Angi, Local Services Ads, Google Ads, Meta, and SEO all promise leads. Here is what each is reported to cost, who is telling you, and how to compare them on the number that matters.
Every lead source looks cheap or expensive depending on which number you stare at.
A marketplace sells you a lead for $40. A Google Local Services lead might cost more or less depending on your city and trade. A Meta campaign can hand you an exclusive form fill at a price that makes your stomach turn. If you only compare the price of the lead, you will pick the wrong channel about half the time.
The number that tells the truth is cost per signed job. The formula is simple:
Cost per signed job = cost per lead ÷ close rate.
To run it with your own numbers, use our free contractor cost per lead and cost per signed job calculator. Enter the cost per lead and close rate for up to three sources and it shows which one actually produces the cheapest job.
Most advice about lead generation for contractors stops at the price of the lead. That is the part vendors like to quote, and it is the part that tells you the least.
That is why the rest of this guide compares the main sources of lead generation for contractors on three things: what the lead costs, whether you share it with competitors, and how much control you have over the process. We will use published figures where they exist, label the ones that come from vendors with something to sell, and tell you which numbers nobody can honestly give you.
There is no neutral, audited price list for contractor leads. What exists is a mix of platform fee pages, contractor reports, and vendor blog posts. The table below shows the ranges we found in 2026 and where each one came from. Treat every range as a starting point to check against your own market and your own books.
| Source | Reported cost per lead | Shared with competitors? | Where the figure comes from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Angi Leads / HomeAdvisor | $15 to $85 typical; $100+ in some trades and markets; about $300 annual membership | Yes. Commonly several contractors per lead | Published by Jobber and PostcardMania; the membership fee and range are consistent across both |
| Thumbtack | $10 to $50 per contact | Yes | Vendor-reported by Minyona (an ad agency). Not verified by us |
| Google Local Services Ads | $20 to $65 per lead | Leads go to you when a customer picks your listing, but customers can contact several businesses | Vendor-reported by Minyona. Google says prices vary by location, job type, and bidding mode and does not publish a typical price |
| Google Ads (search) | $50 to $140 per lead after click costs | No, but you pay for every click | Vendor-reported by Minyona. Highly dependent on trade, city, and your landing page |
| Exclusive Meta (Facebook and Instagram) leads | $35 to $90 | No | Vendor-reported by Minyona, an agency that sells exactly this |
| SEO and Google Business Profile | No per-lead price. You pay for work up front and the leads compound | No | Not a lead price. Judge it by calls, forms, and booked jobs over six to 12 months or longer, depending on your market |
Read this table with suspicion in the right places. Minyona sells exclusive Meta leads and says so on its page, so its numbers lean toward that model. We sell contractor marketing too, so we have a stake in this conversation. The only source here with no stake in the answer is Google's own documentation of how Local Services billing works.
A shared lead is one inquiry sold to more than one contractor. Marketplaces commonly work this way. An exclusive lead goes only to you: a call from your own Local Services listing, a form on your own landing page, or a call from your Google Business Profile.
With a shared lead you are paying for a chance to compete. The homeowner hears from several companies, often within minutes, and price becomes the easiest way to choose. With an exclusive lead you are paying for a conversation nobody else is in, at least until the homeowner goes looking for more quotes.
Here is an illustration with made-up round numbers, so you can see the mechanics. A shared lead that costs $45 and closes 10% of the time costs $450 per signed job. An exclusive lead that costs $70 and closes 25% of the time costs $280 per signed job. The second lead cost more than the first and still produced the cheaper job. Your real numbers will differ. The point is that the lead price alone cannot rank your options.
Two cautions. Exclusive does not always mean ready to buy: a form fill from a Facebook ad usually comes from someone earlier in the decision than a person who searched for a contractor near them. And "exclusive" is a word some sellers stretch, so ask how the lead was generated and whether anyone else received it. Then let your own close rate settle the argument.
Angi Leads, the service that grew out of HomeAdvisor, is the most common first purchase. You create a profile, pick your services and area, and homeowner requests start arriving. You pay per lead whether or not you win the job, and the same request is commonly sent to more than one contractor. Nick compares the two biggest marketplaces on Blue Collar Techy, including how Angi and Thumbtack charge, side by side.
From Nick: "When I first started, I used Thumbtack before it was a pay-per-lead situation, and I got some decent leads out of it. I had the budget for it, so I used it. I think it's worth trying something." Thumbtack's pricing has changed since then, so treat that as one owner's early experience and check what it costs in your market today.
Three facts are worth knowing before you spend a dollar:
When does it make sense? When you are new, your reviews are thin, and you need phone calls this month while slower channels warm up. Track cost per signed job from day one and set a stop-loss. If after 30 to 60 days the number is worse than your other channels, cap it or drop it. Do not let a marketplace become the only lead source you have, because you do not own it and the price can change.
Local Services Ads (LSAs) are the Google ads that appear at the very top of the page for service searches, with a verified badge and a call button. They work differently from regular Google Ads, and the difference matters to your budget.
According to Google's documentation, you set an average weekly budget and a bidding mode, and you are charged for valid leads: phone calls, messages, or bookings that come from the ad. Leads that Google judges invalid or low quality are not charged, and Google keeps assessing lead quality for 30 days and applies a credit if a charged lead turns out to be poor or duplicated. You can also dispute leads with in-account feedback.
The catch is screening. Before your ad runs at full strength you must pass Google's verification, which can include business registration, license and insurance checks, background checks on the owner and the crew who enter customers' homes, and minimum review requirements, depending on category and location. Google also offers pre-badge ads, which let you receive leads while you finish the remaining checks.
LSAs are a strong fit for service businesses where the customer wants a quote soon: maintenance, repairs, installs with a clear scope. We cover the setup, mistakes, and landscaper-specific details in our guide to Local Services Ads for landscapers and hardscapers, and we manage them through our Local Service Ads service.
Regular Google Ads charge per click, so you pay for every visit, not every lead. That makes your landing page, call tracking, and negative keywords the difference between a good month and a wasted budget. It also gives you the most control over which searches you show up for, such as emergency, high-ticket, or a specific city. Our paid ads service exists because most contractors do not have the time to babysit search terms.
Meta advertising reaches people who are not searching yet. That helps with considered purchases such as a patio or a backyard remodel, where a homeowner spends weeks dreaming before they call anyone. Exclusive leads from a form on your own page go only to you. The tradeoff is intent: someone who filled out a form after seeing a photo is usually less ready than someone who searched for a contractor near them, so fast follow-up matters even more.
Both channels are rented. The moment you stop paying, the leads stop.
The map pack, your Google Business Profile, your reviews, and your website are the only channels on this list that keep working after the invoice is paid. They are slower, and how much slower depends on your market and your competition. We tell clients it usually takes six to eight to 12 months, if not longer. Google runs on trust. If someone in your market is already doing SEO that Google trusts, it takes a lot longer to earn that trust. If no one Google really trusts is in your market, it does not take very long. For higher-ticket hardscape and landscape installation contractors, SEO can pay for itself with an extra three to four jobs a year. They are also the cheapest source of leads over a long enough window, and they make every paid channel convert better, because a homeowner who clicks your ad will check your reviews and profile before calling.
If you want a plain-English view of what actually drives local rankings, read our 2026 local SEO ranking factors guide. If you want us to do the work, that is our Google Business Profile and SEO and AI search work. If you would rather do it yourself, Nick lays out the full do-it-yourself version in his contractor SEO playbook on Blue Collar Techy.
You can buy the best leads in your market and still lose them if nobody answers. The research here is older, and it is often misquoted, so here is what it actually says. For the cost side, Blue Collar Techy covers what slow callbacks cost and how to fix them.
A Harvard Business Review study (Oldroyd, McElheran, and Elkington, 2011) audited 2,241 U.S. companies by sending each a web-generated test lead. Only 37% responded within an hour, 24% took more than 24 hours, and 23% never responded. The average response time among those that did respond was 42 hours. In a separate analysis of 1.25 million leads, companies that tried to contact a lead within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to qualify it as companies that waited just one more hour, and more than 60 times as likely as those that waited 24 hours or longer.
You will often see a different claim: that you are "21 times more likely to qualify a lead if you call within 5 minutes versus 30." That figure comes from a separate 2007 study by InsideSales.com and Dr. James Oldroyd, not from the HBR article, and it is an odds ratio from mostly phone-based sales data, not a promise. Both studies point the same direction. They are also old and were not run on home service companies, so use them as a reason to measure your own response time, not as a guarantee.
Practical takeaway: pick a response target, such as "every new lead gets a call or text within five minutes during business hours," and build the system to hit it. That is the job of our lead tracking and follow-up service, and of Mason, our AI office assistant, which can answer and route leads when your crew is on a job site.
Most contractors we talk to are not choosing between these options. They are running two or three in a messy way, with no tracking tying the money to the signed job. Fixing that picture comes before adding another channel.
There is no single best source. Cost per signed job decides it, and that depends on your trade, market, close rate, and follow-up speed. Most contractors do best combining strong local search (Google Business Profile and Local Services Ads) with one paid channel for bigger projects.
Published figures from Jobber and PostcardMania put Angi Leads at roughly $15 to $85 per lead, higher in some trades and markets, plus about $300 a year in membership. Prices vary by trade, location, and competition.
Often, because you do not compete with other contractors for the same inquiry. But compare cost per signed job, not cost per lead, and expect exclusive social leads to need faster follow-up because intent is lower than a search.
Research suggests faster is better, and the gap between responding in minutes versus a day is large. A practical target is five minutes during business hours. Measure your own response time to find out where you stand.
No. We do not promise lead counts or rankings. We build the lead path, track it, and report on calls, forms, and booked jobs.
Cost ranges in this article are reported by third parties and were checked on October 15, 2026. They are not Tekton Growth client results, and we have not independently verified them. Your market will differ.
We will look at your website, Google profile, reviews, and lead path, and show you where leads are leaking before you spend more on any channel.