Are Angi, HomeAdvisor, and Thumbtack Leads Worth It? Here’s the Real Math

You paid for that lead. So did three other companies.

Are Angi and HomeAdvisor leads worth it?

They can work as a short-term bridge, but the real cost is often $400 per booked customer. That’s because a $50 lead shared with three or four competitors means you need to close one out of eight attempts. Most owners never run that number, and when they do, it changes the math completely.

Are HomeAdvisor leads worth it?

HomeAdvisor leads are convenient but expensive once you do the real math. At roughly $50 per lead with a one-in-eight close rate against three or four competitors, your true cost per booked job is around $400 before you’ve done a dollar of work. Nothing compounds and no equity builds.

Are Thumbtack leads worth it?

Thumbtack leads follow the same shared-lead model: multiple contractors pay the same price and race to call the same person first. Whoever calls first wins. The cost per booked customer ends up high, and every dollar spent evaporates with no assets built and no compounding benefit over time.

How much do HomeAdvisor leads cost?

The average cost is around $50 per lead, but that’s not your real number. Because you’re competing with three or four contractors on every lead and closing roughly one in eight, your actual cost per booked customer lands around $400. That’s the figure to compare against other advertising channels.

What is the close rate on shared leads?

When competing against three or four other contractors on a shared lead, your close rate is about one in eight. That means you need to purchase roughly eight leads to book one job. At $50 per lead, that puts your real cost per booked customer at approximately $400 before any other expenses.

What are good alternatives to HomeAdvisor for contractors?

Google Business Profile posts, SEO, weekly blog content, and inner landing pages build exclusive leads that compound over time. For faster results, Google Ads and Local Services Ads outperform marketplace leads in most cases. A paid strategy running alongside organic content is described as a much stronger long-term foundation than shared marketplace leads.

What are Local Services Ads and are they better than HomeAdvisor?

Local Services Ads run through Google and carry a Google Guaranteed badge. Unlike shared marketplace leads, the leads come only to you. Costs decrease over time as results compound, whereas marketplace leads stay fixed at roughly $400 per booked customer. Google Ads and LSA are the top paid recommendations for faster lead flow.

Should I use Angi or do SEO instead?

Running both during a transition makes sense, but owned channels like SEO compound while marketplace spending evaporates. A practical first step is pulling 90 days of marketplace spend, dividing by jobs closed, and comparing that cost per booked customer to what a well-run Google Ads or SEO campaign would cost you.

That’s the part the marketplace platforms leave out of the pitch. When you buy a lead from Angi, HomeAdvisor, or Thumbtack, you are usually not the only company that bought it. You’re racing three or four competitors to call back first — on a contact you already paid for, with no guarantee of a close.

You’re not buying a customer. You’re buying a race.

That distinction is the whole ballgame. A shared lead means the same homeowner’s name and phone number gets sold to several contractors at the same moment. You all pay the same price. Whoever dials first usually wins. The other two or three paid for the privilege of leaving a voicemail.

So you’re not competing on quality of work, reviews, or price. You’re competing on reaction time.

The real math nobody shows you

Here’s the formula most owners have never run:

Cost per lead × leads needed to close one job = your real cost per booked customer

Plug in realistic numbers. Say you’re paying around $50 per shared lead, and you’re closing about 1 in 8 — which is a fair number when three or four other companies are calling the same person within minutes of you.

$50 × 8 = $400 in lead cost per closed job. Before you’ve done a single dollar of the actual work. Before materials, before labor, before the truck rolls.

That number isn’t automatically bad. For a high-ticket job it might be perfectly fine. The problem is that most owners have never calculated it, so they have no idea whether it’s fine or catastrophic.

Why owners keep using them anyway

Because they’re easy, and easy has real value. You sign up, you hit go, and leads start flowing. No strategy meeting. No content plan. No agency to manage. If you’re a brand-new business with zero online presence, marketplace leads are a legitimate bridge — something to keep the phone ringing while you build the thing that replaces them.

The trouble is that the bridge is a grind. You’re on it every single day, buying today’s leads to pay for today’s work, and the moment you stop paying, the flow stops cold.

What you’re actually paying for

• Convenience. Real, and worth something. You didn’t have to build anything.
• Your own competition. You’re funding a platform that deliberately sells the same lead to your three closest competitors. That’s not a bug in their model — it is the model.
• No equity. This is the expensive part. Every dollar evaporates on contact. Nothing compounds. Nothing is yours. On day 1,000 that lead costs exactly what it cost on day 1.

What to build instead

None of these are instant. All of them compound.

• Google Business Profile. Post to it. Consistently. It’s free and it’s the highest-leverage local asset most contractors ignore.
• Local SEO. Ranking for your service plus your city means the homeowner calls you directly, and only you.
• Local Services Ads and Google Guaranteed. If you want speed, this is where to buy it — ahead of almost any other paid channel.
• Google Ads. A well-run campaign frequently beats marketplace cost per booked customer outright.
• Organic content. Blog posts, and video like the one above — published to YouTube, LinkedIn, wherever your customers are. That’s not paid media. That’s time. And it builds know, like, and trust, which is what actually turns a stranger into a phone call.

Two honest caveats. Facebook Ads can work, but in fifteen years I’ve rarely seen them work well for service-based businesses without a very specific strategy — be careful there. And if you’re already working with an SEO company and you’re happy with the results, don’t switch. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But do ask them for a plain bullet-point list of what they actually did last month. A distressing share of SEO companies bill without doing the work, and a reputable one will hand that list over without flinching.

You can also just ask your current company to add the paid layer: “Can we run Google Ads? Can we set up Local Services Ads?” Speed and compounding aren’t mutually exclusive.

Shared leads vs. channels you own

The tortoise wins that race, and not because the tortoise is fast. Because the tortoise keeps moving. And you can absolutely speed the tortoise up — that’s what Local Services Ads and Google Ads are for.

Do this this week

Pull your last 90 days. Two numbers:

1. Total spent on marketplace leads (Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack, all of it).
2. Total jobs actually closed from those leads.

Divide the first by the second. That’s your real cost per booked customer. Not cost per lead — cost per customer. Those are wildly different numbers and only one of them matters.

Now compare it to what a well-run Local Services Ads or Google Ads campaign would cost you for the same number of booked jobs. If you’re spending $4,000 a month on marketplace leads at $400 a booked customer, that’s ten jobs — and $4,000 buys a serious amount of Google Ads for a roofing or HVAC company.

If the comparison is close, consider putting one marketplace platform on hold for a single month and putting that exact budget into LSA or Google Ads. One month tells you a lot.

The question to ask yourself

Is my cost per booked customer from marketplace leads lower than what I’d pay through Local Services Ads or organic?

If yes — keep running them. But build your own channels in parallel, because that flat cost never improves.

If no — you’re subsidizing someone else’s platform. Redirect the budget.

We’ll run that math with you, free

Bring us your last 90 days of marketplace spend and closed jobs. We’ll calculate your real cost per booked customer and show you what it would take to replace those leads with leads you actually own.

No pitch. No commitment. Just the number — because you should be the one making the decision with it.

Get your real cost per customer →

I’m Jeremy Ashburn with PushLeads in Asheville, North Carolina, and I help small businesses get more leads without struggle or frustration.