Leads you rent, leads you own
Angi leads,or your own?
Angi, HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack sell you a homeowner’s request. A call from your own website, your Google listing or an AI answer belongs to you outright. Here’s the difference, sourced, from the two owners who build the second kind.
TL;DR
Angi, HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack rent you leads: by Angi’s own help center, each homeowner request is matched with up to five pros, and you’re billed for it whether or not you open it. In 2023 the FTC’s final order against HomeAdvisor barred false or misleading claims about its leads and provided up to $7.2 million in redress. A lead you own reaches your website, your Business Profile or an AI answer that names you, goes to nobody else and doesn’t stop with a budget. Keep buying leads while they pay, and build the source you own beside them.
Start here
Get the free look
Send your website and the city you sell in. Michael checks where your traffic comes from, how your site turns it into calls on a phone, and what the AI assistants say about you — then writes back the same day with what to fix first.
Or call (615) 488-7399 at any hour. The line takes your details and Michael calls you back.
What you’re buying
What a rented lead actually is.
A lead marketplace collects homeowners’ project requests and sells them to service companies. Angi Inc. runs Angi, HomeAdvisor and Handy under one roof, by its own annual report.
Angi’s help center spells the deal out. A request is matched with no more than five pros. Lead fees “change based on task, homeowner location, and demand for the work.” You pay for a lead “whether or not you open or respond to” it. To get a credit for a bad one, you need to have tried calling the homeowner within 24 hours.
Thumbtack runs on the same idea: its page for pros says you pay when a new customer contacts or hires you.
None of that is hidden, and none of it is a scandal. It’s renting. You pay for each lead, most of them go to your competitors too, and you own no part of the machine that produced them.
The FTC, 2023
What the FTC found.
In April 2023 the Federal Trade Commission approved a final order against HomeAdvisor, which it describes as a company affiliated with Angi. The FTC alleged “false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of the leads,” and said HomeAdvisor’s salespeople told service providers its leads turned into jobs “at rates much higher than it can substantiate.”
The order prohibits any false or misleading claim about the company’s leads, and names two: that they come from people “ready to hire a service provider,” or from people who asked HomeAdvisor directly. It also provided up to $7.2 million in redress for the businesses that bought them.
We’re not telling you never to buy a lead. We’re telling you to know exactly what you’re paying for, and to build something underneath it that belongs to you.
Side by side
Rented and owned, row by row.
| Question | Bought from a marketplace | From your own site |
|---|---|---|
| Who else gets it | Up to four other pros on the same request, by Angi’s help page | Nobody. The homeowner dialed you. |
| What you pay for | Every lead, opened or not | The site and the traffic, never a fee per lead |
| When you stop paying | The requests stop | Your site, your listing and your reviews are still yours |
| Who counts it | The marketplace, in its own dashboard | Your site, by source: Google, the map pack, an AI assistant, direct |
| What it builds over time | Reviews on the marketplace’s pages | Pages, reviews and a search history in your name |
Where AI answers come from
The marketplaces are in the AI answers already.
On 20 September 2026 we asked five AI assistants (ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode) who to hire for construction work around White House, Tennessee: twenty answers in all. Between them they cited angi.com 16 times, houzz.com 11, bbb.org 10, homeadvisor.com 10 and thumbtack.com 9.
The website of Southern Belle Construction, a builder in that town, was read in none of the twenty. Its old WordPress site was telling the AI crawlers to stay out. What that cost, and what we changed.
The same day, the same five assistants were asked about painters in Nashville. They cited angi.com 10 times, and a competing painter’s own website just as often. The engines will read a business’s own site when the site lets them in and gives them something worth reading. That’s a lead you own, starting before the phone rings.
What we do instead
Build the source. Count every call.
We build the site that gets the call: hand-written, quick on a phone, every page answering a homeowner’s questions, open to Google and the AI crawlers. Then we send it traffic from search, from AI answers and from our own network of lead-generation sites, which hands each trade’s leads in a market to one company.
Every call, form, email and text tap is logged on your site the instant it happens, with its source attached. Keep buying leads while they pay for themselves. Once your own numbers are in front of you every month, you’ll know when you can stop. How contractor leads work here.
Answers
Angi leads, asked and answered
Is Angi Leads worth it for contractors?
It can be, if you answer fast and close well, because you compete on nearly every request. Angi’s help center says each homeowner request is matched with no more than five pros, and you’re charged for a lead whether or not you open it. Track what each closed job really cost you.
How much do Angi leads cost?
Angi doesn’t publish one price. Its help center says lead fees change with the task, the homeowner’s location and the demand for the work, and that you’re charged whether or not you open or respond. Ask for your category’s fee in writing before you set a budget.
What happened with the FTC and HomeAdvisor?
In 2023 the FTC finalized an order against HomeAdvisor, which it calls a company affiliated with Angi, over claims about the quality and source of its leads. The order bars false or misleading claims about those leads and set up to $7.2 million in redress for the businesses that bought them.
Can I get credit for a bad Angi lead?
Sometimes. Angi’s help center says the lead has to be under 45 days old, you must have tried to call the homeowner within 24 hours, and your account can’t carry an overdue balance. A credit expires if it isn’t used within six months.
Sources
Where every number came from.
- Angi Help Center, “Opportunities and Leads Frequently Asked Questions,” updated 20 April 2026: intercom.help/angi
- Angi Help Center, “How to Request a Lead Credit,” updated 14 August 2026: intercom.help/angi
- Federal Trade Commission, final order against HomeAdvisor, 21 April 2023: ftc.gov
- Angi Inc., Form 10-K for 2023, filed with the SEC: sec.gov
- Thumbtack, pages for pros, read 14 October 2026: thumbtack.com/pro
- Our own AI visibility readings: five engines, “who should I hire” questions with web search on, construction around White House, Tennessee (20 answers) and painting in Nashville (15 answers), 20 September 2026. Our records
