THE SHORT ANSWER
In Lyon an exclusive lead models at EUR 55 to EUR 160 depending on the trade, roughly 12 percent above the French national average. The addressable base is roughly 1,000,000 households, with an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 live projects a year across all trades. The cheapest route in is local search and reviews, bridged with purchased exclusive leads while that matures, and paid search last.
The gap between a national cost-per-lead figure and what you actually pay in a capital city is large enough to sink a budget. This page treats Lyon as its own market: what a lead costs here, how much demand the metro can realistically supply in a year, and which channels are worth the effort at this scale.
Read the rest against one local condition: a strong regional installer base and a renovation-heavy older core. It decides which trades travel well here and which do not.
The numbers, at a glance
Households in the metro: about 1,000,000, from a population of roughly 2.3 million people
Projects commissioned annually: an estimated 35,000 to 60,000, or roughly 2,900 to 5,000 enquiries a month across every trade
What an exclusive lead costs: EUR 55 to EUR 160, roughly 12 percent above the French national average
Widest spread between trades: kitchen and bathroom leads at EUR 55 to EUR 100 against heat pump leads at EUR 100 to EUR 160
French homeowners are slower and more document-driven than they look
Enquiries arrive readily and convert slowly. Expect the customer to want the quote in a specific form, to check qualifications and insurance, and to involve family in the decision. Regional variation is strong: what works in the south does not necessarily work in the north, and installer density differs enough that a national campaign will produce wildly different costs per lead by region. Segment before you scale.
When to buy leads in Lyon
The three trades modelled on this page do not peak together, which is the whole opportunity. A contractor who can sell two of them evens out the year; a contractor tied to one lives with the curve.
Heat pump: demand peaks September to January and bottoms out around June and July, driven mostly by boiler replacement deadlines and running-cost comparisons.
Air conditioning: demand peaks the first heatwave and bottoms out around December to February, driven mostly by heatwaves and home-office comfort.
Kitchen and bathroom: demand peaks January and September and bottoms out around July, driven mostly by moving house and long-postponed renovations.
Off-peak leads typically run 20 to 40 percent below the prices quoted here, take longer to convert and go cold more often. Buying in the trough and nurturing into the peak is the cheapest growth available in this metro, and almost nobody does it, because it means spending money in the month the phone is quiet.
Cost per customer, not cost per lead
A lead price on its own tells you nothing. Divide it by your close rate and the number becomes decision-grade.
Take the middle trade on this page. A air conditioning lead in Lyon averages EUR 90. At the normal 4 to 6 exclusive leads per signed customer, that is about EUR 455 to win one, against a typical project of EUR 5,500. Acquisition is therefore running near 8.3 percent of contract value.
The working rule across home-improvement trades is that a healthy acquisition cost sits between 4 and 9 percent of job value. Above 12 percent, either lead quality or follow-up is broken, and in practice it is almost always follow-up. Metro job values are higher than national ones, which is precisely why a metro lead premium is usually affordable.
The Croix-Rousse silk-weaver buildings are a niche worth owning
The former weaving district north of the centre is full of apartments with exceptional ceiling heights and very large single-glazed windows, built for looms rather than for comfort. They are difficult to heat, expensive to reglaze and constrained by the character of the district. Very few installers have a proper answer for them. Building a specific offer for that building type, with photographs of completed work in the same streets, is a far better use of a Lyon budget than competing on generic city-wide terms.
The eastern suburbs are the volume and the emissions zone is the filter
The bulk of accessible detached and semi-detached housing sits east and south-east of the city, in the ring of suburbs beyond the two rivers, and that is where a metro campaign should point. The low-emission zone across the urban core is a genuine operating cost if your fleet is older, and it is worth checking before you commit to city-centre work, because a restriction on your own vehicles quietly removes the highest-value postcodes from your reachable market.
The order to switch channels on in Lyon
Sequence beats selection. All five of the channels below function in a metro this size; the expensive error is starting with the one that costs the most per enquiry and takes the least time to set up, because it is the one that will flatter you for a month and then empty the account.
Google Search captures people who have already decided to buy and are choosing who from. Highest intent, highest cost per click, smallest audience.
Google Local Services sits above the normal results and charges per lead rather than per click, but requires verification and is not available everywhere.
Meta and Instagram creates demand rather than capturing it. Cheaper per click, lower intent, and it needs a real offer rather than a contact form.
Buying exclusive leads skips the build entirely. You pay more per enquiry and nothing per month, and you can turn it off in a week.
Local SEO and the map pack is the cheapest sustainable source in any metro and the slowest to build. Reviews and proximity decide it more than content does.
A defensible first ninety days here runs like this. Week one is the business profile, the photographs and the first review requests. Week two is a small block of exclusive leads, so the crew is quoting while the owned channels are still invisible. Month two, and not before, is when a paid search account earns its place, because by then you have enough closed jobs to price a click honestly.
How much demand Lyon can actually supply
Lyon holds roughly 2,300,000 people, which is about 1,000,000 households once you divide by average household size. That is the ceiling, not the market.
A working assumption is that 3.5 to 6 percent of households commission some qualifying home-improvement project in a given year, putting the annual enquiry pool at 35,000 to 60,000. Split that across ten trades and however many established competitors already work the area, and the realistic share available to a new entrant becomes concrete rather than theoretical.
Two corrections are worth applying. Service radius rarely matches the administrative boundary, so add the commuter ring if you are willing to drive it. And factor in the language picture, which in France means one language, but strong regional differences in installer density.
What to do with this page
Take the lead price band of EUR 55 to EUR 160 as your ceiling, not your target, and refuse anything above it until you have measured a close rate.
Size your ambition against the pool: an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 projects a year across all trades in Lyon, not per trade and not all winnable.
Choose one trade to start. Kitchen and bathroom is the cheapest entry on this page; heat pump carries the highest ticket.
Get the local search basics right before advertising, because paid channels amplify a conversion rate rather than create one.
Buy exclusive leads to bridge the months while local search matures, then decide on the numbers whether to keep buying.
Set a single number as your target and manage to it: cost per signed customer, benchmarked here at about EUR 455 for air conditioning work.
How these figures were built
These figures are a benchmark model, not a survey. They combine an industry base range observed across Western European home-improvement campaigns with a country multiplier for local auction pressure. Treat them as a band to negotiate against, not a quote. The local numbers stack a metro premium on top of the national band, and convert population to households at 2.3 people per household. The annual project pool assumes 3.5 to 6 percent of households commission qualifying work in a year, which is a modelled range rather than a measured one.
How Flock Leads prices this
Leads in Lyon are sold exclusively and priced by volume rather than by trade, so the per-lead cost falls as the block gets larger. Compare the per-lead figures below against the EUR 55 to EUR 160 modelled above for this metro.
Starter - 10 leads for EUR 750, which is EUR 75 per lead
Growth - 25 leads for EUR 1,750, which is EUR 70 per lead
Scale - 45 leads for EUR 2,925, which is EUR 65 per lead
Pro - 70 leads for EUR 4,340, which is EUR 62 per lead
Max - 90 leads for EUR 5,400, which is EUR 60 per lead
No retainer, no contract term, and no lead sent to a second business. Unused volume rolls over under the Flock Lead Promise.
Want leads like this in your pipeline?
Flock runs the campaigns, screens the enquiries and hands you only the ones that match your service area, job size and capacity. You pay per lead, not per month.
Book a 15-minute fit check | See lead package pricing
Related answers
Frequently asked questions
How many home-improvement projects happen in Lyon each year?
An estimated 35,000 to 60,000, from a base of roughly 1,000,000 households. That is across every trade combined, so a single specialism is looking at a fraction of it.
Are purchased leads better than running my own ads here?
They are faster, not cheaper. Purchased exclusive leads give you volume this week at a known price. Your own local search presence is cheaper per lead once it matures but takes months to build. Most contractors in Lyon should run both and let the numbers decide the ratio.
How far outside Lyon should I advertise?
Set the boundary in minutes rather than kilometres, and measure it at the time of day you actually drive. Widening the radius raises enquiry volume but lowers jobs completed per crew per week, and the second effect is usually the larger one.
Is Lyon a good market for a contractor to expand into?
It depends on what you sell. The defining local condition is a strong regional installer base and a renovation-heavy older core, which suits some trades and punishes others. Check that against your own specialism before committing budget.
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