Agency, freelancer or do it yourself: what a handyman business should pay for

By Steve Meitler · 2026-08-26 · 5 min read

What each option really costs, the red flags in a handyman marketing pitch, fair prices for ads and a website, and why a first deal should be short.

Your phone rings with marketing pitches. It rings more than a plumber's does, because handyman lists are cheap to buy and everyone assumes you are unsophisticated. The pitch is always some version of page one, exclusive leads, or a special deal for your area, and it always wants a twelve-month agreement.

Here is how to think about it, including the case for doing nothing at all.

Do it yourself first, because the first wins are free

Before you pay anyone, four things cost nothing but a few evenings and they produce more than any first month of an agency engagement:

1. Fill in the Google Business Profile completely: category, 25 services, hours, photos, Q and A. See the profile guide.
2. Turn on missed-call text-back. See the missed calls guide.
3. Start asking for a review at every walkthrough. The median handyman listing has 3 reviews and 71.7% have under 10, so this moves you fast.
4. Publish a minimum charge and price ranges.

Do those, wait 60 days, and see where you stand. Plenty of one-truck operations never need to buy marketing at all, because 48.4% of their competitors have not even linked a website.

The honest limit of DIY is time and attention. Ads need someone reading a search terms report every week. A website needs someone who will actually finish it. If those things sit undone for three months, you are not saving money, you are just not doing marketing.

What each option costs

A freelancer. Typically $500 to $1,500 a month for one channel, or project work at $50 to $125 an hour. Good freelancers are excellent value and are usually specialists in one thing. Risks: they take holidays, they take bigger clients, and they disappear. Get logins in your own name from day one, in writing.

A small agency. $1,000 to $3,000 a month for a bundle, on top of ad spend. Worth it when you want several channels handled and someone accountable. Below about $800 a month nobody can afford to give a handyman account real attention, so treat unusually cheap retainers as a warning rather than a bargain.

A big agency or a franchise marketing program. Often $3,000 a month and up. For a business with one to three trucks this is nearly always wrong. You will be a small account, handled by a junior, on a template.

Lead resellers. Not marketing. You are renting introductions on a small ticket, shared with competitors, and you keep nothing when you stop paying. Useful as filler with a hard monthly cap. The economics are broken down in the Google Ads guide.

Fair project prices: a five to eight page handyman website, $1,500 to $4,000. Google Ads management, $400 to $900 a month or 12% to 20% of spend, whichever is higher. A logo and truck lettering design, $300 to $1,200. If a quote is far outside those ranges in either direction, ask exactly what is included.

Red flags

• Guaranteed rankings or a promised number of leads. Nobody controls Google's results. A guarantee means either a refund clause designed never to trigger, or a plan to buy junk leads to hit the count.
• A twelve-month contract with no exit. A month-to-month deal after a short commitment is normal. A year with no out is a retention strategy, not a service.
• They own your accounts. If the Google Ads account, the domain, the website, the phone number or the Google profile is in their name, you are renting your own business. Everything should be in your name with them granted access.
• A phone number you cannot take with you. Tracking numbers are fine. A tracking number that becomes your main advertised number and belongs to the vendor is a hostage situation.
• No reporting, or reporting that only shows impressions. You need calls, leads, cost per lead and booked jobs. Impressions and "reach" are not results.
• They will not talk about your minimum charge or service area. Anyone who does not ask what a job is worth to you and how far you will drive does not understand this trade and will send you unroutable leads.
• The pitch is about their awards. Ask instead for two current clients in a similar trade you can call.

The questions to ask before you sign

• Who does the work, and can I meet them?
• What exactly happens in the first 30 days?
• Which accounts will be in my name?
• What do you need from me each month, and how long will it take me?
• What does the report show, and can I see a real one?
• What happens if I want to stop?
• Have you run marketing for a business with a $200 to $400 average ticket, and what changed about the plan because of it?

That last question separates people who have done this from people who are applying a plumbing playbook to a repair business.

Why any first engagement should be short

Marketing for a small repair business is not complicated enough to require a year to prove. Ads produce data in two weeks. Missed-call text-back produces recovered calls the first day. Review scripts produce reviews in the first week. A website takes about a week to draft.

So there is no honest reason for the first commitment to be long. Whoever you hire, ask for a short paid pilot or a trial, defined by a specific deliverable, with your accounts in your name. If they refuse, that answer tells you what the contract length is really protecting.

That is the entire reason this site offers a free 14-day trial of any single service. An owner should watch the phone before signing anything, and two weeks is enough to see whether it moves.

What to buy first, if you buy anything

In order, for most handyman businesses:

1. Missed-call text-back and follow-up. Cheapest, fastest, recovers leads you already paid for.
2. The Google profile and review system. Free traffic, compounding, and it fixes the thing customers judge you on.
3. A real website, if you are in the 48.4% without one. See the website guide.
4. Google Ads, once the ticket is above roughly $250 and the phone gets answered.
5. Meta ads and seasonal campaigns to your customer list.

Skipping to step four is the most common and most expensive mistake in this trade.

Frequently asked

Can I hire someone just to answer the phone? Yes, and for many owners that beats hiring a marketer. A part-time person answering calls and booking jobs often produces more revenue than a $1,200 ad budget.

Is SEO worth paying for? Local SEO for a handyman business is mostly profile work, reviews, service pages and consistency, which is a few hundred dollars a month of real work. Anything sold as national SEO for a local repair business is being sold to you, not for you.

How do I know it worked? One number: booked jobs from that channel per month, against what you paid. If nobody can show you that, you cannot know, and neither can they.

If you want to test any single service before deciding, that is what the free 14-day trial is. No card, and your accounts stay yours. Text or call (385) 832-6175.