How much does HVAC marketing cost with Scale Theory?
Our fee is $3,000 a month plus GST. The first 90 days cost $9,000, split in two: $4,500 on signing and $4,500 once you have won 3 jobs from quotes we booked, or at day 60, whichever comes first. After that it is month to month, 30 days notice. Ad spend is extra, paid by you to Meta and Google.
Put simply: pay half to start. You only pay the other half once you've won 3 jobs from quotes we booked.
That is the whole price. It is the same price we give on the audit call, and the same for every installer who fits. There is no setup fee beyond the first payment.
We publish it because a lot of agencies do not, and an HVAC business owner should be able to check the maths before giving anyone an hour of their time.
What is included in the monthly fee?
Everything needed to turn ad spend into booked quotes in your diary is included: Meta ads, Google Search ads, Google Business Profile management, review requests, suburb landing pages, the six-question qualifier, CRM, the 60-second SMS and call, booking, day 1, 3 and 7 follow-up, Off-Peak Fill and the Friday report.
Included:
- Meta ad campaigns (Facebook and Instagram) built from your photos and video, run in your own ad account
- Google Search ads for ducted, replacement and repair searches in your suburbs, run in your own Google Ads account
- Google Business Profile management: services, photos, categories and updates kept current
- Automated review requests after every install
- Suburb-matched landing pages on your domain or a subdomain
- The six-question qualifier with routing
- GoHighLevel CRM with the 10-stage pipeline and your own login
- SMS and call inside 60 seconds, handled by an AI receptionist with a VA behind it
- Booking into your diary with the homeowner's answers attached
- Quote follow-up on days 1, 3 and 7 in your name
- Push to ServiceM8 or simPRO where you use them
- Off-Peak Fill for winter and the shoulder months
- The Friday report: booked quotes by channel, cost per booked quote and jobs won, with notes from Sam
All of it is explained step by step on the HVAC Profit Machine page.
What is not included?
SEO, ad spend and website rebuilds are not included. You pay Meta and Google directly for ad spend, minimum $4,000 a month combined. SEO may be offered later as a separate add-on, but it is not part of this price. We build landing pages, not full websites.
| Not included | Why |
|---|---|
| Ad spend (Meta and Google) | You pay Meta and Google directly on your card. You see every dollar and there is no markup. |
| SEO | Different skill, different timeline. It may come later as a separate add-on. If it is your biggest gap, we will say so. |
| Website rebuilds | We build landing pages, not full websites. |
| Social media posting | Organic posting is a different job from paid ads that book quotes. |
| Google Local Services Ads | Google does not offer them in Australia. |
How does the ad spend split between Meta and Google?
The minimum is $4,000 a month combined. By default Meta gets $2,500 and Google Search $1,500. In Sydney's peak cooling months, December to February, we flip it to Google $2,500 and Meta $1,500, because people search when systems break. In the off-peak months the spend leans to Meta with Off-Peak Fill.
| Period (Sydney) | Meta | Google Search | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Default split | $2,500 | $1,500 | Meta reaches homeowners thinking about ducted before they search |
| Peak cooling (December to February) | $1,500 | $2,500 | Breakdowns in a heatwave send people straight to Google |
| Off-peak (winter and shoulder months) | Meta-heavy | The rest | Off-Peak Fill offers: heating, service, pre-summer install slots |
| Multi-area or commercial | Quoted | Quoted | $6,000 or more a month combined, set on the audit call |
Spend also follows your diary. When install lead times pass three weeks, we turn spend down rather than book quotes you cannot install. It never drops below the $4,000 combined minimum while we are running your account.
Why is half of the first 90 days paid later?
The second $4,500 is due once you have won 3 jobs from quotes we booked, or at day 60, whichever comes first. It means half of the first 90 days waits on your results. If the system books quotes that turn into jobs quickly, you pay sooner. If it is slow, we wait.
Only jobs with a quoted value of $5,000 or more, excluding GST, count towards the 3. Smaller wins are still reported, they just do not count. A quote counts as won 14 days after it is sent unless you mark it lost with a reason.
Why day 60 as the backstop? Because some things are outside our control: how fast you quote, how you price, whether your diary has room. We plan for the third job to land inside 60 days even if cost per enquiry runs 30% worse than our planning figure. That is a plan, not a promise.
Worked example: the third job with enquiries 30% dearer (planning assumptions)
Planned blended cost per enquiry: $100 to $130. Say $115.
30% worse: $115 x 1.3 = about $150 per enquiry
$4,000 / $150 = about 27 enquiries a month
27 x 60% pass the qualifier = about 16 qualified. 16 x 60% book = about 10 booked quotes a month
10 x 30% close = about 3 won jobs a month, or about 6 by day 60 before allowing for quote lag and smaller jobs
Every booked quote and every win sits in the pipeline you can see. The Friday report shows the count towards the third job, so nobody argues about it.
What does the first 90 days cost in total at $4,000 ad spend?
At the $4,000 combined minimum, the first 90 days cost $21,000: $9,000 to us (plus GST) and $12,000 to Meta and Google. From month four it is $7,000 a month at the same spend: $3,000 to us and $4,000 in ads, month to month.
| Period | Scale Theory fee (plus GST) | Ad spend (paid to Meta and Google) | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| On signing | $4,500 | $4,500 | |
| Month 1 | $4,000 | $4,000 | |
| Month 2 | $4,000 | $4,000 | |
| 3 jobs won or day 60 | $4,500 | $4,500 | |
| Month 3 | $4,000 | $4,000 | |
| First 90 days | $9,000 | $12,000 | $21,000 |
| Each month after | $3,000 | $4,000 | $7,000 |
The second fee payment can land in month 1 or month 2, depending on when the third job is won. The 90-day total does not change.
How many jobs do you need to break even?
At the $4,000 minimum spend, the all-in monthly cost is $7,000. At our planning midpoint of about $3,500 gross profit per Sydney ducted job, that is about 2 ducted jobs a month. On your numbers, about two ducted jobs a month covers everything you'd spend with us, fee and ads. Anything past that is yours.
Worked example: break-even and the planning funnel (planning assumptions)
All-in monthly cost: $3,000 fee + $4,000 ad spend = $7,000
Gross profit per ducted job, planning range: $2,300 to $4,800. We plan with about $3,500.
Break-even: $7,000 / $3,500 = about 2 ducted jobs a month
At the low end: $7,000 / $2,300 = about 3 jobs. At the high end: $7,000 / $4,800 = about 1.5 jobs.
Now the other side. $4,000 / $100 to $130 blended cost per enquiry = about 35 enquiries
35 x 60% pass the qualifier = about 21 qualified. 21 x 60% book = about 12 to 13 booked quotes
$4,000 / 12.5 = about $320 ad cost per booked quote. $7,000 / 12.5 = about $550 all-in per booked quote
12.5 x 30% close = about 3 to 4 won jobs a month
These are planning assumptions: a $100 to $130 blended cost per enquiry across Meta and Google, a 60% qualifier pass rate, 60% of qualified homeowners booking, and a 30% close on exclusive, pre-qualified quotes. They are not results. We have no clients yet, and your first month of data replaces every one of them. Covering your costs is not the same as profit on the business, and nothing about this structure guarantees either.
For how this compares with a percentage-of-revenue approach, read how much an air conditioning business should spend on marketing. For what enquiries cost across channels, see HVAC leads cost in Australia.
Are we a fit? What we check on the audit call
On the audit call we ask three numbers: your average job value, your gross margin and your ducted share of work. We do not sign if break-even needs more than about 2 ducted jobs a month, if ducted is under 40% of your work, or if you cannot take on 2 or more extra ducted installs a month.
Why those three:
- Break-even above about 2 jobs. If your gross profit per ducted job is well under our planning midpoint, the maths above stops working, and we would rather tell you than take the fee.
- Ducted under 40%. Our ads lead with ducted, replacement and whole-home systems. We never advertise single-room splits. A split-heavy business gets quotes it does not want.
- No room for 2 extra installs. Booked quotes are no use if the diary is already full into next season.
What happens after the first 90 days?
After 90 days the fee is $3,000 a month plus GST, billed monthly, with 30 days notice to stop. There is no lock-in beyond the first 90 days. Ad spend carries on at whatever level suits your diary and the season, never below the $4,000 combined minimum.
By day 90 you have three months of real numbers: cost per enquiry by channel, qualifier pass rate, booked quotes, close rate and jobs won. That is when the planning assumptions on this page stop mattering. The decision to carry on is made on your data, not on our maths.
Most of the work after day 90 is keeping the machine tuned: new Meta creative every three weeks, search terms and negative keywords reviewed on Google, spend moved between channels with the season, Off-Peak Fill switched on for winter, and the qualifier adjusted if too many or too few homeowners pass it. We raise changes in the Friday report before we make them.
Why is there no setup fee?
There is no setup fee because the build is paid for out of the first $4,500, and we would rather tie the second half of the first 90 days to your third won job than bill you for work before you have seen it run. The build is the same template every time, which keeps our cost down.
A setup fee protects the agency. A deferred payment protects the client. We chose the second.
Why don't you offer a guarantee?
We do not offer a revenue or results guarantee because we do not control quoting, pricing, close rate or install capacity. A guarantee that ignores those usually comes with fine print. Instead, you get published pricing, a second payment that waits on 3 won jobs or day 60, weekly numbers and month-to-month terms after 90 days.
If the numbers are not there by day 90, you can leave with 30 days notice and take your Meta and Google ad accounts, your landing pages on your domain and every contact with you.
Why only one HVAC client per area?
We take one HVAC client per service line per area because we cannot run ads for two installers chasing the same homeowners in the same suburbs and do right by both. On Google you would be bidding against yourself through us. One client per area keeps the offer, the audience and the booked quotes yours.
If you work in Sydney, our Sydney HVAC marketing page shows which areas are open.
Commercial HVAC and multi-area setups start at $6,000 a month in ad spend and are quoted on the audit call. They need different offers, pages and budgets, and we would rather price them properly than guess on a web page.
Choosing between agencies? We wrote 12 questions to ask an HVAC marketing agency. Ask us all of them.