A roofer in Tulsa and a plumber in Sacramento can spend the same $600 a month and get completely different results depending on where that money goes. Yelp Ads and Facebook Ads solve two different problems, and most contractors pick the wrong one first because they assume more visibility is more visibility. It isn't. One channel finds people who already decided they need a contractor and are comparing options with reviews open in another tab. The other creates that decision in the first place, before the person has typed anything into a search bar.
This matters more for contractors than almost any other local business because the ticket size is high enough that a bad lead costs real money, and the sales cycle often includes an in-home estimate. Getting the channel order wrong doesn't just waste ad spend — it burns a technician's afternoon on a estimate that was never going to close.
The core difference: intent vs. demand
Yelp Ads work on existing intent. Someone searches "plumber near me" or "emergency roof repair," Yelp shows a ranked list, and your ad buys you a better spot in that list — plus a "Sponsored" badge next to your name. The person is already in decision mode. They're reading star ratings, review counts, and response times before they call anyone.
Facebook Ads work on demand generation. Nobody is searching for a contractor on Facebook. Instead, your ad interrupts someone scrolling their feed and gives them a reason to think about their roof, their AC, or their kitchen right now — a before/after photo, a seasonal offer, a $0-down financing line. You're creating the moment of interest instead of catching it after it already exists.
That distinction drives almost everything else in this comparison: cost, lead quality, review dependency, and how fast each channel can get you a booked job. For a broader look at how contractors should think about paid channels generally, see Facebook ads for contractors.
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Real numbers: what each channel actually costs
Cost figures for both platforms swing hard by trade and metro, but here's what shows up consistently across contractor accounts:
| Metric | Facebook Ads | Yelp Ads |
|---|---|---|
| Cost per click | $0.80 – $3.00 | $2.00 – $6.00 |
| Cost per lead (contact form or call) | $20 – $65 | $30 – $90 |
| Minimum useful monthly budget | $300 – $500 | $300 – $600 |
| Time to first real signal | 7 – 10 days | 10 – 14 days |
| Dependent on review count/rating | Low | High |
Yelp's cost-per-click can look deceptively cheap next to Facebook's, but the click-to-lead conversion rate matters more. A Yelp click is someone already reading three competitors' pages side by side — they might click your ad, then still call the guy with 140 reviews instead of you. A Facebook click, when the targeting and creative are right, is someone who just decided they have a problem and you were the business that told them so. For a full trade-by-trade breakdown of Facebook lead costs, see Facebook ads cost per lead by industry.
When Yelp Ads win
Yelp Ads earn their spend in a specific situation: you already have a strong review base and a rating that holds up next to competitors. If you're sitting at 4.6 stars with 60+ reviews in a metro where the average competitor has 25 reviews at 4.2 stars, Yelp Ads let you buy the top slot in a list where you were already going to win the comparison. You're not creating demand, you're capturing it at the exact moment it's highest — someone with a burst pipe or a dead AC unit searching right now, ready to call whoever looks most trustworthy in the next 90 seconds.
Yelp also works well for trades where the purchase is urgent and local: emergency plumbing, garage door repair, locksmiths, HVAC breakdowns. These searches happen with high intent and short timelines — nobody comparison-shops a burst pipe for three days. If your reviews are strong and your response time is fast, Yelp Ads can produce some of the highest-intent leads available anywhere, often converting at 25-35% because the person calling has already vetted you before dialing.
When Yelp Ads disappoint
Here's the part most Yelp sales reps won't walk you through: if your review count or star rating is thin, you're paying to lose. Yelp Ads place your business in the same results page as every direct competitor, ranked by relevance and review signals as much as by bid. A contractor with 8 reviews at 3.9 stars who spends $500 on Yelp Ads is still going to lose most head-to-head comparisons to the competitor two spots down with 90 reviews at 4.7 stars — the ad spend just bought more impressions of that losing comparison.
This shows up constantly with newer contracting businesses, or established ones that never asked for reviews. A remodeler with 15 years in business but only 6 Yelp reviews looks, on the page, less trustworthy than a two-year-old competitor with 80 reviews. Yelp Ads amplify whatever your review profile already says about you — good or bad. If that profile is thin, don't fund it with ad spend yet; fix it first.
A rough threshold that holds up across trades: under 15 reviews or under a 4.0 average, Yelp Ads underperform Facebook Ads on cost per booked job in most markets we've seen. Above 30 reviews and 4.3+, the gap often flips the other way.
When Facebook Ads win
Facebook Ads don't care how many reviews you have on a third-party site. The algorithm is matching your ad to people based on behavior, location, and interest signals — not comparing you to five competitors on the same page. That makes Facebook the better starting point for:
- New contracting businesses with fewer than 20 reviews anywhere
- Slower seasons where you need to create demand rather than wait for it (see Facebook ads for seasonal business)
- Higher-ticket, non-emergency work like full roof replacements, kitchen remodels, or solar installs, where the buyer needs to be educated and nudged over weeks, not caught in a single urgent search
- Contractors who want to control the story with photos and video of their own work, rather than relying on how strangers described the job in a review
Facebook is also the only realistic option if you don't have a website yet — see Facebook ads without a website — since Yelp Ads generally push traffic toward a Yelp business page or a linked site, and a thin or missing site there hurts you the same way thin reviews do.
A concrete comparison: two contractors, two channels
Take two real scenarios. Delgado Roofing in Tampa, FL has been in business 3 years, has 9 Yelp reviews at 4.3 stars, and needs to fill a slow February. They put $500 into Yelp Ads and $500 into Facebook Ads for a 3-week test. The Yelp campaign generates 11 clicks-to-calls at an average cost of $71 per lead, and only 2 of those book an estimate — competitors with 60+ reviews are winning the comparison every time a homeowner is deciding who to call. The Facebook campaign, targeting homeowners within 12 miles who own homes built before 2005, generates 19 leads at $34 each, and 7 book estimates, because the ad itself (a before/after storm damage photo with a financing offer) created the interest rather than competing on a reviews page.
Now flip it: Cascade Plumbing in Portland, OR has been running for 11 years, has 140 Yelp reviews at 4.8 stars, and gets consistent emergency search volume. They run $600 on Yelp Ads and get 22 leads at $27 each, with 9 booked jobs — their review profile wins almost every comparison, and Yelp captures people at the exact moment of a plumbing emergency. Their Facebook test, same budget, generates cheaper leads at $22 each but a lower booking rate, because the emergency-driven searcher wasn't scrolling Facebook when the pipe burst — they were searching Yelp or Google.
Same two channels, opposite outcomes, driven entirely by review strength and urgency of the trade. That's the whole decision in two examples.
How to sequence the two channels instead of guessing
Most contractors don't need to pick one forever — they need to pick one first, then add the second once conditions change. A workable sequence:
- Under 20 reviews, any trade: Start with Facebook Ads exclusively for 60-90 days. Use the lead flow to close jobs and ask every satisfied customer for a Yelp and Google review. Don't touch Yelp Ads yet — you'd be paying to lose comparisons.
- 20-40 reviews, 4.2+ rating: Keep Facebook as the primary channel, test a small Yelp Ads budget ($200-$300/month) specifically for emergency or urgent-need keywords in your trade.
- 40+ reviews, 4.4+ rating, urgent-need trade (plumbing, HVAC, locksmith, garage door): Split budget closer to 50/50. Yelp captures the urgent searchers, Facebook keeps a pipeline of non-emergency jobs (remodels, replacements, seasonal maintenance) coming in.
- 40+ reviews, but a slow-decision trade (roofing, remodeling, solar): Lean Facebook-heavy (70/30 or more) even with strong reviews, because the buying decision takes weeks and benefits from repeated exposure and education, which Facebook does better than a one-time Yelp click.
This sequencing also avoids a common trap: running both channels at once from day one and never being able to tell which one actually produced a booked job, because the phone number and the estimate calendar don't separate cleanly.
Common mistakes contractors make in this decision
The biggest mistake is judging Yelp Ads by cost per lead alone without checking review count against local competitors. A $30 Yelp lead sounds cheaper than a $45 Facebook lead until you find out the Yelp lead never called back because three competitors with better ratings were listed above you.
The second mistake is running Facebook Ads with generic stock-photo creative and expecting Yelp-level intent. Facebook leads convert well when the ad shows real work — actual before/after photos, an actual crew, a real number to call — not a stock image of a smiling worker who's never touched a wrench. Vague creative on Facebook produces cheap, low-quality leads that look like a win on a spreadsheet and a loss on the phone.
The third mistake is switching channels every two weeks based on a small sample. Fourteen leads isn't a trend, it's noise. Give each channel at least $300-$500 and two full weeks before deciding it doesn't work — Meta's algorithm alone needs about 50 conversions to exit the learning phase reliably, detailed in Facebook ads learning phase.
The fourth mistake is comparing cost per lead instead of cost per booked job. A $25 Facebook lead that books at 20% costs $125 per job. A $60 Yelp lead that books at 40% costs $150 per job. The cheaper lead isn't always the cheaper customer.
When neither channel is the right move
Be honest about this before spending a dollar on either platform. If you can't answer the phone or return a lead's call within 2 hours, both channels will waste money — Yelp leads especially will call the next name on the list within minutes if you don't pick up. If your service area is under 5 miles and extremely saturated with 10+ competitors bidding on the same Yelp category, cost per lead on Yelp can climb past $100 with no guarantee of a callback. And if you're a one-person operation already booked 3+ weeks out, more leads from either channel just create a longer queue and more no-shows from people who found someone faster elsewhere — fix capacity before adding demand.
Neither platform is a fit either if you have zero photos of your own completed work. Yelp needs that to build review-page credibility over time, and Facebook needs it for creative that actually stops the scroll. Spend two weeks documenting 10-15 real jobs before turning on either channel — it will outperform any targeting adjustment you could make instead. For the mechanics of getting Facebook running well once you're ready, see how to advertise on Facebook yourself, and for a side-by-side against another local option, see Facebook ads vs. Nextdoor ads.
A simple way to test both without wasting a month
Run a 21-day parallel test with a fixed budget split — $350 to Facebook, $350 to Yelp — and track only two numbers: cost per booked estimate and estimate-to-job close rate. Ignore clicks and impressions entirely; they don't pay the bills. At day 21, whichever channel produced a lower cost per closed job gets the next month's larger budget, and the other gets paused, not eliminated — seasons and review counts change, and a channel that lost in March can win in October.
If you're setting this up yourself and want the ad copy, visual, targeting, and publishing handled without hiring an agency first, Leadria lets you describe your business and get a Facebook/Instagram ad built and launched with leads arriving as phone numbers — a 7-day free trial with no credit card is enough time to run exactly this kind of test.