How Far Should a Contractor Travel for a Job?

Almost every contractor sets a service area once, early, by drawing a circle around the shop and picking a number that felt generous. It then never changes, and it quietly decides which jobs are profitable for years.

Drive time is the cost that appears on no invoice. It is not billed, it is rarely tracked, and at the end of a full week nobody can point to it — which is why an advertising radius that is too wide produces a busy schedule and a disappointing month.

One radius is the wrong answer

The mistake is having a single service area at all, because job value changes the arithmetic completely.

A ninety-minute round trip is irrelevant on a $19,000 job and ruinous on a $250 one. So the radius should differ by what you are advertising:

• Low-value, high-frequency work — pressure washing, gutter cleaning, maintenance visits, small repairs — needs a tight radius, because the drive is a large share of the job’s cost.
• High-value, infrequent work — replacements, siding, remodeling, custom cabinets — can justify a much wider one, because a single job absorbs the travel easily.

Most contractors run the wide radius for everything, and lose margin on every small job at the edge of it.

Work out the break-even drive

The arithmetic is simple enough to do on paper and almost nobody does it.

Take a job type. Work out its gross profit — the revenue minus materials and labour actually spent on it. Then work out what an hour of that crew’s time costs you, fully loaded, including the vehicle. Divide.

That tells you how many hours of travel that job can absorb before it stops being worth doing. Applied honestly to your smallest common job, the number is usually far lower than the radius you are currently advertising, which is the finding that matters.

Do it for your two or three main job types and you have your radii. The max cost per lead calculator works on the same underlying figures, and cost per booked job is where the effect eventually shows up.

A circle is the wrong shape

This is the practical fix most contractors have never made, and it costs nothing.

A radius is measured in miles. Your actual constraint is minutes. Those are different in every real metro, because rivers, motorways, bridges, rail lines and traffic mean two places twenty miles out can be twenty-five minutes and fifty-five minutes away.

Neither Google Ads nor Meta draws a drive-time area for you — both target by place or by radius — so build the drive-time shape yourself. A thirty-minute drive-time area is the shape of your actual business; a twenty-mile circle is the shape of a compass. On Google, target the ZIP codes or towns inside your drive time rather than a radius around the office.

Meta is blunter. It counts housing repairs as housing advertising, so in the US most contractor campaigns run under its Housing special ad category, which does not allow ZIP code targeting and sets a minimum radius of 15 miles. There the drive-time discipline moves into qualification: ask for the address in the form, and screen it before anyone books a visit.

Two refinements worth making:

Exclude what the circle catches by accident. Areas on the wrong side of a bridge or a river, or across a city centre you will not cross at 4pm.

Consider where your crews actually start. If they leave from home rather than a yard, your practical coverage is not centred on the office.

Density beats distance

Distance from base matters less than whether the work clusters.

Four jobs in one subdivision is a good day. The same four spread across a county is a loss with an identically full schedule — and that is why the problem goes unnoticed, because nobody investigates a fully booked week.

Where you can influence clustering, do:

• Offer appointment days by geography. “We are on your side of town Tuesday” is a small scheduling discipline that protects margin on every small job.
• Sell the street. A job in progress is visible to everyone who passes it, and same-day neighbour outreach converts unusually well — that is most of the case for neighbourhood and offline marketing.
• Push advertising toward areas you already serve, rather than spreading budget evenly across a wide area.

Local ranking follows physical proximity

There is an organic reason to concentrate as well, and it is not optional.

Google’s local ranking weighs distance from the searcher heavily, and it is the factor you cannot influence. You will appear in the map results near where you actually are, and largely not in a suburb forty minutes away no matter how good your Google Business Profile is.

So the free channel reinforces wherever you are already strong. Advertising far outside that means paying full price for every lead in an area where you have no organic presence to support it — and competing with contractors who do.

Capacity changes the answer seasonally

The right radius is not fixed through the year.

When the schedule is thin, a wider area is worth it: an hour of driving beats an hour of nothing, and the marginal job is nearly all contribution. When you are booked out — a HVAC heatwave, a concrete pour season, a storm week — tighten it, because every distant job displaces a nearer one you could have done instead.

Most contractors leave the radius on its winter setting all summer. The crew capacity calculator is the honest check on whether you should be adding distance or removing it.

Charge for the distance, or decline it plainly

Two respectable answers when a job falls outside the area, and one bad one.

Price it. A travel surcharge or a higher minimum outside your core area is normal and homeowners accept it when it is stated plainly up front rather than appearing on an invoice.

Decline it, and refer it. “You are outside where we work, but try these people” costs nothing and builds the referral relationship that sends work back.

The bad answer is taking it at the normal price and resenting it. That is the version that produces rushed work, a bad review, and a job that lost money.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far should a contractor advertise from their base?

It depends on job value, so use more than one radius. Low-value, high-frequency work such as cleaning and small repairs needs a tight area because drive time is a large share of the job’s cost, while high-value replacements and renovations can justify a much wider one. Work out the break-even drive by dividing a job type’s gross profit by the fully loaded hourly cost of the crew and vehicle — for your smallest common job the answer is usually far tighter than what you currently advertise.

Should I use radius or drive time targeting in ads?

Drive time, in nearly every real metro. A mileage radius is a circle; your actual constraint is minutes, and rivers, motorways, bridges and traffic mean two places the same distance out can be twenty-five and fifty-five minutes away. Neither platform draws one for you. On Google, build it from the ZIP codes or towns inside your drive time, and exclude what a circle would catch by accident, such as areas across a river or through a city centre you will not cross at 4pm. On Meta, where housing-repair ads cannot target ZIP codes and have a 15-mile minimum radius, screen the address in the form instead.

Why is my schedule full but my margin poor?

Frequently because the work is not clustering. Four jobs in one subdivision and four spread across a county produce an identically full calendar and completely different profit, which is why the problem goes unnoticed — nobody investigates a fully booked week. Offer appointment days by geography, market to the neighbours of jobs in progress, and weight advertising toward areas you already serve.

Does service area affect Google rankings for contractors?

Yes, and it is the factor you cannot influence. Google’s local ranking weighs distance from the searcher heavily, so you appear in map results near where you physically are and largely not in a suburb forty minutes away, regardless of how good your profile is. That means advertising far outside your area is paying full price for every lead somewhere you have no organic presence supporting you.

Should I charge extra to travel outside my service area?

Yes, or decline it plainly — both are respectable. A travel surcharge or a higher minimum outside your core area is normal and accepted when stated up front rather than appearing later on an invoice. Declining and referring the job to someone who covers it costs nothing and builds a referral relationship. The bad option is accepting at the normal price and resenting it, which produces rushed work and a job that lost money.

---

Your service area is a pricing decision disguised as a map. Most contractors made it once, years ago, and have been paying for it in unbilled hours ever since.

See what our campaigns produce, or book a call and we will look at where your leads are actually coming from.