What we will not pretend to know
The click table we cite for plumbers, electricians and roofers is SoNick Marketing’s September 2026 Keyword Planner extract. Its rows are plumber, boiler, gas, electrician, roofer and builder searches. There is no “MOT near me”, no “car service near me”, and no garage row. Whito’s £1.50 to £3.00 is a local-trades band, and Whito says it is not a measured sample. Using either number as an MOT cost would be us inventing a statistic. This study is the method, the split, and the sum you run on your invoice.
Run Keyword Planner for the towns you cover, export the top-of-page bids for the searches you will actually buy, and write the date on the export. That sheet replaces the missing national row. Update it when you re-read this page, not from memory.
Three jobs, three lines
The garages page and the MOT centres page already separate the work. The money follows.
| Job | What a booked result is | When more ads are a waste |
|---|---|---|
| MOT | A ramp slot that was kept. | The diary for MOTs is full. Cheap clicks onto a full week are not an opportunity. |
| Servicing | A service that was carried out, not a click on “book”. | You are advertising a service you have no technician for that week. |
| Diagnostics | A paid diagnostic, kept separate from the repair it might become. | You count the later repair as if the ad sold it, and double the value of one visit. |
Illustration, not a UK garage. You pay Google £600 in a month. £250 of that is on MOT searches, £250 on servicing, £100 on diagnostics. Booked and attended: 10 MOTs, 4 services, 1 diagnostic. Media cost per attended job is £25, £62.50 and £100. Add one management fee of £299 plus VAT (£358.80) only if you are honest about sharing it. Splitting it by spend would add about £149, £149 and £60. An MOT that leaves £15 gross profit is already a loss at £25 of media per attended test, before any share of the fee. A diagnostic that leaves £180 can carry £160 all-in. The blended “£958.80 divided by 15 jobs is about £64” would hide the MOT problem completely.
That is why the monthly report needs the split. The lead sheet needs a job-type column, and a rule that a phone booking and a web booking for the same car are one row.
| Search | Campaign | Ask |
|---|---|---|
| MOT, MOT near me | Tests, and only for classes the station can test. | Registration and the date they want. If the test week is full, this campaign pauses. |
| Car service, interim service | Servicing, on the ramps that are still open. | Registration, and that they want a service rather than a test. |
| Car diagnostic, engine management light | Diagnostics. Keep the spend small until the gross profit on a found fault is written down. | The symptom and the registration. A diagnostic is not a service with a different name. |
| Tyres, recovery, MOT reminder | None, unless that is work this garage sells. | Exclude them. |
The MOT ad should name the classes this station can test, and offer a slot. It should not offer a price you do not charge. The service ad should say it is a service. The diagnostic ad should say it is a diagnostic.
The search terms that waste a garage budget are often people checking a date, not booking a ramp: “MOT history”, “MOT status”, “when is my MOT due”, “check MOT”. Exclude them, along with tyres and recovery if you do not sell that work. Someone searching your garage’s name already knows you. Keep that line out of the cost of a cold MOT click. How to read the report is on the lead sheet guide.
Area, for a building and for a van
A workshop in a Scottish town and a workshop in outer London do not share a radius. People will travel further for a specialist diagnostic than for a £40 MOT, until the £40 plus the fuel stops making sense for them. Ask the counter which postcodes actually appear on the job cards, and target those, with Presence rather than Presence or interest. The steps are in the service-area guide.
Mobile mechanics should list the journeys that still pay, not a circle that looks impressive on the map. A breakdown in the next county at 8pm is a different product from a service on the driveway. If you do not want the first, the ad should not be eligible for it.
When you have a month of your own click prices, keep them next to this article’s date. The national table still will not have grown an MOT row by being asked. Your export is the row.
One registration, one class, one row
Workshops lose the plot of a month in three ordinary ways. None of them need a national click price to fix.
- The same car, twice. A phone call and then a booking on the website, for the same registration, is one appointment. A fail and a retest you asked them to book is the same piece of work, unless they found you again through an ad and you choose to count a second visit. Counting both makes the cost per job look smaller than the ramp time you gave them.
- A class you cannot test. Buy ads for the vehicles your station is authorised to put on the ramp. A click from someone with a van or a minibus you cannot test is a wrong job, the same as a plumbing call for a trade you do not hold. Say the classes in the ad and on the booking page, and mark the others “wrong job” on the lead sheet.
- A full week of MOTs. More clicks into a full diary do not create slots. Move that money to servicing or diagnostics only when those ramps are open, which is the question already on the MOT centres page.
Do the registration check before the report is written. Finding the double count in the meeting means the cost per attended test on the page is already wrong.
Questions from owners
How much do Google Ads cost for an MOT station?
We will not print a UK click price for MOT searches. The September 2026 Keyword Planner extract we use for other trades does not contain an MOT or garage row. Take the price from your own Keyword Planner export for your town, then divide the month’s spend by booked slots. A borrowed plumber range is the wrong bracket.
Should MOTs and servicing share a campaign?
No. The garages page splits MOT, servicing and diagnostics because the ramp slots and the margins differ. When MOT slots are full, more MOT clicks are a waste even if the click is cheap. Move budget to servicing or diagnostics only if those slots are open. That is an operational decision, and the report should show it.
What is a booked job for a garage?
A confirmed appointment that turned up, or work that was carried out. A click on the booking button is not a booking. The industry page says to keep booking-tool clicks separate from confirmed appointments, and to make sure a customer who rings and then books online is counted once.
How do I price a diagnostic against an MOT?
Use gross profit after parts and labour, not the ticket price on the forecourt. An MOT at a fixed fee can leave less than an hour’s diagnostic. If you divide one pot of spend by “jobs”, the MOT will make the diagnostic look cheaper than it was, or the reverse. Two lines.
Do mobile mechanics use the same sums?
The method, yes. The area, no. A workshop’s area is how far someone will bring the car. A mobile mechanic’s area is how far the van will go for that fee. Set them in the service-area guide, and do not copy a radius from a city fast-fit.
Can Local Services Ads cover garages?
Not as a 2026 UK default. Google’s migration list for the first phase is United States home services. Garage door specialists are mentioned only as a later, 2027-style category in the verticals note, and that note is not a UK MOT product. Check the account. Until a pay-per-lead campaign exists for you, this is a Search question.
What fee sits on top of the clicks?
Whatever plan you are on. Managed is £299 a month plus VAT, published on our pricing page on 15 November 2026. A workshop spending £400 with Google and £358.80 all-in on management needs several booked slots before the fee is a small share of the job. The report should show both numbers.
Will you publish a garage average later?
Yes, as a range, once ten booked garage or MOT jobs are in a dated pool from accounts we run. Not before. A single busy ramp in one town is not a UK cost.
Does a retest count as another job from the ads?
Only if the customer came back through an ad and you are happy to count a second visit. A car that failed and returned because you asked them to is the same piece of work, not a second win that makes the cost per job look smaller. A phone booking and a website booking for the same registration are also one row.
Should an MOT and a car service share a Google Ads campaign?
No. An MOT, a service and a diagnostic have different gross profits and fill different slots. Pause MOT searches when the test week is full, and keep servicing only on ramps that are open. Exclude tyres, recovery and reminder-app searches unless the garage sells that work.
Should I pay for people checking their MOT date?
No. Searches such as MOT history, MOT status and when an MOT is due are people looking up a date, not booking a ramp. Exclude them. Advertise the classes the station can test, and keep searches for the garage’s own name off the cost of a cold MOT click.
Where the figures come from
Checked on 15 November 2026 unless a source prints its own date.
- Google Ads for plumbers and trades. SoNick Marketing, Keyword Planner via DataForSEO, September 2026. The published table includes plumber, electrician, roofer and builder searches. It does not include MOT or garage servicing. We are not filling that gap with a made-up click price.
- Google Ads cost UK 2026. Whito’s local-trades range of £1.50 to £3.00 is for local trades as a group, and Whito says it is not a measured account sample. It is not an MOT figure.