Between about $5 and $28 a click. That is Google’s own range for a top-of-page bid on the searches a buyer types when she wants a company like yours, pulled from Keyword Planner in September 2026 for the United States. The searches your customers type, like “security camera installation near me”, cost more: about $18 a click on average, and “commercial security camera installation” about $53.
A click is not a lead. Below is what a lead works out to at those prices, and when paying for the click beats earning it.
What Google charges for your buyer’s words
Keyword Planner reports a low and a high top-of-page bid for every term. The low end is roughly what it took to appear at the top of the page on the cheaper days, the high end what it took on the expensive ones. Here are the integrator terms, United States, September 2026, monthly searches first:
- security integrator: 590 searches, $5.83 to $26.37 a click
- security system integrators: 480, $6.58 to $28.32
- security integration companies: 170, $6.09 to $27.00
- access control integrators: 140, $7.91 to $24.36
- security integrators near me: 110, $4.89 to $24.00
- access control system integrators: 40, $9.37 to $34.91
Averaged across those six terms, the low end is $6.78 a click and the high end $27.49.
These are the words a consultant or a facilities director uses when she is looking for a firm rather than a product. There are not many of them. I added them up in where commercial security leads really come from: about 1,800 searches a month for the whole country. Few searches, and expensive ones, because the firms bidding on them are chasing six-figure contracts.
What your customers’ words cost
The other set of searches is bigger and, for one term, much pricier. These are the phrases an end customer types when she wants the system itself. Average cost per click, Google Ads data for the United States, pulled August 31, 2026:
- security camera installation near me: 5,400 searches a month, $18.38 a click
- access control installation: 1,300, $10.43
- structured cabling contractor: 480, $14.98
- commercial security camera installation: 390, $52.74
Look at the last one. Add the word “commercial” and the click costs nearly three times “near me”. The advertisers bidding on it know a commercial camera job is worth more than a residential one, and they pay accordingly. That is the market telling you what your work is worth before you have quoted anything.
What a lead works out to
A click buys a visit. A lead is a visit that turns into a form or a call. The arithmetic is the cost per click divided by the share of visits that act. Two scenarios, one form per 100 visits and three per 100:
- security camera installation near me, $18.38 a click: $1,838 a lead at one per 100, $613 at three per 100
- access control installation, $10.43: $1,043 or $348
- structured cabling contractor, $14.98: $1,498 or $499
- commercial security camera installation, $52.74: $5,274 or $1,758
One and three per hundred are working assumptions to show the range, not measurements. Your own form rate replaces them the first month you track it.
Whether $613 is a good number depends on what one job is worth to you and how many leads become jobs. For a $25,000 camera system that closes one lead in four, it is about $2,450 of marketing per sale, which most integrators would take. For a $1,500 service call at the same close rate it is a loss before the truck rolls.
The page decides whether the click was worth buying
The number that moves the lead cost most is not the bid. It is the share of visitors who act, and that is set by the page they land on.
In my benchmark of 53 integrator websites, the middle homepage took 11.5 seconds to show its main content on a phone, and 32 of 53 showed neither finished work nor a license number. Send an $18 click to a page like that and most of the money leaves before the page has loaded. At eleven seconds, one form per hundred visits is optimistic.
Fix the page first, then buy the click. That is the order I work in, and it is why the site comes before the ad budget on my own Digital Growth page.
When paying for the click makes sense
Three situations, in my experience:
- A new market. You have opened a branch in Fort Worth and nobody there has heard of you. Earned rankings take months. Paid search can run on day one.
- One service with margin and urgency. Commercial camera installation, access control for a tenant build-out. The buyer needs it this quarter and the job pays for the lead.
- A page that converts, measured rather than assumed.
And two where earning beats paying:
- The “near me” searches, year after year. At $18 a click, 5,400 searches a month is a budget most integrators will not sustain. A Google Business Profile and a page for each system and each city you serve earn those clicks without paying per visit.
- The integrator terms themselves. The people typing them are checking a referral as often as they are shopping, and a firm’s own page answers a referral check better than an ad does.
Where this leaves your budget
Put the first dollar into the page: proof of finished work, a page per system, a license number, a person to call. Then buy clicks for one service in one market and measure the form rate for a month. Then decide with your own number instead of mine.
Google Ads management and local SEO are priced on the Digital Growth page. The standard the site itself is built to, with a live rebuild measured before and after, is on the work page.
Sources and method
- Google Ads Keyword Planner, United States, English, pulled September 17, 2026: monthly searches and top-of-page bid ranges for the six integrator terms. Google rounds small numbers, so read them as ranges.
- Google Ads average cost per click for the four customer terms, United States, pulled August 31, 2026 through Local SEO Data.
- Lead costs are cost per click divided by an assumed one or three actions per 100 visits. They are arithmetic, not predictions.
- Page speed and proof figures: my measurement of 53 integrator websites, September 17, 2026.
Straight answers
How much does a Google Ads click cost for a security company?
On Google’s September 2026 numbers for the United States, a top-of-page bid on “security integrator” searches runs from about $5 to $28. Searches your customers type cost more: “security camera installation near me” averages about $18 a click and “commercial security camera installation” about $53.
Is Google Ads worth it for a commercial security integrator?
It can be, for one service in one market with a page built to convert. At $18 a click, three form fills per 100 visits puts a lead near $613; one per 100 puts it near $1,838. If the page takes 11 seconds to load on a phone, which was the middle result in my 53-site benchmark, the math fails before it starts. Fix the page, then buy the click.
