THE SHORT ANSWER
Modelled heat pump job values in the Netherlands run EUR 9,350 to EUR 18,700 in 2026, midpoint EUR 14,050. That midpoint carries 20 to 30 percent gross margin, which is EUR 2,800 to EUR 4,200. Winning the customer takes 3 to 5 exclusive leads at EUR 100 to EUR 150 each, so acquisition costs EUR 300 to EUR 750 and absorbs 6.7 to 26.2 percent of the margin on a single project.
The average job value question looks like accounting trivia until you try to set a marketing budget without it. Below is a 2026 band for heat pump projects in the Netherlands and, more usefully, what happens when you divide it: margin on the midpoint job, and what winning that job costs before a single tool comes off the van.
A narrower average would be more comforting and less true, because whether the property needs new emitters, the heat load of the building, and air source against ground source all move the number materially. The market adds its own layer: in the Netherlands, Dutch homeowners compare quotes online more aggressively than any other market in this list, so lead-to-quote rates are high but so is competition.
The numbers, at a glance
Typical project value: EUR 9,350 to EUR 18,700 for a standard heat pump job in the Netherlands, midpoint around EUR 14,050
Gross margin: 20 to 30 percent of contract value, which is EUR 2,800 to EUR 4,200 on the midpoint job
Cost to win one customer: EUR 300 to EUR 750 in lead spend, assuming 3 to 5 exclusive leads per signed job at EUR 100 to EUR 150 each
Acquisition as a share of margin: 6.7 to 26.2 percent of the gross margin on a single job, before any repeat or referral value
Where the heat pump number comes from in the Netherlands
Everything here is a complete installed job for a private household, excluding VAT and excluding competitively tendered work. Emergency repairs are excluded too: urgency prices on availability rather than on scope, and mixing the two produces an average that describes neither.
Inside that definition the spread comes from whether the property needs new emitters, the heat load of the building, and air source against ground source. The Netherlands is a market of roughly 17.9 million people with very high internet penetration, which is the pool every one of those quotes is written into.
Around EUR 9,350 for the simple version of this job on an accessible property.
Around EUR 14,050 for the version most quotes describe, including the upgrades customers ask for once they have seen the first price.
Around EUR 18,700 once scope, access or specification all move in the same direction.
Raising job value beats cutting lead price
Lead prices move by a few percent when you negotiate. Job value moves by tens of percent when you sell the right scope. For heat pump work the reliable lever is emitter replacement and buffer tanks, which adds 15 to 30 percent and is often unavoidable rather than optional. On the EUR 14,050 midpoint, a 20 percent increase in scope is worth about EUR 2,800 of extra contract value, which is more than the entire acquisition cost of that customer.
Quote the full scope, not the requested scope. Present the minimum job and the complete job as two priced options on the same document.
Bundle work the mobilisation already pays for. Scaffolding, access and travel are sunk the moment you are on site.
Anchor high, then subtract. A customer removing items from a complete quote finishes above a customer adding items to a minimal one.
Sell the monthly figure. Finance changes which end of the heat pump band a household considers realistic.
Air source and ground source are two different businesses
Ground source is not a premium version of air source, it is a different job with a drilling subcontractor in the middle of it. Borehole work commonly runs EUR 50 to EUR 90 per metre and a domestic installation needs 100 to 200 metres, so the ground loop alone can exceed the entire cost of an air source system. Contract values of EUR 25,000 to EUR 35,000 are normal, lead times are longer, and the buyer is usually a rural homeowner with land and no gas connection. If both come from the same enquiry flow, qualify on plot size and rig access before the first visit rather than after it.
What a block of leads has to produce to pay for itself
Work the package price backwards. Take 25 exclusive leads for EUR 1,750. At 3 to 5 leads per signed customer that is 5 to 8 jobs. At the EUR 14,050 midpoint that is EUR 70,200 to EUR 112,300 of contract value and EUR 14,050 to EUR 33,700 of gross margin, against a lead spend of EUR 1,750.
The block pays for itself on the first signed job and everything after that is return. That is the honest test of any lead purchase at this job value: not whether the price per lead feels high, but how many jobs the block has to produce before it breaks even, and whether that number is one or four.
Dutch households price renovation work against a published subsidy table
The ISDE scheme pays fixed published amounts towards specific measures, heat pumps and insulation among them, applied for after the work is done and paid to the homeowner. Two consequences for anyone quoting in the Netherlands. If your work is an eligible measure, the customer arrives knowing roughly what they will get back and negotiates against the net figure rather than your gross one, so quote gross, show the expected amount as a separate informational line, and never fold it into your price. If your work is not eligible, and most interior fitting and replacement work is not, you are competing for the same household budget against jobs that effectively carry a discount, which is an argument to make about durability and disruption rather than price. Amounts are revised annually, and an installer who has discounted against a grant that then changes carries the loss alone.
Contract value against gross margin
Contract value is the figure contractors quote each other. Gross margin is the figure that pays wages. For heat pump work in the Netherlands the gap between them is 70 to 80 percent of the contract, so the EUR 14,050 midpoint leaves EUR 2,800 to EUR 4,200 behind.
Overheads, vehicles, insurance and the owner's own salary all come out of that, which means the money genuinely available to win the next customer is a fraction of the margin rather than the whole of it. Decide what share you will spend on acquisition before you look at any supplier price list. Established heat pump installers tend to land between 10 and 20 percent of gross margin. Businesses in a deliberate growth phase run at 30 and accept that payback arrives on the second job.
Dividing job value by what a customer costs
The whole calculation in one line: EUR 100 to EUR 150 per exclusive lead, 3 to 5 leads per signed customer, EUR 300 to EUR 750 to win that customer, against EUR 2,800 to EUR 4,200 of gross margin on the midpoint job. Acquisition is therefore 6.7 to 26.2 percent of the margin from one project.
Compare that against the alternatives rather than against zero. A shared lead at half the price, reaching four heat pump installers at once, typically needs two to three times as many to produce a sale, which lands in the same place or worse and costs three times the sales effort. The cheapest sticker price is rarely the cheapest customer.
Why a proper heat loss calculation pays for itself
A room-by-room heat loss calculation takes two to three hours and is the difference between a quote you can defend and one you will lose money on. Undersizing produces a cold house and a warranty argument. Oversizing produces short cycling, poor seasonal efficiency and a customer who tells the neighbours the technology does not work. It also lifts contract value directly, because the calculation is what justifies the larger unit and the emitter upgrades to a homeowner who arrived expecting a straight swap. Contractors who charge a survey fee and credit it against the installation report both higher conversion and higher average job values.
A large slice of Dutch housing is decided by a committee
Roughly a fifth of Dutch homes sit in apartment buildings governed by a Vereniging van Eigenaren, the owners' association, and anything touching the roof, the facade, the frames or the shared services needs a vote at the members' meeting. Meetings are often annual. The sales cycle is measured in months, the decision maker is a board or a managing agent rather than a householder, and the contract when it lands covers a whole block rather than one dwelling, which puts it an order of magnitude above the private band. The mistake is running these enquiries through the same pipeline as private work and writing them off when nobody signs in three weeks. Ask on the first call whether the property is part of a VvE, and if it is, quote for the building and diarise the meeting date.
Turning this benchmark into your own figure
Start from invoices, not quotes: a median of twenty signed heat pump contracts is worth more than any published average, including this one.
Take materials and installation labour out of each contract so you are working with margin rather than turnover.
Divide the number of enquiries you received by the number of customers you signed. That ratio, not the lead price, is what most contractors get wrong.
Price a signed customer by multiplying that ratio by the quoted lead price, then express it as a share of your median margin.
Re-run all five twice a year. Job values drift, conversion drifts faster, and a benchmark from eighteen months ago is a guess.
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 band is an industry base range for heat pump multiplied by a Dutch construction cost index of 1.04, where the Benelux baseline is 1.00. Construction cost and advertising cost are modelled separately on purpose: cheap clicks and cheap labour do not reliably occur in the same market.
How Flock Leads prices this
If the arithmetic works at your conversion rate, this is what buying that volume costs outright, with no retainer sitting on top of it:
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.
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Related answers
Frequently asked questions
How much does a heat pump project cost in the Netherlands?
Between EUR 9,350 to EUR 18,700 for a private household in 2026, midpoint around EUR 14,050, excluding VAT and excluding competitively tendered work. Where a specific job lands depends on whether the property needs new emitters, the heat load of the building, and air source against ground source.
Does this figure include VAT?
No. Every number here is exclusive of VAT, because rates on home improvement work vary by country, by measure and sometimes by the age of the property. Quote your customer inclusive if that is the local convention, but do your margin arithmetic exclusive, otherwise the tax looks like profit.
Why is the band so wide?
Because whether the property needs new emitters, the heat load of the building, and air source against ground source genuinely swings the price that much. A narrow average would be more comforting and less true. The useful move is to establish where your own typical job sits inside the band, then price your marketing against that point rather than against the midpoint.
Is job value in the Netherlands rising or falling in 2026?
Material prices have largely stabilised after the volatility of the early decade, while installation labour remains the tighter constraint across most of Western Europe. The practical effect is that job values drift upward slowly and the labour component grows as a share of each quote. Re-check your own median twice a year rather than trusting a published figure.
How much should I spend on winning one customer?
Set it as a share of gross margin rather than as an absolute. Ten to 20 percent of margin is normal for an established business, and 30 percent is a deliberate growth position that pays back on the second and third job. Here 20 percent of margin would be about EUR 550 per signed customer.
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