Most contractors look at a $35 lead and think that's the cost. It's not. By the time you account for shared leads, bad contact info, and no-shows, that "$35 lead" routinely costs $300 or more per booked job. Sometimes a lot more.
Here's how to actually calculate what you're paying.
How Shared Leads Inflate Your Real Cost
On Angi and HomeAdvisor, the same lead gets sold to three, four, sometimes five contractors. You're not buying a customer. You're buying a shot at a customer while your competitors get the same shot.
Say a Tampa roofing lead costs $45 and gets sold to four roofers. If you close one out of four competitive bids, you effectively paid $180 for that one job, not $45. And that assumes the homeowner answers the phone.
Many don't.
The No-Show Problem
Paid lead services don't refund you when someone doesn't answer. They'll sometimes credit you for leads that are clearly bogus, but a homeowner who got four contractor calls in ten minutes and decided to ignore all of them? That's your problem.
Industry close rates on shared lead platforms run 15-25% for most trades. Do the math for your category:
- You buy 20 leads at $40 each: $800 spent
- 5 of those leads actually answer and want a quote
- You close 2 jobs out of 5 quotes
- Your actual cost per booked job: $400
That's before your time driving to free estimates.
What Organic Google Leads Actually Cost
A lead that comes through your Google Business Profile or your website costs nothing per click. You paid to build the asset, not to rent each lead.
A plumber in Tampa who ranks in the top 3 on Google for "emergency plumber Tampa" gets 50-80 calls a month from that one position. No per-lead fee. No competition on the same page. The person searching already chose to call one business at a time.
The cost to build that position runs $500-1,500 per month in a real SEO investment. Spread across 60 leads, that's $8-25 per lead. And those leads close at 40-60% because the customer wasn't simultaneously calling four other plumbers.
The Close Rate Gap Is Where You're Losing Money
Close rate is the number most contractors don't track. They see "$35 lead" and stop there.
Organic search leads close higher because:
- The person searched for your specific service
- They chose to click your listing, not respond to a generic form
- They weren't instantly bombarded by four competitors
- Google verification and reviews built trust before they called
A paid lead platform lead closing at 20% and an organic lead closing at 50% means your cost per booked job from organic is 60% lower, even if the nominal "cost per lead" looks similar.
Run Your Own Numbers
The only way to know if lead platforms are costing you money is to track what you actually spend vs. what you actually close.
Use our lead cost calculator to plug in your current spend, close rate, and average job value. Most contractors who do this for the first time are surprised by the result.
The issue isn't that Angi or HomeAdvisor don't work. Some contractors do well on them. The issue is that most contractors don't know their actual cost per booked job, so they keep renewing without evidence it's profitable.
Track it. Then decide.