set by account tier rather than by an auction, so the price does not change when a named storm enters the basin. For canopy-dense or wind-exposed neighborhoods, a fixed price compounds an advantage precisely when auction-priced competitors are paying the most.
The strongest fit is neighborhoods where canopy density, species mix and wind exposure predict future storm-damage demand: mature hardwood canopy on large lots, coastal wind-exposure zones, and historic districts with protected heritage trees that route hazard-assessment work to credentialed firms.
Per GPS-verified delivery, background tier; a fixed tier rate, not an auction
WilDi Maps pricingOn the dimensions an operator evaluates before committing a monthly budget, particularly across a storm-season demand cycle. Every figure below is the published benchmark named in the last column, not a blended estimate, and where a platform publishes no price we say so rather than filling the cell.
| Channel | Published cost | Best case fit | Source and caveat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Local Services Ads | Not published | Google-Guaranteed badge, credentialed firms | Google states prices vary by location, job type and bidding mode; migrating into Performance Max from Aug 2026 |
| Google Search Ads | $90.92 per lead (median), $7.85 CPC (home services) | High-intent hazard and emergency-removal search | LocalIQ home-services benchmark, Apr 2024 to Mar 2025; category level, no tree-service breakout exists |
| Static / digital billboards | $3 to $13 CPM across OOH formats | Broad brand awareness, not qualified reach | Solomon Partners / OAAA 2025; impressions are gross exposures including passengers, per Geopath |
| Lead marketplaces (Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor) | Networx $10 to $100+; Angi and Thumbtack publish none | Volume-driven crews tolerant of shared leads | Networx help center (2023): one lead goes to up to 4 contractors; Angi FY2025 10-K: pros pay per match either way |
| WilDi Maps CPVD | From $0.25 per GPS-verified delivery | Canopy-dense and wind-exposure residential mesh | Our published rate card; a fixed tier price, so it does not rise with storm demand |
A typical tree service CPVD deployment combines the three product tiers around the storm-demand calendar. The components are zones, tunnels, and background rotation.
Zones are one-square-mile residential clusters of mesh. For tree services, the right zone is a mature-canopy neighborhood on large lots, a coastal wind-exposure area, or a historic district with protected heritage trees that routes hazard-assessment and permit-aware work to credentialed firms.
Tunnels are one-mile road strips deployed along corridors near the densest canopy or the highest storm-damage exposure, reaching the same repeat local people during both the pre-season pruning window and the post-storm cleanup window.
Background is metro-wide rotation at the $0.25+ base rate, which holds steady through the storm-demand cycle rather than clearing at whatever the auction sets that week. The natural starter deployment for any U.S. metro tree service operator is one zone (a canopy-dense or wind-exposure residential cluster), background rotation (metro-wide), and a tunnel through the operator's own service corridor, timed to intensify ahead of and during the regional storm season.
The product
WilDi Maps is not a single flat-rate product. You pick the tier that matches how local you need to be. All three are GPS-verified per claim, with no auction, no exchange rake, no Middleman Tax.
1-mile road strip
Premium
Hyper-local, just-in-time
Claim a one-mile stretch. When a member enters the strip, they get a just-in-time message, perfect for emergency services, on-route specials, and anything where being right there now beats brand awareness later.
Best for
0.28-square-mile area
Premium
Hyper-local, area-based
Claim a one-square-mile block, not tied to a single road. Catches the residential cluster, retail district, or industrial park where your work actually lives. Same just-in-time delivery as tunnels; different geometry.
Best for
City-wide rotation
From $0.25
per claim, tier-based
City-wide brand presence on rotation. Highest reach for the budget; best when familiarity beats precision. Per-delivery rate drops by tier (Enterprise: $0.25 / Pro: $0.32 / Local: $0.40 / Starter: $0.50). See /pricing for the live rate card.
Best for
What the member gets when an ad is claimed
If the member wants to act on the ad, the app navigates them straight to the advertiser's location.
Click-through to any URL: ordering page, brand site, blog post, lead form.
Open a specific page inside the WilDi app: promo details, daily specials, claim instructions.
See the full pricing breakdown on the pricing page.
No benchmark publisher at our sourcing bar breaks tree services out as its own category, so there is no tree-service cost per lead to quote and we do not invent one. The closest published figure is home services overall in LocalIQ's benchmark for April 2024 to March 2025: $90.92 per lead at a $7.85 cost per click. Close a quarter to a half of those leads and you are spending roughly $182 to $364 per customer, which is our arithmetic rather than a published number. Google publishes no Local Services Ads lead prices at all. WilDi Maps Cost Per Verified Delivery starts from $0.25 per GPS-verified delivery and is a fixed tier price rather than an auction.
Cost Per Verified Delivery is WilDi Maps pricing for hyperlocal delivery. The operator owns a road segment (tunnel), a one-square-mile residential cluster (zone), or metro-wide rotation (background), and pays from $0.25 each time a real phone is GPS-verified moving through their mesh during the campaign. There is no auction and no Middleman Tax. A delivery is not a lead and not an impression; it is one offer to one opted-in person, charged when they claim it.
Auction-priced channels clear at whatever the demand supports, so when a named storm enters the forecast both homeowner search volume and the price of the same lead rise together, since every crew in the metro is bidding on the same emergency-removal demand at once. No publisher at our sourcing bar quantifies that spike, so we do not quote a multiplier for it. What we can say plainly is that CPVD is not an auction: it is a fixed price per verified delivery set by account tier, from $0.25, and it does not change when a storm enters the basin.
Only Networx publishes prices: $10 to $100+ per lead on Pay Per Lead, $15 to $120+ on Exclusive Leads, with a single Pay Per Lead going to 'up to 4 contractors in total' (its help page was last updated in 2023). Thumbtack publishes no dollar figures but caps a customer at contacting five pros in the first four hours of their search. Angi's FY2025 10-K states that pros pay for the consumer match whether or not they end up doing the job. Nobody at our sourcing bar publishes shared-lead close rates, so we do not quote one. You are paying for the introduction, not the job, and by the time a crew calls back the homeowner has often already booked whoever answered first.
Hyperlocal advertising for tree services means precision targeting neighborhoods by canopy density, species mix, and storm-exposure risk rather than buying broad metro-wide reach. A billboard reaches whoever is passing; a tunnel through a mature-canopy corridor or a zone over a coastal wind-exposure neighborhood reaches the households most likely to need hazard pruning or storm-damage removal. Cost Per Verified Delivery prices that reach at from $0.25 per GPS-verified delivery, on a fixed tier rate rather than an auction.
Three levers. First, stop letting an auction set your price at the exact moment your demand peaks; CPVD is a fixed tier rate from $0.25 per verified delivery and does not move with the forecast. Second, target by canopy density and storm-exposure zone rather than raw traffic count, since a tunnel through a mature-canopy or coastal corridor reaches the homes whose trees actually pose a hazard. Third, measure your own close rate before buying marketplace leads: Networx states a single Pay Per Lead goes to up to 4 contractors, Angi's 10-K says pros pay for the match either way, and no source at our bar publishes what share of shared leads actually close.
One verified delivery of your offer to the phone of one real person who was physically inside your chosen geography at that moment, confirmed by GPS on the device itself. That person also taps to acknowledge the offer, so a delivery is never an invisible impression. Bots, background tabs, and off-screen impressions cannot generate one. You are billed only when a verified delivery happens.
Background reaches everyone active in the WilDi app: nationwide by default, or limited to one area you choose (your city, your side of town) so budget is never spent outside it. A zone is a neighborhood-sized area you hold exclusively: while it is yours, no competitor can run there. A tunnel is a one-mile stretch of road you can place anywhere, and it follows the road's contours, ideal for the approach to your shop or a route your customers already drive.
No. Every tier has a fixed, published rate per verified delivery. The price you see is the price you pay, whether it is game day or a Tuesday morning. Higher tiers carry lower per-delivery rates.
The Starter tier opens with a $50 deposit, and that deposit becomes your ad budget. Background deliveries on Starter run $0.50 per verified delivery, so the first deposit buys 100 GPS-verified deliveries to the phones of real local people out on the road. There is no auction and no platform fee stacked on top.
About this analysis
Written by Timm Ross, founder of WilDi Maps. Jacksonville-based. Veteran-owned. Sources cited inline; numbers updated as the underlying research updates.
Published · Last updated
More about Timm RossFixed from $0.25 per GPS-verified delivery. No auction, no bid stream, no Middleman Tax.
