The Short Answer
There isn't one number. What Facebook ads cost a contractor in Alabama depends on how much you spend, what you're offering, how good the video is and how fast you call people back. Anyone who quotes you a flat "cost per lead" before looking at your business is guessing.
What I can do is break down where the money goes, what pushes the cost of a lead up or down, and show you real numbers from campaigns we've run for local businesses here in Alabama.
The Four Parts of the Cost
When people ask what Facebook ads cost, they usually mean the ad budget. That's only one piece. A campaign that actually produces jobs has four parts, and you pay for all of them one way or another.
1. Ad Budget
This is the money that goes to Meta to show your ads on Facebook and Instagram. You set it, and Meta spends it. A bigger budget reaches more people in your area, but it doesn't fix a weak ad or a bad offer. Spending more on something that isn't working just gets you expensive results faster.
2. Creative
Creative is the ad itself: the video, the photos, the headline and the text. For contractors, this is where most campaigns win or lose. A video of your crew finishing a real job usually beats a stock photo with a logo on it, because people in a small market want to see who's actually showing up at their house.
Creative also wears out. The same ad shown to the same towns for months stops getting attention, so you need fresh video on a regular schedule.
3. Management
Someone has to set up the campaigns, pick the audience, test different versions, watch the spend and shut off what isn't working. You can do it yourself if you have the time. Most contractors don't, and Ads Manager isn't forgiving if you set it up wrong.
4. Tracking
This is the part most people skip, and it's the reason so many contractors say "Facebook ads don't work." If you can't tell which ad a call came from, and whether that call turned into a quote or a sale, you're judging the whole thing on a gut feeling. Tracking means a call tracking number, lead alerts and a simple way to mark a lead as quoted or sold.
What Drives Your Cost Per Lead
Cost per lead varies widely from one business to the next, even in the same trade and the same town. These are the things that move it the most.
Your offer. "Call for a free estimate" is fine. A specific reason to call now, like a monthly payment option or a seasonal opening on your schedule, usually does better. People respond to something concrete.
Your creative. Real video of your work, your equipment and you talking to the camera builds trust before the phone rings. When people already feel like they know you, more of them call.
Your targeting. In a rural or small-town market, you don't have millions of people to work with. Picking the right towns and the right radius matters more than clever interest targeting.
Your follow-up speed. This doesn't change what Meta charges you, but it changes what each lead is worth. A lead who hears back in a minute is far more likely to book than one who hears back the next afternoon. If leads sit, your real cost per job goes up even when your cost per lead looks good.
Real Numbers From Our Campaigns
Here are results from Meta campaigns we've run for local businesses. They come straight from the clients' Meta ad accounts. They aren't promises, and your numbers will depend on your market, your offer and your budget.
Rival Feed & Seed (tractor and equipment dealer, Northwest Alabama). Two tractor campaigns run as call ads produced 244 phone calls between June and October 2026: 83 from the first call campaign (30 days) and 161 from the second (61 days). The video was shot on the lot, and the offer was a monthly payment, not a generic "come see us."
Superior Lime (agricultural lime). We ran an awareness video and a call campaign at the same time over the same delivery area. Between Sept 4 and Oct 8, 2026, the call campaign produced 63 phone calls, and the awareness video got 14,160 views (ThruPlays: watched to the end or for at least 15 seconds).
4G Land Services (land clearing and excavation, Russellville, AL). We shot real job-site video of dirt work, ponds and land clearing and ran it as lead campaigns, testing audiences month by month. That produced 68 leads from August to December 2025. A separate hiring ad brought in 34 job applicants in about two weeks. Read the full 4G Land Services case study.
Saint Builders. We shot a commercial for DT III, cut vertical ads from it, and ran a lead campaign and an awareness campaign side by side. The lead campaign produced 62 leads from Sept 29 to Oct 23, 2026 (the campaign is still running, so that count is as of Oct 23, 2026). Read the Saint Builders case study.
Southern Shine Car Wash (Savannah, TN). A membership + giveaway lead form ran alongside a brand video. It brought in 284 sign-ups in about 9 days (Oct 14 – 23, 2026, still running). Those are membership and giveaway sign-ups, not paid memberships, which is why we count them separately from leads. Read the Southern Shine case study.
You'll notice these are volumes, not prices. What a call or a lead costs you depends on your budget, your market, your offer and the time of year, so someone else's cost per call won't tell you what yours will be. We'd rather look at your market on a call than quote you another business's number. Results vary by industry, offer and budget.
Notice the difference between a call and a lead. A call campaign gets someone on the phone. A lead form campaign collects a name and number that you then have to call. They behave differently and cost different amounts, which is one more reason a single "average cost per lead" doesn't tell you much.
Why We Track to the Sale
Cost per lead is useful, but it isn't the number that pays your bills. A cheap lead that never buys is worse than an expensive one who signs a big job.
That's why we track every lead all the way to the sale. Each lead gets a text in seconds, missed calls get a text back, and when you quote or sell the job, you tap a link to mark it. At the end of the month you see which ads turned into revenue, not just which ones made the phone ring.
Once you can see that, the question changes from "what does a lead cost?" to "what does a customer cost, and is it worth it?" For most contractors, where one job is worth hundreds or thousands of dollars, that's the question that matters.
Doing It Yourself vs. Hiring It Out
If you run ads yourself, your costs are the ad budget, whatever you spend on video, and your time. That can work if you enjoy it and have the hours to learn it.
If you hire it out, you're paying for the creative, the management and the tracking on top of the ad budget. Some agencies bill those separately. Ours is one flat monthly price: we film video ads each month, run your Meta ads, include the ad budget and track every lead to the sale. It starts at $2,850 a month with a three-month commitment, because that's about how long Meta's system takes to dial in. You can see the details on how it works.
Is It Worth It for Your Business?
Here's a simple way to think about it. If one new customer is worth $400 or more to you, and you can take on more work, Facebook ads are worth a serious look. If you're after likes and followers, or you won't call new leads back quickly, they probably aren't.
If you want to see what this would look like for your business, apply below. We'll look at your market and your numbers and tell you honestly whether it makes sense.