Google Testing ‘Estimated Cost Near You’ in the Local Pack

Earlier today I spotted a section in the local pack that provided the estimated cost of the service I was searching for. This section appeared between the map and the 3 local results. This particular search was for trenchless sewer repair in Orange County, California:

If it looks familiar, you may have noticed a similar price range section appearing in Local Services Ads results. The source of this pricing information is Homewyse, which provides pricing estimates for common home service needs based on your location.

I was able to replicate this feature on a few other home service-related searches before it disappeared on me. If Google does roll this out I would only expect to see it present for results specific to home services categories, at least initially.

I see this as another possible sign of Google My Business and Local Services Ads becoming more integrated, at least for some business categories. Other examples we’ve seen in the past include:

• The GMB Upgrade – which enables a Google Guaranteed badge to appear on the GMB
• Default ‘services’ in GMB that are exactly the same as ‘job types’ in LSA
• A ‘Request a quote’ in the local pack that shows you which businesses are Google Guaranteed (although I haven’t seen this in a while)

More details about some of the similarities between GMB and LSA are covered in this article I wrote for Whitespark last year.