Sliding Doors · one decision, two timelines
Two business owners. Same trade, same town, same monthly budget. On day one Maya puts hers into Google Ads and Jonas puts his into SEO. Drag the month and watch both timelines play out.
Maya and Jonas are illustrations, not real people. Every number they produce comes from the inputs below, which you can change to match your own business.
SEO vs Google Ads comes down to when you need the leads and how long you can pay for them. Google Ads produces leads in the first month at a known price and stops the moment you stop paying. SEO usually produces nothing for months, then keeps producing after the spending falls.
With the starting numbers, Ads is ahead on every measure for the first year. SEO’s cost per lead drops below Ads in month 14. If you cannot fund a year of waiting, that crossover does not matter to you.
Door A · Maya · Google Ads
Leads arrive on schedule. Maya pays for every one of them, this month and every month.
- Leads this month
- 16.5
- Leads so far
- 198
- Spent so far
- $18,000
- Cost per lead so far
- $91
Door B · Jonas · SEO
The build is done. Spending is down to a quarter and the leads keep arriving.
- Leads this month
- 16.5
- Leads so far
- 111
- Spent so far
- $11,250
- Cost per lead so far
- $101
At month 12, Ads leads have cost less each ($91 against $101). Leads so far: Ads 198, SEO 111.
The two timelines, month by month
This table uses whatever you entered above. With the starting numbers it reads as follows.
| Month | Ads: leads so far | Ads: cost per lead | SEO: leads so far | SEO: cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 16.5 | $91 | 0 | n/a |
| 3 | 49.5 | $91 | 0 | n/a |
| 4 | 66 | $91 | 3 | $2,000 |
| 6 | 99 | $91 | 18 | $500 |
| 9 | 148.5 | $91 | 61.5 | $165 |
| 12 | 198 | $91 | 111 | $101 |
| 14 | 231 | $91 | 144 | $83 |
| 18 | 297 | $91 | 210 | $64 |
| 24 | 396 | $91 | 309 | $51 |
Door A: what Maya gets from Google Ads
Maya’s campaign goes live in week one. Her leads start the same month, and she can predict next month from this one.
The price is known in advance. WordStream and LocaliQ’s 2026 search advertising benchmarks put the cost per lead for home and home improvement businesses at $90.92, with a cost per click of $8.33 and a conversion rate of 8.05%. That is the starting value in the box above. Across all industries the figure is $66.69.
At $1,500 a month and $90.92 a lead, Maya gets about 16.5 leads every month. She will get the same in month 24 as in month 1, for the same money. That is the strength and the limit of Ads: it is a tap. It never becomes cheaper because she has been a customer for two years.
The benchmark covers 13,474 US search campaigns run between April 2025 and March 2026. WordStream calls the figures averages and notes they are medians. Your own cost per lead depends on your trade, city and landing page, so replace it with your real number if you have one.
Door B: what Jonas gets from SEO
Jonas spends the same $1,500 a month on a site, service pages and content. For the first three months he has nothing to show a bank manager.
That wait is the honest cost of SEO. Google’s own guidance is that SEO work typically needs four months to a year before the benefit shows. Ahrefs found that only 1.74% of new pages reach the top 10 within a year. Jonas is betting he can be in that minority by choosing searches his competitors have ignored.
In this model his first lead arrives in month 4, the early edge of Google’s window. Leads then grow by three a month until they match Maya’s volume. After month 6 the build is finished and his spending falls to a quarter.
Is month 4 realistic? For low-competition local searches it can be faster. Sam R., a member, reported 3 leads in 2 days on a site that was 3 months old (written report, 16 June 2026). My own Colorado Springs site had 291 impressions within days of publishing (screenshot, 7 February 2026).
It can also be slower or never. Those are selected results from people who shared them. Set the “First SEO lead” box to 8 or 12 to see how much a slow start changes the picture.
The plot twists, and why they matter more than the averages
Money runs out after month 6
Tick this and both owners stop spending. Maya’s leads stop that day, because an ad that is not paid for is not shown. Jonas’s leads continue at whatever level his pages had reached, for as long as the rankings hold. This is the strongest argument for SEO: it is an asset, where Ads is a rental.
A Google update hits in month 8
Tick this and Jonas’s leads halve for three months. He cannot pay to get them back. Maya is untouched. This is the strongest argument for Ads: it does not depend on a ranking system you cannot see. Google’s own documentation says recovery after an update is not guaranteed.
Ad costs rise 10% in year 2
Tick this and each of Maya’s leads costs 10% more from month 13. This twist is a what-if, not a forecast. I have not sourced a rate of increase, so treat it as a stress test.
What the model assumes
- Both owners spend the same monthly budget for the first 6 months.
- Ads leads equal budget divided by cost per lead, from month 1, with no learning period.
- SEO leads start in the month you choose, grow by 3 a month and stop growing when they match the Ads volume.
- SEO spending falls to 25% of the budget after month 6.
- When spending stops, SEO leads hold at their current level. In reality they can decay.
- A lead is worth the same from either channel. In practice quality differs by trade.
The growth rate, the 25% and the lead cap are my assumptions, chosen to be plain to read. They are not measurements.
How to choose between SEO and Google Ads
- Need leads this month? Start with Ads. SEO cannot meet that deadline.
- Can you fund 6 to 12 months with no return? If not, SEO alone is a risk you cannot carry.
- Is your cost per lead on Ads already profitable? Keep it running and build SEO beside it.
- Are there searches in your trade with weak results on page one? That is where SEO pays back fastest.
- Do both if you can. Use Ads for income now and move budget across as organic leads arrive. Ads data also shows you which searches convert before you write a page for them.
SEO vs Google Ads: the verdict
Neither door is the right one for everybody. Ads buys speed and certainty at a price that never falls. SEO costs you months of nothing and then keeps paying after the spending drops. With the starting numbers the cost per lead crosses in month 14. Change the three boxes to your own figures and the crossover will move, which is the point of putting them in your hands.
Sources
- WordStream by LocaliQ: Google Ads Benchmarks 2026
- Google: How to hire an SEO (Maile Ohye, February 2017)
- Ahrefs: How Long Does It Take to Rank in Google? (15 May 2025)
- Google Search Central: Core updates guidance
- Member results: posts in the SearchGAP Method community Results tab, dated as shown. Members are named by first name and initial.
Jonas’s bet only works if he picks searches his competitors have ignored. Finding those is what I teach inside SearchGAP Method.
See SearchGAP Method