Win more of your leads · Every business
Angi, Thumbtack and Google Leads: What Home Service Pros Should Know Before Paying Per Lead
Pay-per-lead platforms can fill a slow week for a plumber, electrician or HVAC shop, as long as the owner knows exactly what triggers a charge, what can be credited back and what one booked job really costs.
At a glance
- A paid lead is a homeowner's contact details or call, sold to a contractor by a platform; the contractor pays for the contact, and winning the job is still up to them.
- Angi's 2024 annual report says its fees for consumer matches are charged "regardless of whether the professional ultimately provides the requested service," and Google charges for a missed Local Services Ads call when the caller stays on the line for more than 20 seconds.
- In 2023 the Federal Trade Commission finalized an order requiring HomeAdvisor, now part of Angi, to pay up to $7.2 million over alleged misrepresentations about the quality of its leads.
- The number that decides whether a platform pays is cost per booked job, which is the lead price divided by the share of leads you book.
General information, not legal/tax/financial advice; talk to a licensed professional about your situation. Platform terms change, so confirm current terms in your own account before you sign up.
Part 1 | What you are actually buying on each platform
Each platform sells a slightly different thing, and the differences show up in when the charge happens and what can be credited. Angi's HomeAdvisor help page for pros says "You'll be charged for each new lead as soon as it's sent" and that leads "are not guaranteed jobs," Thumbtack told pros in 2020 that it would charge "when customers show interest by contacting you instead of charging for every quote," and Google's Local Services Ads charge for answered calls, qualifying missed calls, messages, voicemails and booking requests.
| Angi (Ads and Leads) | Thumbtack | Google Local Services Ads | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When you are charged | When a lead is sent to you | When a customer contacts you (per its 2020 statement) | Answered calls, missed calls over 20 seconds during business hours, messages, voicemails, booking requests |
| Shared with other pros | Not stated; the credit page notes homeowners may be "gathering multiple quotes" | Customers get quotes from up to 5 pros | Not stated on the help page |
| Not charged or creditable | Wrong contact info, outside your ZIP codes, wrong service, duplicate within 45 days, charged while paused | Check current terms in your account | Spam, duplicates, missed calls under 20 seconds, repeat contact within 15 days; leads reassessed for 30 days |
| Not creditable | Homeowner doesn't answer, hired another pro, is still shopping, or you quoted and lost | Not confirmed from published pages | Credits not available for health care categories |
| Time limits | Lead under 45 days old; credits expire after six months | Not confirmed | Automatic reassessment over 30 days |
The Angi credit list deserves a slow read, because the situations it excludes are the everyday ones in home service work. A homeowner who never calls back, who hired someone else first or who is collecting three quotes for a water heater does not qualify for a credit, and the same page says a pro "should have attempted to call the homeowner within 24 hours of being sent the lead."
Part 2 | The math that decides whether a lead is worth it
The owner's first question about a platform is usually the price: What does a lead cost in my area? The better question is what a booked job costs, because a $60 lead that books one time in five costs $300 per job, and a $40 lead that books one time in ten costs $400.
| Price per lead (Assumption) | $60 |
|---|---|
| Share of leads booked (Assumption) | 20% |
| Cost per booked job (Calculated ($60 ÷ 20%)) | $300 |
| Average ticket (Assumption) | $900 |
| Gross margin before lead cost (Assumption) | 40% |
| Gross profit per job (Calculated ($900 × 40%)) | $360 |
| Profit per job after lead cost (Calculated ($360 − $300)) | $60 |
| Same job if the booking rate falls to 10% (Calculated ($360 − $600)) | −$240 |
Illustrative example; replace every assumption with your own numbers.
The booking rate is the input a contractor controls most, and speed is the part of it with the best evidence behind it. In an audit of 2,241 U.S. companies published in Harvard Business Review, firms that tried to reach a new inquiry within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as firms that waited an hour longer, and when the platform is sending the same homeowner to several pros, the first truck to call back has the first chance to win the job.
Part 3 | Ask for numbers in writing, then keep your own
The FTC's 2023 order against HomeAdvisor is a reminder to treat a platform's sales claims as claims. The agency alleged that since at least mid-2014 the company had told service providers its leads turned into jobs at rates much higher than it could support, and the final order bars false or misleading claims about its leads, including claims about how ready homeowners are to hire.
The protection that matters most is your own tracking. Every paid lead goes on one sheet with the date, the platform, the price, how fast you called, whether you reached the homeowner, whether you quoted and whether you booked, and after 30 days that sheet tells you the real cost per booked job on each platform.
Before you turn on paid leads: a checklist for the shop
- Read the platform's credit or dispute page and write down the time limit (45 days on Angi, a 30-day reassessment on Google).
- Set a weekly cap you can afford to lose in a bad week, since Google's monthly limit is your average weekly budget times the average number of weeks in a month.
- Narrow services and ZIP codes to the jobs you actually want, since any lead that matches your profile is billed in full even when the job is small or far from your best work.
- Make sure whoever answers the phone can quote a service call fee and book a time on the first call.
- Turn on a text-back for missed calls so a homeowner hears from you inside a minute.
- Log every lead on one sheet and review cost per booked job after 30 days.
- Ask every booked customer for a review and a referral, so the next customer finds you without a platform fee.
How you compare
- Demand is there: the 2026 Houzz & Home study of more than 20,000 registered Houzz users found that 91% of homeowners who renovated in 2025 hired professionals, including electricians (41%), heating and air conditioning specialists (40%) and plumbers (36%).
- Speed: in the HBR audit, 37% of companies answered within an hour and 23% never answered, so a shop that calls back within the hour is ahead of most.
- Your own baseline: cost per booked job for each platform over the last 30 days, set beside the same figure for referrals and repeat customers, which usually cost close to nothing.
Questions to ask this week
What did each booked job from a platform cost us last month? Divide total platform spend by jobs booked from it.
How fast do we call back a paid lead? Pull five recent leads and compare the time sent with the time of your first call.
Which leads were eligible for a credit that we never requested? Check the last 45 days against the platform's list.
What share of our work comes from repeat customers and referrals? That share is the work no platform can charge you for.
Pull last month's paid leads into one sheet this week and divide spend by booked jobs for each platform before deciding whether to raise or cut the budget.
About this research: This article relies on each platform's own published pages (Angi's help center and HomeAdvisor's pro help, Google Ads Help and Thumbtack's pro page and app store statement), Angi Inc.'s 2024 annual report filed with the SEC, the FTC's 2023 press release on its HomeAdvisor order, a Harvard Business Review audit of 2,241 companies and the 2026 Houzz & Home study. Lead prices vary by trade, location and season, so this article gives none; the worked example is illustrative.
Sources
- Angi Inc. Form 10-K for fiscal year 2024. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2025.
- Angi Help Center. How to Request a Lead Credit. 2026.
- HomeAdvisor Pro Help. How Leads Work. Accessed October 2026.
- Thumbtack. Thumbtack for Pros and developer response on the Thumbtack App Store listing, March 2020.
- Google. How leads work (Local Services Ads). Google Ads Help, accessed October 2026.
- Federal Trade Commission. FTC Approves Final Order against HomeAdvisor, Inc. for Deceptively Marketing its Leads for Home Improvement Projects. April 2023.
- Oldroyd, J. B., McElheran, K. and Elkington, D. The Short Life of Online Sales Leads. Harvard Business Review, March 2011. Audit of 2,241 U.S. companies.
- Houzz. 2026 U.S. Houzz & Home Study, as reported in Renovation Activity Holds Steady, Houzz Study Finds. Kitchen & Bath Business, 2026. More than 20,000 U.S. respondents.
Related reading: How to Find More Leads for a Small Service Business, and Stop Losing the Ones You Already Get · What a Lead Is Worth: From Inquiry to Booked Job, Step by Step · How to Get Leads for a Construction or Remodeling Business · How to Get Leads for a Junk Removal Business
Work with osNOVA on what your paid leads really cost
We help plumbing, electrical, HVAC and other home service shops track every paid lead to a booked job, answer faster and build the referral and repeat work that depends on no platform, starting from what you want more of, whether that is fuller weeks, better jobs or steadier cash.
Email hello@osnovaops.com about your business
Or leave your email and we will reach out
Tell us what kind of business you run and what you want more of.
Not ready to talk? osNOVA runs free live events for owners.