Pricing a Full-Funnel Build for a Home Remodeling Client That Starts From Zero

A home remodeling contractor calls you. They have a great reputation, three decades of work, a $2M backlog, and absolutely no marketing presence. No website. No social. No Google Business Profile. They want a full-funnel build. The natural reaction is to say "great, we can do that" and quote a number.

The honest reaction is to first say "let's talk about what success looks like at 90 days, 180 days, and 12 months, then I'll show you what that costs." The contractor who gets the second conversation pays more. The contractor who gets the first conversation resents the invoice.

The Cost Stack for a Greenfield Home Remodeling Client

The phrase "full-funnel build" usually means website + SEO + Google Ads + Meta Ads + social media management + content + email nurture. Each component has a real cost range, and each has a real return profile. The mistake is quoting a bundled number without showing the build.

Here's the cost stack as of mid-2026, based on agency rates for small-to-mid home remodeling contractors in tier 1 and tier 2 markets:

Website Build (One-Time)

$5,000 to $30,000 for a 10 to 25 page service-area site, depending on content depth, photography needs, and integration complexity (CRM, calendar booking, gallery, etc.). At the low end, a template-based Squarespace or Webflow build with good photography. At the high end, a custom WordPress build with project galleries, before/after sliders, financing calculator, and a blog seeded with 8 to 12 pieces.

Local SEO (Monthly)

$1,500 to $5,000/month for a focused home remodeling client. This covers Google Business Profile optimization, citation cleanup, on-page optimization for service pages and city pages, monthly content production (2 to 4 posts), and link building (local sponsorships, niche directories, PR placements). Home remodeling is one of the easier SEO verticals because the search intent is local and the proof of work is visual.

Google Ads (Monthly)

$1,500 to $10,000/month in management fees, plus ad spend. The management fee typically covers campaign structure, keyword research, ad copy, landing page testing, and weekly optimization, and it varies by what each tier actually delivers, which is broken down in what each retainer tier actually buys. Ad spend for a home remodeling client in a mid-tier market usually starts at $2,000 to $3,000/month and scales based on the number of services and service areas.

The honest math: $150 to $250 per lead in a typical metro market, with 10 to 20 percent becoming qualified opportunities and 5 to 10 percent closing at $15K to $80K average project value. At 5 percent close rate, $1 of ad spend produces $3 to $5 in revenue. That math is rough, but it gives the client a baseline expectation.

Meta Ads (Monthly)

$500 to $3,000/month in management, plus ad spend. Meta is harder to make work for home remodeling than Google because intent is lower. Most contractors see better returns from retargeting and project showcases than from cold prospecting. Management costs are lower because the campaigns are simpler.

Social Media Management (Monthly)

$500 to $3,000/month for organic posting. For a home remodeling client, the work is mostly before/after project showcases, time-lapse videos, and short client testimonials. Most successful home remodeling social accounts are 80 percent project footage, 20 percent educational content. AI-assisted content production has dropped the cost here significantly.

Total First-Year Investment

For a serious full-funnel build with a real commitment to all four channels:

Upfront (website build): $5,000 to $30,000 one-time
Months 1 to 3 (foundation + light ads): $4,000 to $12,000/month
Months 4 to 12 (scaling): $5,000 to $15,000/month as results prove out

That's a realistic range. A budget-conscious contractor can do this for $60,000 to $80,000 in year one. A growth-focused contractor in a competitive market can do it for $120,000 to $180,000. Either is a reasonable investment if the math works. If it does not, no amount of marketing will save the operation.

What Each Channel Actually Returns

A greenfield client expects every channel to perform from day one. That is not how marketing works, and the agency that promises otherwise is lying.

Realistic return profiles, ordered by time-to-value:

Months 1 to 3: Foundation Only

Website launches, SEO baseline established, GBP optimized, light ad testing begins. Realistic expectation: brand awareness lift (measured by direct traffic, branded search, GBP views), 5 to 15 leads per month from ads, no meaningful SEO traffic yet. The contractor is paying for infrastructure that will pay off in months 4 to 12.

This is where most agency relationships get tested. The contractor wants leads. The agency is delivering visibility. The conversation that saves the relationship: "We are building the infrastructure that produces leads at $50 to $150 cost-per-lead in months 4 to 6. Right now, we are laying the foundation."

Months 4 to 6: Lead Flow Established

Google Ads reaches stable performance, organic search starts producing first traffic, and GBP views convert to calls. Realistic expectation: 30 to 70 leads per month, with cost-per-lead stabilizing between $80 and $200 depending on market competitiveness.

Months 7 to 12: Compounding

SEO traffic compounds as content builds authority. The blog posts from months 1 to 3 start ranking for service-area queries. Google Ads cost-per-lead drops as conversion data improves targeting. Social content from project footage starts generating inbound referrals. Realistic expectation: 60 to 150 leads per month with cost-per-lead in the $60 to $120 range.

This is where the full-funnel build pays off. The contractor is no longer buying every lead; the marketing is generating word-of-mouth and direct traffic in addition to paid conversions.

A Real Number: What the $120K Build Actually Returns

Consider one home remodeling contractor in a mid-tier Texas market who started from zero. Twelve-month budget: $42,000 in agency fees plus $78,000 in ad spend. Total: $120,000.

Results in the first 12 months:

180 leads from Google Ads at an average cost of $147
95 leads from organic search (zero in months 1 to 2, growing steadily after)
40 leads from GBP and direct traffic
35 leads from Meta and social
Total: 350 leads

At an 8 percent close rate (typical for this vertical), that produces 28 closed projects at an average value of $32,000. Total revenue: $896,000. The $120,000 investment produced 7.5x return in year one, with the asset (the website, the SEO content, the brand visibility) carrying forward into year two and beyond at minimal marginal cost.

This is the math that makes a full-funnel build worth $120K. It is also the math most agencies will not show a client before signing the contract. The agencies that do show it close higher-value clients and retain them longer.

The Order of Operations

A greenfield client should not run all five channels at once. The order matters:

Month 1: Website build + GBP optimization + initial content seeding (8 to 12 posts). No ads yet. Foundation work takes the full month.
Month 2: Google Ads launches on a small budget ($2K to $3K/month) targeting the highest-intent service queries. Local SEO starts (citation work, on-page optimization, link outreach begins).
Month 3: Meta retargeting begins (no cold prospecting yet, just site-visitor retargeting). Social media account setup and first 8 to 12 posts. SEO content production continues.
Month 4+: Gradual Meta cold prospecting if budget allows. SEO content cadence increases. The full stack is now running, but each piece was added with intent.

This sequencing matters because it allows each channel to be measured against the previous one, which is the argument for channel sequencing over channel stacking. By month 3, you know whether Google Ads is producing leads at the projected cost, and you can adjust the SEO and Meta strategy based on what is working in paid.

Red Flags: Clients Who Should Not Start a Full-Funnel Build

Not every contractor should sign up for a full-funnel build. The honest agency says so before the contract is signed.

The "$500/month leads" client. A contractor who expects Google Ads to deliver qualified leads for $500/month in a competitive metro market will be disappointed at $200 per lead. The math does not work. A different scope (just SEO, just GBP) is a better starting point.

The "we'll know in 30 days" client. Marketing for a greenfield business is a 90-day minimum commitment. A client who wants to evaluate ROI in 30 days will pull the plug right as the foundation work is paying off.

The "we just need leads for one project" client. A single $40K project does not justify a $120K annual marketing investment. The math works on a portfolio of 30+ projects per year at that average value, not on filling one slow quarter.

The undefined-success-metrics client. "I want more business" is not a metric. "I need 20 qualified leads per month at $150 cost-per-lead, leading to 2 closed projects per month at $30K average" is. The agency that accepts the first framing is setting itself up for a fight at month 6 when "more business" hasn't materialized.

The First 90 Days: The Honest Conversation

The agency that wins long-term clients is the one that has the first 90 days conversation before the contract is signed. Not the optimistic one. The realistic one.

"Month 1, we are building infrastructure. No leads expected. You are paying for the foundation that the next 11 months will run on. Month 2, we launch Google Ads. Realistic expectation is 5 to 15 leads at $150 to $250 per lead, with wide variance. Month 3, Meta and social go live. Total leads for the quarter: 30 to 70 if everything goes well, 20 to 30 if something is off. We will know by month 3 whether the fundamentals are working. If they are, we scale. If they are not, we diagnose before we scale."

This conversation is uncomfortable. It is also the conversation that prevents the month-6 blowup where the contractor feels misled and the agency feels unappreciated. Better to lose the contract on the proposal than to lose it on month 6 with a hostile relationship.

The Bottom Line

A full-funnel build for a home remodeling client starting from zero is a $60,000 to $180,000 year-one investment. The expected return is 3x to 8x that investment in closed project revenue, with a marketing asset that compounds into year two. The math works when the client understands what they're buying, when the agency sequences the build correctly, and when both parties have realistic expectations about the first 90 days.

The math does not work when the client expects $500/month leads, the agency promises "we'll figure it out," or the first 90 days are framed as a success measurement rather than a foundation period.

For agencies: the right answer to a greenfield brief is not "yes, we can do that." The right answer is "yes, we can do that, and here's what it costs and what it returns. What the first90 days will look like. If that works for you, here is the contract."

We build full-funnel marketing systems for home services companies starting from zero. If you want the math to actually work, [apply for a Growth Audit](/apply) and we will show you the full cost stack, expected returns, and the first-90-day plan before you sign anything.

The agency pricing model behind this kind of build is worth walking through in detail, because the retainer tier is where most of the budget sits. For an existing home services client weighing where co-op marketing dollars might fit, this case study on HVAC co-op funds shows the same math applied to manufacturer co-op programs.