Build your marketing foundation.

For HVAC, plumbing, and electrical shops: be the name homeowners know before they search.

5 Mile Famous

How famous is your brand?

Twelve places a neighbor could meet your name in an ordinary week. Check the ones you have.

The job site
Surfaces with your name0 of 12 Where that puts youAnonymous

Capstone’s scale for how far a name travels. Our definition, not an industry benchmark. The free audit checks where you rank and what homeowners see.

Leads generated60,000+
Revenue influenced$60M+
Campaigns benchmarked3,211
In-home demos16,000+
Organic growth2.4×
Years operating10+

When the furnace dies at midnight, nobody shops around. They call the name already in their head.

3,211 campaigns · 2024–25

Anonymous shops rent every call. At auction prices.

69%paid more per lead than last year
$91median cost of one home service lead
−15%conversion fell while costs rose
$455Collected on one job that only one shop will win. Losing four times is the product.
Shop A bids
Shop B bids more
The roll-up outbids everyone
Investor-backed groups buying market share will pay more per click than a family shop can. Your cost is their strategy.

Stats: LocaliQ 2025 Home Services Search Advertising Benchmark, 3,211 US contractor campaigns; figures are medians. Bid bars are illustrative of auction mechanics.

Cost of marketing

Renting shows up in one number.

You can’t see the cost of the auction on any one invoice. It shows up in one number. Your cost of marketing.

Everything you spend on marketing, divided by revenue. The one number every vendor should answer to. Paid leads push it up every year. Owned visibility pushes it down.

Annual revenue$5,000,000
Annual marketing spend$500,000

10.0%

Within standard. This is what healthy looks like.

A healthy 10–15% here is $500,000 – $750,000.

Own the name instead. One system, run by an operator, priced against your COM%.

Or start with one piece. Each stands on its own. Hand us the whole function or one channel. Not sure where the leaks are? Start with a free audit →

The receipts

We’ve owned a name before. Door by door, on the ledger.

A crew that made one eight-figure Northwest Ohio home services company known door by door, and what the program cost as it climbed.

2019Year one9–10% cost of marketing$900K
2020Year two12% cost of marketing$2.2M
2023Peak13% cost of marketing$3.79M

Operating standard: target 10–15% · flag above 25% · cut above 50%

Program revenue by year · discrete, zero-based

$0 $4M $900K $2.2M $3.79M 2019 2020 2023 9–10% COM 12% COM 13% COM

Three reported years, shown as three marks. No values interpolated between them. Source: program ledger, served on this site.

The operator

More than ten years in marketing, seven of them running that function inside an eight-figure Northwest Ohio home services company.

Austin Rohleder
Austin RohlederFounder & CEO, Capstone · Wauseon, Ohio

He started its door-to-door program, then took over the whole marketing operation: TV, search, the call center, recruiting. The playbook on this site is what he ran.

$60M+revenue moved through his systems
60K+leads generated for a single company
16K+in-home demos booked
10+years in marketing

“I’ve worked with Austin on several marketing projects, and to say I’ve been satisfied is an understatement. The attention to detail, use of resources, great communication, and overall positive experience is next level.”

Kevin BoyersCEO, Boyers Media

“I have consulted with Austin regarding my company’s marketing. He is very knowledgeable and detailed. He has been a tremendous resource for us to advance. Highly recommend him to anyone needing help with marketing.”

Mark ElderCEO, All-Side Roofing

See what the audit finds.

One page of findings: where you rank, what homeowners see, what we’d fix first. Free, no meeting required.

Get a free marketing audit

You counted the gaps. One page shows you the rest.

One page of findings: where you rank, what homeowners see, what we’d fix first. Free, no meeting required.