Angi, Thumbtack or your own website: where a trade business should get leads.

The short answer

A lead from Angi or Thumbtack is rented. An enquiry from your own website, your Google Business Profile, a review or a past customer is owned. Both bring work, and they suit different moments for a home services business:

• Platforms suit a new business with an empty diary, a slow season, a new service or a new area where nobody knows you yet.
• Owned enquiries suit an established business with reviews and repeat customers, and they keep coming when you stop spending.

Our view: use both for a while, then move the money as the owned side grows. The test is the same for each: what every job won costs you, and whether the customer comes back. The rest of this guide shows how to work that out.

How Angi charges you

Angi's help pages describe the basics. A homeowner describes the project, and Angi connects them with multiple service professionals who match the type of work and the area. You set the work you do and the area you serve, and you pay a fee for each lead you are matched to; different sizes of job carry different lead fees. Angi says it does not promise any amount of work. A lead is an introduction to a possible customer.

Two details worth knowing before you sign:

• Angi says that since January 2025, homeowners who reach it through partner sites choose which pros they are matched with, which means fewer pros per request on those leads. Ask how many pros your leads go to, in your trade and area, today.
• In 2023 the FTC finalised an order against HomeAdvisor, the lead business that trades as Angi Leads, over claims about the quality and source of its leads and how often they turned into jobs. The order bars false claims that leads come from people ready to hire. Treat any figure a salesperson gives you about how often leads become jobs as a sales claim, and check it against your own numbers.

Angi's lead credits

Angi's help centre lists when it may credit a lead after investigating:

• The phone number is disconnected or does not belong to the homeowner.
• The project is outside the ZIP codes in your profile.
• The project type does not match the services in your profile.
• You were charged twice for the same homeowner within 45 days.
• You were charged while your leads were paused.

There are conditions: the lead must be less than 45 days old, you must have tried to call the homeowner within 24 hours of getting it, and your account must be in good standing. Angi says annual subscribers can report leads but are not offered credits for them.

Just as useful is the list of what does not count: a homeowner who does not answer, hires another pro first, decides not to go ahead yet or is still comparing quotes, and a quote you did not win. Angi says its pricing already allows for those. You request a credit from the lead itself, in the app or on the website. Angi says it reviews requests within five business days, and approved credits go against future lead charges and expire after six months.

Call every Angi lead within 24 hours, including the ones that look wrong. Without that call attempt, a bad lead cannot be credited.

How Thumbtack charges you

Thumbtack's help centre describes two main ways to pay:

• Leads: a customer contacts you directly about a job that matches your preferences, and you pay automatically. You set your price for each service, and a weekly budget caps your spending; when you reach it, new leads stop until the budget resets.
• Opportunities: customers who are still looking for a pro. You see the price before you reach out, and you pay only if you contact them and they reply. Opportunities do not use your weekly budget.

Customers on Thumbtack see a list of pros and can contact several, and Thumbtack's lead pages show whether a customer is replying to other pros on the same request. That is the shared-lead problem in plain sight.

Thumbtack also describes an automatic refund for leads where the customer replies to no pro at all, provided you responded quickly and kept the first contact on Thumbtack. Sharing your own phone number or email before the customer replies can make the lead ineligible, because Thumbtack can no longer see whether the conversation carried on elsewhere. Check the current conditions in your account before you rely on them.

Why the first reply wins a shared lead

When a customer has contacted three or four firms, the job tends to go to the first one that replies with something useful: a question that shows you understand the job, and a time you can come. A firm that calls back the next morning is often talking to someone who has already booked. The research points the same way: the Harvard Business Review study of web enquiries quoted on our prices page found replies within an hour far more likely to lead somewhere than later ones.

A first reply to adapt:

"Hi Karen, Joe from Northside Electrical here. I can look at the fuse box tomorrow between 8 and 10, or Thursday afternoon. Is the whole house tripping, or one circuit?"

If you are on a roof or under a sink when leads arrive, decide now who replies and how:

• Turn on app notifications on the phone of whoever can answer during working hours.
• Keep a first reply saved for each common job, so replying takes a minute.
• Text back every missed call to your own number automatically; AI receptionist, answering service or text-back compares the options.
• If you cannot reply within the hour, hand the lead to someone who can rather than leaving it.

Work out what a job really costs you

The fee per lead tells you little. What matters is the cost of each job you win, set against what the job is worth. Keep a simple sheet for every platform lead:

• The date, the platform and what you paid.
• Whether you reached the customer, and how quickly.
• Whether you quoted, and whether you won.
• The value of the job, and whether the customer came back or referred someone.

Then, once a month, divide what you spent on leads by the jobs you won. Say you paid for twenty leads in March, reached fifteen, quoted eight and won three. Your cost per job is March's spend divided by three, not by twenty. If that is more than the job can carry, the platform is costing you money however busy it keeps you.

Count the second job too. A platform customer you serve well, ask for a Google review and keep in touch with can book you directly next time, within the platform's terms, and that work carries no lead fee.

Keep bad leads to a minimum

Your settings are your first defence. Both platforms match leads to the work and the area you set, so:

• List only the job types you want, not every one you could do.
• Set the area you can reach profitably on a working day, not the widest one allowed.
• Pause leads when you are fully booked or on holiday, rather than paying for work you cannot take.
• Review the settings whenever a run of wrong leads arrives.

Then dispute properly. Note each call attempt with the time, keep a screenshot of any wrong-number message, and keep the lead ID. Request credits inside the window, one lead at a time, with the reason from the platform's own list. A request that says "bad lead" is easier to refuse than one that says "number disconnected, called at 9.14 and 13.02 on the day it arrived".

What you own instead

Owned enquiries take effort up front and then arrive without a fee per lead. The pieces, in the order we would build them:

• A complete Google Business Profile: the real name, the right category, your service areas, real photos and hours. It is free, and it is what customers see when they search for your trade on Google Maps. Google Business Profile for a business without a storefront covers trades that travel to customers.
• Google reviews, asked for after every job. They help you on the map and persuade the next customer; see how to get more Google reviews.
• A website with a page for each main service and the areas you cover, a phone number that starts a call when tapped and a short quote form. Our websites are built around that request, with the Business Profile set up or tidied as part of the job.
• A fast first reply to every enquiry, wherever it came from. Enquiry follow-up routes them and chases the ones nobody answered.
• Past customers: a reminder when a service is due, a thank-you, an easy way to refer a neighbour.

This takes longer to build than switching on a lead platform, and it keeps working when you stop paying.

When to move the money

Signs the platform has done its job, or is doing it badly:

• Your cost per job won keeps rising, month after month.
• Most leads show the customer already talking to several other pros.
• Referrals, Google and your own website now fill the diary in a normal week.
• The leads that arrive are for jobs you would rather not do.

When two or more apply, cut the platform budget in steps rather than all at once, and put the difference into what you own: a page for your main service, real photos, a review routine, a faster reply. Keep the platform profile and its reviews, so you can turn leads back on in a slow month.

If you want paid leads you control more closely, Local Services Ads or Google Ads compares Google's own options for trades, and landing pages for ads covers the page those ads need.

Questions to ask before you sign up

• How many pros does each lead go to, in my trade and area?
• What exactly is a lead I pay for: a message, a call, a match?
• Is there a membership fee or a subscription on top of lead fees, and how do I cancel it?
• Which leads can be credited or refunded, in what time window, and how do I ask?
• Can I pause leads when I am fully booked, and is anything charged while paused?
• What happens to my profile and my reviews on the platform if I stop paying?

Get the answers in writing, by email or from the help centre, rather than on a sales call. Angi, for one, treats annual subscribers differently for credits, so the plan you choose changes what you can claim back.

Mistakes that make leads expensive

• Replying hours later, then blaming the platform for poor leads.
• Accepting every job type and the widest area, and paying for leads you never wanted.
• Not calling within 24 hours on Angi, which rules out a credit.
• Moving a Thumbtack conversation to your own number before the customer has replied.
• Pricing on the first call before you know the job, then losing to the firm that asked one more question.
• Never following up a quote. How to follow up on a quote has messages to copy.
• Paying for leads while your own phone goes unanswered and your Google profile sits half finished.