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Short answer: Thumbtack, Angi, Yelp and Google Local Services Ads can fill a schedule quickly, but you pay for every lead or click whether or not it becomes a job, prices rise with competition and none of them publish fixed lead prices. Some leads go to several businesses at once, and the customer relationship lives on someone else's platform. Your own website and Google Business Profile work differently. They cost money and time to build, but leads come from people searching for you directly, they are not shared, and the cost per lead tends to fall as visibility grows. The fair comparison is not cost per lead but cost per booked job: divide what you spend by the jobs you actually win, then compare channels. For most established local businesses, the best long-term setup is an owned website and profile as the foundation, with paid platforms used selectively to fill gaps.
This guide explains how each lead platform charges, what we know about real prices, how to calculate cost per booked job, a break-even method for comparing platforms with your own website, how lead quality and ownership differ, how AI search is changing the picture and how to move from rented leads to owned ones.
They charge you for access to customers, by the lead, the match or the click, not by the job.
Not every lead is exclusive. Angi's pro help center says its Market Match leads go to up to four pros, while Exact Match and Instant Booking leads go to as many pros as the homeowner chooses. On Thumbtack, customers often contact several pros at once. When you are one of several businesses contacting the same customer, speed and price pressure go up and your chance of winning goes down.
On a marketplace, your profile, reviews and messages live on the platform. If prices change, your account is restricted or the platform changes how it ranks pros, you have little control. A customer who found you on your own website or Google profile is your customer from the first contact.
None of these platforms publish a fixed price list. Costs vary by trade, job size, market and competition.
Thumbtack does not publish lead prices. Pros pay more for bigger jobs, busier markets and categories with more competition. Pros report paying anywhere from about $10 to over $100 per lead, according to Housecall Pro, which describes these as anecdotal reports. Leads that do not turn into jobs are not refunded, and Thumbtack staff said in its community forum that refunds are reviewed lead by lead and that non-responsive customers are not covered.
Angi also publishes no price list. Its help center says lead cost depends on project size, location and type, and that pros may be charged more when a homeowner chooses to connect with them directly. Angi says pros are charged for each new lead as soon as it is sent and that leads are not guaranteed jobs. Pros can request credits for specific problems, such as duplicates, the wrong ZIP code, a task they are not profiled for or a bad phone number, within set time windows.
Yelp Ads are pay per click, and costs vary by industry and competition. LocaliQ, citing Yelp, says businesses can spend as little as about $5 per day on average, and WebFX lists self-serve Yelp Ads from about $150 per month, while noting there is no reliable average cost per click. Because you pay per click, your cost per lead depends on how many people who click actually contact you.
Google also publishes no prices. Its help page says lead prices vary with location, job type, lead type and bidding mode, and message leads are usually priced lower than phone leads. Prices are set by competing bids from similar local businesses. Vendor data gives a sense of range: 99 Calls' 2026 data from its own campaigns, reported by Lead Smart Inc, showed average costs per charged lead of about $215 for water damage, $107 for roofing, $66 for plumbing, $43 for electrical and $33 for cleaning. That is one vendor's campaigns, not a market average. Local Services Ads are also moving into Google Ads as Performance Max campaigns from August 2026, so budgets and bidding details are changing.
WordStream's 2026 benchmarks, covering 13,474 US Google Ads campaigns, put the median cost per lead at $66.69 overall, $90.92 for home and home improvement, $131.63 for attorneys and $72.97 for dentists.
| Platform | How you pay | Published prices? | Leads shared? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thumbtack | Per lead or auto-match | No | Customers often contact several pros |
| Angi / HomeAdvisor | Per lead or match, plus possible membership | No | Market Match up to four pros; others vary |
| Yelp Ads | Per click | No reliable average CPC | Customers see multiple businesses |
| Google Local Services Ads | Per valid lead | No | Customer contacts you directly from your ad |
| Google search ads | Per click | Benchmarks only | Customer clicks to your site |
| Your website and Google profile | Build and upkeep, no per-lead fee | Not applicable | Not shared |
Lead prices and job values vary enormously by trade, so the same platform can be a bargain for one business and a loss for another.
Look at the spread in the vendor data above: 99 Calls' Local Services Ads figures ranged from about $33 per charged lead for cleaning to about $215 for water damage. WordStream's search ad benchmarks ranged from about $67 per lead overall to about $132 for attorneys. Job values vary just as much. HomeAdvisor's June 2026 guide puts lawn care at an average of $123 per visit, while its flooring installation guide puts the average job at $3,153.
The point is not that platforms are good or bad. It is that you need your own numbers, by trade and by channel, to know which ones make sense.
That lead quality claims deserve scrutiny.
In March 2022, the FTC alleged that since at least mid-2014 HomeAdvisor had made false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of its leads, including how often they turned into jobs. In April 2023, the FTC approved a final order requiring up to $7.2 million in redress and banning false or misleading claims about leads, and it later sent more than 110,000 checks to service providers. The lesson for any business buying leads: ask how leads are sourced, whether they are shared and what happens when they are bad, and track your own results rather than relying on the seller's claims.
The FTC's HomeAdvisor case is a reminder that sellers' claims about lead quality should be checked against your own results.
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What matters is cost per booked job, and that depends on how many leads you actually win.
A cheap lead that never answers is expensive. A pricey lead that books a large job is cheap. To compare channels fairly, calculate three numbers for each one:
Then compare the cost per booked job with your average profit per job, not your revenue.
Suppose a contractor spends $1,200 in a month on platform leads and receives 30 leads, an average of $40 each. If 4 of those become jobs, the close rate is about 13% and the cost per booked job is $300. If the average job brings in $1,500 with a $500 gross profit, the platform is still profitable, but $300 of every $500 in profit goes to buying the lead. If the close rate drops to 2 jobs, the cost per booked job doubles to $600 and the platform loses money. Those numbers are illustrations, not benchmarks. Use your own.
Your website and Google profile have mostly fixed costs, so the cost per lead falls as the number of leads grows.
An owned channel costs money to build and maintain, whether you do it yourself or pay for help: the website, Google Business Profile management, content, reviews, listings and links. Those costs do not rise with each lead. If your owned channel costs the same each month and brings in 10 leads, each lead costs one tenth of the monthly cost. If it brings in 40 leads, each costs one fortieth.
The catch is timing. Organic and map visibility take time to build. Google's SEO Starter Guide says changes can take anywhere from a few hours to several months to show in Search. In the early months, cost per lead from your own website is high because lead volume is low. As visibility builds, cost per lead tends to fall, while marketplace costs stay tied to every lead.
Close rates vary widely by business, so measure your own rather than assuming.
Work out how many booked jobs your owned channel needs to produce each month to beat the platform.
| Platform cost per booked job | Owned channel monthly cost | Booked jobs needed to break even |
|---|---|---|
| $200 | $1,000 | 5 |
| $300 | $3,000 | 10 |
| $400 | $5,000 | 12.5 |
| $600 | $5,000 | About 8 |
These rows are illustrations. Plug in your own numbers. Once your owned channel is producing more booked jobs than the break-even figure, every extra job it brings in is cheaper than buying it from a platform. And unlike platform spend, the visibility you have built does not switch off the moment you stop paying for a lead.
The higher your average job value, the more you can afford per booked job and the faster an owned channel pays back. Repeat and referral customers add more. A heating customer who calls again for maintenance every year, or a dental patient who stays for a decade, is worth far more than the first job. Owned channels capture more of that lifetime value, because the customer knows your name and how to find you.
Marketplaces are built for comparison. Customers often request several quotes, which attracts price-focused buyers. Someone who searches your business name, reads your reviews and calls is usually further along and less focused on the lowest price.
On your own website and profile, you control the story: your photos, your team, your licenses, your warranty and your reviews. On a marketplace, you are one card among several, styled the same as your competitors.
Your own site lets you target the services, job sizes and areas you want most with dedicated pages. Platforms decide which requests you see, and you may pay for leads outside your sweet spot before you can filter them.
In some ways. You still pay per lead, but the lead comes to you directly and your Google reviews help your ad.
Local Services Ads sit at the top of Google Search and in Maps, show a Google Verified badge for screened businesses and let customers call, message or book you directly. Unlike some marketplace leads, the customer contacts your business specifically from your ad. Google lists the factors that affect how often your ad shows, including your bid, how likely you are to get a lead, your responsiveness and your profile quality, such as your rating, number of reviews, response time and use of high-quality images. Google removed proximity from that list in 2024.
That means the reviews you earn on your Google profile help your ads as well as your organic map rankings. It is still a rented channel, with prices set by competing bids and a program that is changing as it moves into Google Ads, but it overlaps with the owned assets you are building.
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Marketplaces are becoming AI visibility channels too, so a complete free profile matters even if you never buy a lead.
AI tools increasingly draw on marketplace and review data. BrightLocal's August 2026 analysis found Yelp was ChatGPT's top local source, appearing in 80% of ChatGPT answers it checked, and the second most-used source in Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Axios reported in July 2026 that Yelp is licensing reviews, photos and business details to OpenAI for ChatGPT answers. Yelp's annual report also says Apple makes Yelp content available through Apple Maps and Siri.
Other marketplaces are connecting to AI assistants as well. Angi launched an Angi app in ChatGPT in March 2026 that recommends local pros and sends homeowners to Angi to request a quote. Thumbtack announced a ChatGPT app in October 2025, and Amazon said in December 2025 that Alexa+ would connect with Angi, Thumbtack and Yelp.
For a local business, the practical takeaway is to claim and complete your free profiles on Yelp, Angi, Thumbtack and Nextdoor, keep your details consistent with your website and Google profile and earn genuine reviews, whether or not you pay for leads. Those profiles feed the AI answers your customers are starting to use. Our guide to how AI search is changing local business discovery covers this in more depth.
A new business with no reviews and no rankings can get its first jobs, and its first reviews, through platforms while building its own site and profile.
When you need work quickly, paid platforms can fill gaps that organic visibility cannot yet cover.
Paying for leads in a new area or service can show whether demand exists before you invest in building pages and visibility there.
If a booked job is worth thousands and the platform's cost per booked job is a small share of profit, buying leads can stay worthwhile even alongside a strong owned channel.
Whether you pay for leads or not, a complete profile on each platform improves results and feeds AI answers.
Claim your free page, add accurate hours, services, service area and real photos, and reply to reviews publicly and professionally. Do not ask customers for Yelp reviews, since Yelp discourages it and may filter prompted reviews. Yelp says its recommendation software applies the same standards whether or not a business advertises, so buying ads will not change which reviews are shown.
Complete your profile with services, licenses, insurance, photos and a clear description. Set your job types, sizes and service areas narrowly so you only pay for leads that fit. Respond quickly, and track every lead through to a booked job.
Claim your free business page. Verified neighbors who hired you can recommend you, and Nextdoor says neighbor recommendations make up nearly 30% of its content. Encourage happy customers who use Nextdoor to mention you there.
This is the most important free profile for most local businesses. Keep it complete, post weekly, add photos and ask every customer for a review. It powers your map rankings, supports Local Services Ads and is the most cited source in AI answers about local businesses.
On shared leads, the business that responds first and best often wins, and slow responses waste the money you spent on the lead.
When a customer sends the same request to several pros, the first credible, helpful reply frames the conversation. Slow replies mean paying for a lead that a competitor has already booked. The same applies to your own channels: a website form that sits unanswered for a day or a profile call that rings out is a lost job you worked to earn. Set up instant notifications for every lead source, answer calls during business hours or route them to someone who can and reply to forms and messages within minutes where possible. Google notes that missed calls can count against Local Services Ads responsiveness, and every channel rewards businesses that answer.
Choose the most specific primary category, list every service, keep hours accurate, add real photos regularly, post updates and reply to every review. The profile is usually the first place local customers see you, and Google's local ranking guidance centers on relevance, distance and prominence.
A dedicated page for each service you sell ranked as the number one local organic factor in Whitespark's 2026 expert survey. Each page should explain the service, price factors, areas served and proof, with a clear way to call or request a quote.
Build pages for the areas you most want to work in, with real projects and reviews from those places. Avoid pages that only swap the town name.
A steady flow of recent Google reviews builds prominence and trust. BrightLocal's 2026 survey found 74% of consumers look for reviews written in the last three months.
Claim your free Yelp, Nextdoor, Apple Business and Bing Places pages and keep them consistent. Nextdoor says nearly 6.6 million businesses have claimed free pages, where verified neighbors who hired a business can recommend it.
Put a tap-to-call button and a short quote form on every page, explain what happens next and respond quickly. Traffic only becomes leads when the next step is easy.
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Expect the owned channel to take longer than six months to reach full strength in competitive markets. The goal of this plan is to start the shift and measure it, not to cut off paid leads overnight.
Here is how one hypothetical plumbing company might shift from rented to owned leads over 12 months. The numbers are illustrations, not benchmarks.
The company spends most of its marketing budget on marketplace and Local Services Ads leads. When the owner calculates cost per booked job by channel, Local Services Ads come out best, one marketplace comes out reasonable for water heater jobs and another produces many shared leads that rarely close, at a cost per booked job higher than the average job's profit.
The owner cuts the worst-performing marketplace entirely, keeps Local Services Ads and moves the savings into building owned visibility: a rebuilt website with a page for each main service, a fully optimized Google Business Profile with weekly posts and a review request after every job.
Organic and map visibility start to improve near the shop. Website form leads and profile calls begin to show up in the tracking spreadsheet. The owner narrows the remaining marketplace settings to water heater replacements, where the math works best.
Owned leads grow as area pages and reviews build up. The owned channel passes its break-even point most months, so each additional job from it is cheaper than a bought lead. The owner keeps Local Services Ads for emergency calls and uses the remaining marketplace only in slow weeks.
Not abandoning paid channels overnight, measuring cost per booked job for every source, cutting the worst performers first and reinvesting in assets that keep working. Real results depend on the market, the competition and how consistently the work is done.
DM. Digital builds the website, profile and visibility that bring leads straight to you, with reporting built around leads.
DM. Digital is an SEO and AI visibility agency that helps local businesses anywhere in the United States get found and get leads on Google Search, Google Maps and AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode, Gemini, Perplexity and Copilot.
Leads from your website go straight to your own business email, so you keep receiving them even if the engagement ends. You keep your domain, Google Business Profile and accounts, there is no minimum commitment and either side can end the engagement with 30 days notice. Engagements start at a budget of $5,000 per month. We do not guarantee rankings, AI placement or lead numbers. You can see anonymized results on our case studies page.
Lead platforms sell speed. Your own website and Google profile build an asset. Thumbtack, Angi, Yelp and Local Services Ads can fill a schedule quickly, but you pay for every lead or click, prices are set by competition and the relationship lives on someone else's platform. An owned channel takes longer to build, but its costs are mostly fixed, its leads are not shared and its visibility keeps working. Measure cost per booked job for every channel, use the break-even method to decide where to invest and shift spending toward what you own as it starts to produce. Keep your free marketplace profiles complete, because they now feed AI answers too. If you want help building lead flow you own, contact DM. Digital and Dan will call you back.
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