Angi vs Thumbtack vs HomeAdvisor for Contractors: What Shared Leads Really Cost

Every trades business in New York eventually has the same argument with itself. The phone is quiet, the schedule has holes in it, and someone suggests turning on Angi or Thumbtack to fill the week. It works, sort of. The leads show up. So do the charges. A few months later you are looking at a card statement wondering whether you bought jobs or just bought the chance to compete for them. This is a straight comparison of what those platforms cost, where the friction shows up, and when it makes more sense to spend the same money building a lead pipeline you own. Short version: they are a legitimate tool, and they are a poor foundation.

What do Angi, Thumbtack, and HomeAdvisor actually cost contractors?

The real number is not the price per lead, it is the price per booked job. Industry reporting for 2026 puts Angi, which absorbed HomeAdvisor, at roughly $542 in cost per booked job, with Thumbtack around $250. Those figures already account for every lead you paid for and never closed, which is why they land so far above the sticker price of a single lead. If you have only ever compared platforms on the per-lead number, you have been comparing the wrong thing.

The structure underneath is straightforward. Angi Leads runs an annual fee of roughly $288 to $300, plus a per-lead charge somewhere between $15 and $85 depending on your trade. Roofing, HVAC, and remodeling sit at the high end, because the job values are high and the bidding for those homeowners is heaviest. What drives the cost per job, though, is exclusivity, or the lack of it. Leads are sold simultaneously to three to eight contractors. You are not buying a customer. You are buying a seat in a race, and you pay for the seat whether you win or not.

That changes how you have to run the lead once it arrives. On a shared platform, the contractor who answers within a few minutes takes a large share of the jobs, because the homeowner is fielding calls from everyone who bought the same inquiry. If your crew is on a roof and the lead sits in an inbox until five o'clock, you still paid full price for it. Slow follow-up does not just lower your close rate on these platforms, it raises your cost per booked job directly.

How the three platforms compare

Angi

Angi has the largest consumer footprint and the strongest brand recognition with homeowners, which means volume. It also carries the highest cost per booked job of the three at roughly $542. The model combines the annual fee with per-lead charges, so your spend keeps moving even in a slow month when you are not closing much. If you work a high-ticket trade in a dense market like the Capital Region, the Hudson Valley, or Long Island, the volume is real. So is the burn rate, and the two arrive together.

HomeAdvisor

HomeAdvisor is now part of Angi, and for practical purposes you are dealing with the same lead pool, the same pricing logic, and the same shared distribution. If you are evaluating both as separate options, you are really evaluating one company under two names. Treat any pitch that presents them as independent sources of leads with some caution, and do not assume that signing up for both diversifies anything.

Thumbtack

Thumbtack comes in lower at roughly $250 per booked job. The experience skews toward smaller, faster jobs and homeowners who are comparison shopping in the moment, which suits handyman work, cleaning, smaller electrical and plumbing calls, and similar trades. It is generally the cheaper place to test whether platform leads work for your business at all, and the lower cost per job gives you more room to be wrong. It is still a shared model, so the same competition problem applies.

What contractors complain about most

The most common complaints are about lead quality and about the cost of getting out. In April 2023 the FTC settled a deceptive-marketing complaint against Angi, with up to $7.2 million returned to contractors. That is not a rumor from a Facebook group, it is a federal settlement over how leads were marketed to the businesses buying them. Separately, BBB filings through January 2026 describe contractors being charged for leads from people who said they never submitted a request. Individual disputes are often resolvable, but resolving them is unpaid administrative work that lands on whoever in your shop is already the busiest. Then there is the exit. Early cancellation penalties run 30 to 35 percent, with 60 days notice required. Read that before you sign, not after. A contract you cannot leave quickly changes the math on a channel you were planning to test for a single quarter, and it is the detail most contractors skip in the rush to get the phone ringing again.

When shared lead platforms are genuinely worth it

They work best when you have nothing else. If you are eighteen months into the business with four reviews, no website worth sending anyone to, and no referral base yet, these platforms give you something you cannot manufacture overnight: homeowners with real jobs, today. Buying a $542 job to keep two trucks working and to collect the reviews that make every other channel cheaper later is a defensible decision, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not run a young company through a slow winter. They also work as filler. A quiet February, a canceled commercial job, a new tech you need to keep busy. Turning the tap on for a few weeks and turning it off again is a reasonable use of the tool, provided you understand the notice period before you commit. The mistake is not using them. The mistake is letting the temporary version become the permanent version because it was easier than building anything else.

What owning your lead pipeline actually means

An owned pipeline is one where the lead comes to you first and nobody else was sold the same inquiry. In practice that means a Google Business Profile that ranks across your service area, a site that answers the questions homeowners actually ask before they call, review volume that makes you the obvious pick on the map, and a follow-up system that responds in minutes instead of hours. None of those pieces are exotic. They are just slow to build, and they do not send you an invoice that proves you did something this month.

The economics run the opposite direction from platform leads. Platform costs stay flat or rise as more contractors bid for the same homeowners, because you are renting access every single month and the rent is set by someone else. Owned assets compound. The reviews you collected last year still convert this year. The page that ranks keeps ranking while you sleep. The database of past customers can be texted about maintenance season for close to nothing. The first ninety days feel like you are paying for silence, which is exactly why most contractors never get past them.

The contractors who make platforms work treat them as 20 to 30 percent of pipeline, not 80 percent. That ratio is the whole lesson. At 20 to 30 percent, a bad lead is an annoyance and a price increase is survivable. At 80 percent, the platform sets your margins, your schedule, and your growth ceiling, and you find out how much leverage you handed over only when the rates change or the lead flow dries up in your zip code.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: Is Angi or Thumbtack cheaper for contractors? A: Thumbtack is generally cheaper. Industry reporting for 2026 puts Thumbtack at roughly $250 per booked job compared with roughly $542 for Angi. Angi tends to offer more volume, particularly in higher-ticket trades like roofing, HVAC, and remodeling, where per-lead pricing reaches the top of the $15 to $85 range.

Q: How many contractors get the same lead? A: Shared lead platforms sell the same homeowner inquiry to three to eight contractors at the same time. You are charged for the lead regardless of whether you win the job, which is why the cost per booked job runs so far above the advertised cost per lead.

Q: Can I cancel an Angi Leads contract early? A: You can, but there is a cost. Early cancellation penalties run 30 to 35 percent and 60 days notice is required. Confirm the exact terms in your own agreement before you sign, and factor the notice period into any plan to test the channel for a limited time.

Q: Should I quit these platforms entirely? A: Usually not right away. The safer move is to keep them running as a supplement while you build owned channels, then let them shrink to 20 to 30 percent of your pipeline. Cutting them before you have replacement lead flow just trades an expensive problem for an empty schedule.