How paying per lead on Angi, Thumbtack or HomeAdvisor compares with owning a website and Google listing that bring in calls on their own.
Angi, Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor (which is now part of Angi) are the sites most contractors try first. A homeowner types in what they need, the site sends the request to pros in the area, and the pro pays for the lead or for the contact. For a new business with no reviews and no website, it can be the fastest way to get the first jobs.
This page is about what those leads cost over time, what you own at the end of a year, and when a lead site is the right call. Plenty of the contractors we work with still use one, and some should keep using it.
Lead sites sell demand. The homeowner is already looking for a plumber or a painter, and the site puts your name in front of them. You usually pay per lead or per contact, the price depends on the trade, the job type and the area, and the same request can go to more than one pro, so you're often quoting against two or three other companies who paid for the same lead. Some programs add a membership or advertising fee on top, and the terms change often enough that you should read the current pro pages for each one before you sign up.
The part that surprises owners is the math a year later. The leads stop the day you stop paying, the reviews you earned live on the platform's profile rather than on your Google listing, and the homeowner remembers the site's name more than yours. Lead credits for bad leads exist on most of these platforms, but chasing them is its own job.
None of that makes the sites a bad choice. They're a variable cost that scales with the work you can take, which is exactly what a new or seasonal business needs.
We build the things a homeowner finds when they search on Google instead of on a lead site: a website with a page for each service and each town you work in, and a Google Business Profile that shows up in the map pack. The calls come straight to you, nobody else gets the same lead, and the reviews go on your own Google listing, where they keep working for years.
It's a fixed monthly fee, $347 to $697 a month with no build fee, published on the pricing page, and every month you get a report that counts the calls and form fills the site and profile produced. The trade off is time. Google Business Profile changes often show in four to six weeks, and ranking gains across a full service area usually take three to six months, so this is not the answer for a truck that needs jobs this week.
Missed call text back is included with every plan, which matters more than it sounds. A lead site lead and a Google lead both go to the next company if nobody picks up.
Get a free audit of your website, your Google listing and your local rankings, then decide who you want building it.