Ask ten estate agents what their advertising costs and you’ll get ten monthly figures. Ask what each valuation costs them and most will go quiet.
That second number is the one that matters. A channel that produces cheap leads nobody converts is expensive. A channel with pricier leads that turn into instructions can be the best money you spend all year.
This article compares the main ways UK agents advertise for sellers and landlords: the portals, Facebook and Instagram ads, Google Ads, leaflets and SEO. For each one you’ll see what it costs, using published figures or our own campaign data, and what it is actually good for. Then we’ll show you how to work out your own cost per valuation in about ten minutes.
Cost per lead vs cost per valuation
Cost per lead is what you pay for each enquiry. Cost per valuation is what you pay for each appointment that actually happens. The gap between the two tells you how good your leads and your follow-up really are.
The portals: your biggest bill, and rising
For most agents, Rightmove is the largest single marketing cost. In 2025 the average agency branch paid Rightmove £1,530 a month, up from £1,278 in 2022 (Rightmove plc, Full Year Results 2025 and 2023). That is about £18,360 a year per branch, before Zoopla or OnTheMarket.
Source: Rightmove plc Full Year Results 2023 and 2025, agency ARPA (average revenue per advertiser), monthly average for the year.
This isn’t an argument for leaving the portals. Buyers live there, and sellers check which agents have the most boards and listings in their area before they pick one. But it is worth being clear about what that £1,530 buys.
Portals are excellent at finding buyers for stock you already have. They are much weaker at winning the instruction in the first place. A homeowner thinking about selling in six months isn’t browsing Rightmove for an agent. They’re scrolling Facebook, searching Google for “how much is my house worth”, or asking a friend.
That is where the other channels come in.
Facebook and Instagram ads: reaching sellers before they’re looking
Meta ads let you put a message in front of homeowners in your patch while they are not yet searching for an agent. That makes them the best channel we’ve found for filling the top of the pipeline with seller and landlord leads.
The numbers from one of our own campaigns show what that looks like in practice:
| Metric | Result |
|---|---|
| Ad spend | £207 |
| People reached | 5,914 |
| Impressions | 15,666 |
| Seller leads | 30 |
| Cost per lead | £6.90 |
Source: EAM client campaign, Meta Ads Manager. Full breakdown in our Meta Ads case study.
Compare that with Rightmove. The same £207 is about four days of an average branch’s portal bill.
The catch is that Facebook leads are earlier in their journey. Some want a valuation next week. Many are curious, a year away from moving, and will ignore a pushy phone call. Agents who treat every Facebook lead as “hot” get poor results and blame the channel. Agents who call within the hour, then follow up with useful content for the ones who aren’t ready, turn a good share of them into valuations over the following months.
That follow-up is where most campaigns are won or lost. We go into the campaign structure, targeting and creative in our complete guide to Facebook ads for estate agents.
Google Ads: high intent, but pick your words carefully
Google Ads catch people at the moment they search, which makes the leads warmer than Facebook. The price depends almost entirely on which words you bid on.
Source: SE Ranking keyword data, UK database, average cost per click, October 2026.
“Sell my house” averages £15.12 a click, most likely because quick-sale and cash-buyer firms compete for it. “House valuation” averages £0.92 and “how much is my house worth” £0.63, and those searches come from exactly the homeowners an agent wants. If you run Google Ads, build them around valuation searches in your town and send the clicks to a proper valuation page, not your homepage. Our guide to ranking and converting a valuation page covers what that page needs.
Leaflets and SEO
Leaflets still work in tight patches, especially “just sold” drops around a recent sale. They are hard to track, so add a unique phone number or QR code to each drop and count what comes back.
SEO is the slow one, but its cost per lead falls every month it runs. Once you rank in the Google map pack for “estate agents in [town]”, the enquiries arrive without a click fee. One of our clients had 198 map pack interactions and 30 phone calls in a single month. See our SEO service for estate agents for how we approach it.
How the channels compare
| Channel | Typical cost | What it’s best at | Speed | Lead temperature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rightmove and portals | £1,530 a month per branch on Rightmove alone (2025 average) | Selling stock, showing presence | Immediate | Mostly buyers |
| Facebook and Instagram ads | From a few hundred pounds a month; £6.90 a lead in our case study | Finding sellers and landlords early | Days | Cool to warm |
| Google Ads | £0.63 to £2.26 a click on valuation searches | Catching people ready to act | Days | Warm to hot |
| Leaflets | Print and delivery per drop | Tight patches, “just sold” | Weeks | Cool |
| SEO | Monthly fee, no click cost | Long-term, compounding enquiries | 3 to 6 months | Warm to hot |
The agents who win the most instructions rarely rely on one channel. They use Facebook to fill the pipeline, Google and SEO to catch the ready sellers, email to nurture everyone in between, and the portals to sell what they win.
How to work out your cost per valuation
You need three numbers for each channel, for the same period:
- What you spent (ad spend plus any management fee)
- How many leads it produced
- How many of those leads became a valuation appointment
Cost per valuation = spend divided by valuations booked.
Here is a worked example with illustrative numbers. Say you spend £600 a month on Facebook ads, get 60 leads, and book 6 valuations from them.
- Cost per lead: £600 ÷ 60 = £10
- Cost per valuation: £600 ÷ 6 = £100
If your instruction rate from valuations is around one in three, each instruction costs about £300. Set that against the fee on a typical sale in your area and you can see quickly whether a channel pays for itself.
The number that most often moves is the middle one: leads to valuations. Calling new leads within the hour, a short follow-up sequence and a monthly newsletter for the not-yet-ready leads can double the valuations you get from the same spend. Our lead generation guide walks through that whole system.
For help setting the overall budget, see how much an estate agent should spend on marketing.
The bottom line
Track cost per valuation, not cost per lead. A £10 lead that turns into a valuation beats a £2 lead that never answers the phone.
FAQs: advertising for estate agents
What is the best way for an estate agent to advertise?
There isn’t one best channel. Portals sell the stock you have, Facebook and Instagram ads find sellers early, Google Ads and SEO catch people searching for a valuation, and email nurtures everyone in between. The right mix depends on your patch and budget.
How much does Rightmove cost an estate agent?
Rightmove doesn’t publish a price list, but its average revenue per agency branch was £1,530 a month in 2025, up from £1,278 in 2022 (Rightmove plc results). Your own bill depends on your package and add-ons.
How much should an estate agent spend on Facebook ads?
Many agents start with £300 to £600 a month for a single town and adjust once they know their cost per valuation. One of our campaigns produced 30 seller leads from £207 of spend, at £6.90 a lead (case study).
Are Google Ads worth it for estate agents?
They can be, if you bid on valuation searches rather than “sell my house”. In the UK, “house valuation” averages £0.92 a click against £15.12 for “sell my house” (SE Ranking, October 2026). Send the traffic to a dedicated valuation page.
Do leaflets still work for estate agents?
Yes, in a tight patch and especially as “just sold” drops around a recent sale. Give each drop its own phone number or QR code so you can measure the response.
What is a good cost per valuation?
It depends on your average fee and instruction rate. Work out what one instruction is worth to you, then how many valuations you need per instruction. If a channel’s cost per valuation leaves a healthy margin on that, it is working.
