Angi Leads costs the average contractor $542 per booked job. Thumbtack comes in at $250. Google LSA wins at $168. Before you renew that Angi contract or load up your Thumbtack credits, you need to know exactly where your money goes and what you actually get back.
What does Angi Leads actually cost per month?
Angi charges an annual membership of roughly $300 per year just to access leads. On top of that, you're paying $15 to $85 per lead, with roofing and HVAC leads in major metros pushing $100 or more per contact. Most contractors end up spending between $300 and $2,500 per month on Angi, according to data compiled by LeadTruffle citing 7ten Marketing, Hook Agency, and Olly Olly in 2025 and 2026.
The contract structure is what bites most contractors. You're typically locked into a 12-month agreement with 30-35% early cancellation penalties and 60 days notice required to exit.
One contractor summed up an Angi sales call on r/smallbusiness: "When they said minimum ad spend was $400/month, I noped out so quick."
What does Thumbtack cost per lead?
Thumbtack runs on a credit-based model with no annual membership fee. You're looking at roughly $10 to $50 per contact, with most contractors paying around $35 per lead based on BlueGrid Media's March 2026 analysis. You only pay when you choose to respond to a job - which gives you more control over your spend than Angi's automatic lead delivery.
The tradeoff is that Thumbtack sends each job request to 4-5 contractors simultaneously, so you're still racing to respond first. Contractor Growth Network's 2024 survey found that 35-50% of sales go to the contractor who calls first, which means a $35 lead can easily become a $350 or higher cost per job if your follow-up is slow.
If you're not set up with automated follow-ups, you're leaving jobs on the table every single day.
How do close rates compare between the two platforms?
This is where the math gets ugly for Angi. The average close rate on shared platform leads sits at 15-20% according to Contractor Growth Network's 2024 survey - but real-world Angi numbers reported by contractors run closer to 5-8%. At a 5% close rate on a $50 Angi lead, you're spending $1,000 in lead costs to close one job.
Thumbtack's close rate is marginally better at around 10% because you're choosing which leads to pursue, and homeowner intent tends to be slightly higher on the platform. At $35 per contact and a 10% close rate, your cost per closed job lands around $350 - still not cheap, but meaningfully better than Angi's math.
For context, Google LSA leads close at an average rate of 35%, more than double the shared platform average, according to Coalmarch's 2025 contractor marketing study. If you're running roofing or electrical work, our breakdown of Google Ads for roofers and Google Ads for electricians show how that math plays out in your trade specifically.
What do real contractors say about lead quality?
A Thumbtack community member posting as @busyb described her experience as a mural artist: "I have spent thousands of dollars to get about 5 or so confirmed jobs. I pay $85 for 'I actually don't know what I want, I was just thinking it would be cool to get a mural' and they never get back in contact with me."
A separate 10-year Thumbtack user on the same forum put it more bluntly: "At least 50% - this is a low number, it's more towards 70% - of all my instant books that come in are just looking for prices, then don't respond until after 15 minutes, so even if they cancel I do not get a refund because of Thumbtack's joke of a refund policy."
On the Angi side, an HVAC contractor in Texas (via PipelineOn's January 2026 blog) stopped using Angi completely after building his organic presence. Leads dropped 40% initially, then recovered as Google rankings improved. A year later, his cost per job was 65% lower and he wasn't sharing leads with anyone.
How do the two platforms compare side by side?
| Metric | Angi Leads | Thumbtack | Google LSA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cost Per Lead | $15-$85+ ($100+ for roofing) | $10-$50 per contact | $30-$120 depending on trade |
| Monthly Spend | $300-$2,500/mo | Flexible (credit-based) | $400-$1,500+ recommended |
| Annual Membership | ~$300/year | Free to list | Free (Google Guaranteed required) |
| Lead Sharing | 3-8 contractors | 4-5 contractors | Exclusive |
| Avg. Close Rate | 5-8% | ~10% | ~35% |
| Cost Per Booked Job | $542 | $250 | $168 |
| Contract Terms | 12 months, 30-35% early exit | No contract | No contract |
Source: BlueGrid Media (Julian Diep, March 9, 2026); Olly Olly (Oct 2025); Coalmarch 2025 contractor marketing study.
Browse contractor marketing tools and automations to close leads faster
Get StartedWhat are lead costs doing industry-wide?
LocaliQ analyzed 3,211 US-based home services search advertising campaigns between April 2024 and March 2025 and found that cost per lead increased for 69% of home services businesses, with an average increase of 10.51% year-over-year. That's more than double the 5.13% CPL increase seen across all industries.
The average CPL for home services search advertising in 2025 hit $70.11, with roofing and electrical running even higher. Across all home services subcategories, LocaliQ's average CPL lands at $76.02. Paint and painting saw the highest CPC at $13.74, followed by electricians at $12.18 and roofing at $10.70.
For trade-specific benchmarks from the Aged Lead Store's 2025 guide (citing HomeAdvisor, LocaliQ, Inquirly, and ServiceDirect): exclusive roofing leads can surpass $200 each, HVAC averages $105 per lead, plumbing runs $55-$120, and exterior painting leads come in at $45-$100.
When you're tracking these numbers across platforms, having a solid CRM for HVAC contractors or a CRM built for roofers makes the difference between knowing your actual cost per acquisition and guessing.
When does Thumbtack actually make sense?
Thumbtack works best for contractors who are new to a market, building reviews, or testing a new service category. A licensed handyman contractor on Quora (identified as running Mr. Handyman of North Central San Antonio) spent $280 on Thumbtack leads and won 8 jobs, calling it a reasonable investment for getting early traction. Another LawnSite forum contractor spent $50/month on Thumbtack credits and turned those initial contacts into long-term bi-weekly service clients he still has two years later.
The key is knowing when to stop. Thumbtack is a customer acquisition tool, not a long-term marketing strategy.
Once you have reviews and referrals rolling, the math on shared leads gets harder to justify. Building your contractor referral network and your Google presence will always beat paying $35 for a contact who's also talking to four other contractors at the same time.
When should you walk away from Angi?
If your close rate on Angi leads is below 10%, you're almost certainly losing money unless your average job value is $5,000 or more. Angi tends to deliver the worst ROI for smaller-ticket trades like handyman work, minor plumbing repairs, and basic electrical - exactly the jobs where the $50 lead fee eats the most margin.
Review your home service KPIs monthly. If your Angi cost per booked job is above $400 and your average job is under $2,000, that's a budget reallocation waiting to happen.
The cancellation penalty is real - 30-35% of remaining contract value - so read the terms before you sign, not after you're frustrated.
If you're shifting budget away from Angi, online reviews and referrals are the highest-ROI replacement. Automated review requests after every job cost nothing compared to $50 lead fees. Pair that with a strong contractor website and you're building an asset instead of renting leads forever.
Frequently Asked Questions
What to do with this information
Pull your last 90 days of spend on Angi or Thumbtack and calculate your actual cost per booked job: total spend divided by jobs won. If you're above $400 per job on anything under a $3,000 average ticket, shift that budget to Google LSA and review generation.
Set up automated review requests after every completed job and you'll be building compounding organic lead flow instead of paying rent to lead platforms indefinitely.