Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor (now consolidated under Angi Leads), Houzz, and Bark all run variants of the same model: aggregate homeowner demand through SEO and paid search, capture a service request through a form, then sell that request to contractors as a lead.
The key word is sell. Most of the time, the same lead is sold to multiple contractors simultaneously. Industry coverage and contractor-facing publications consistently report Angi and HomeAdvisor distribute each lead to three to eight pros at once. Bark uses a credit-purchase model where any contractor with credits can claim the same lead. Thumbtack has migrated toward a contractor-initiated model where pros pay only when they message the homeowner — but multiple pros can still message the same homeowner.
From the platform's perspective this is rational: one lead generates 3–8x the revenue of a sole-source lead. From the contractor's perspective, you are paying full price for a fractional shot at the job.
Pricing is publicly discussed by contractor-marketing pubs and the platforms' own help docs. Numbers below are as-disclosed; trade and metro shift them substantially.
Per shared lead; ~$300/yr membership; HVAC/roofing trades push the high end
Hook Agency — Angi Leads Reviews From ContractorsPay-per-contact, contractor-set max bid; common range $35–$60
Housecall Pro — Thumbtack vs HomeAdvisorPer shared lead + ~$288–$300/yr fee; charged whether homeowner replies or not
BlueGrid Media — Angi vs Thumbtack vs HomeAdvisorCredit-based; high-value leads $150+; credits expire 3 months
Hook Agency — Bark Reviews For ContractorsSubscription, not per-lead; advertising package starts at $499/mo
Capterra — Houzz Pro PricingThe number that matters is not cost-per-lead. It's cost-per-booked-job. And that number depends almost entirely on close rate.
Industry-aggregate close-rate data, compiled from contractor-marketing analyses across HVAC, roofing, and remodeling:
Consistent figure across dozens of contractors interviewed
Minyona — Angi vs Thumbtack vs ExclusiveMarginally higher because contractors choose which leads to pursue
Minyona — Exclusive vs SharedCompeting simultaneously with 3–5 other contractors
BaaDigi — Shared vs Exclusive Roofing LeadsSole point of contact; same homeowner intent
Bullseye Internet — HVAC Pay Per Lead GuideThere are real, narrow use cases where Angi, Thumbtack, or Bark make sense for a service business. We see them work in three situations:
Once you have a measurable customer-acquisition cost (CAC) from any other channel — Google LSA, organic referrals, a fleet-wrapped service truck running a tracked phone number — the marketplace economics usually invert.
Walk the math on a $65 shared HVAC lead at a 7% close rate: that's ~$929 cost-per-booked-job before the annual fee. Compare to an exclusive lead at $80 closing at 45% — ~$178 cost-per-booked-job. The shared lead is 5x more expensive per won customer despite being cheaper per lead.
The structural problem is that you cannot compete your way out of the close-rate gap. The platform is designed to sell the lead to your competitors at the same instant. Speed-to-lead helps at the margin but does not change the architecture: you are paying full price for a quarter of the shot.
Mature shops with a tracked CAC almost always discover that marketplace spend is the worst channel in their mix per booked-job. They don't always cut it — they just cap it at a slow-season fill-in budget and run real channels for primary acquisition.
Platforms compared on the four numbers operators actually care about: per-lead cost, exclusivity, typical close rate, and fee structure beyond per-lead spend.
| Platform | Cost per lead / unit | Exclusive? | Typical close rate | Other fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Angi (Ads & Leads) | $15–$100+ | No — sold to 3–8 pros | ~5–8% | ~$300/yr membership |
| Thumbtack | $10–$200 (commonly $35–$60) | No — multiple pros can message | ~10% | No subscription; pay-per-contact |
| HomeAdvisor (Angi Leads) | $15–$85 | No — sold to 3–8 pros | ~5–10% | ~$288–$300/yr; charged on transmit, not on reply |
| Bark | $5–$36+ ($150+ on high-value) | No — any pro with credits can claim | Reported widely variable | Credits expire after 3 months (Nov 2025 change) |
| Houzz Pro | $249–$499/mo subscription | Flat-rate; not per-lead | Not publicly disclosed | $60/mo per additional seat |
| WilDi Maps CPVD | $0.20 per verified delivery | Yes — corridor leased; no auction | Not a lead model — direct device delivery | $50/mo subscription, no per-lead fee |
Lead marketplaces are a tool, not a strategy. Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, Bark, and Houzz all run real businesses that connect real homeowners to real contractors — they're not scams. The honest gripe is the architecture: you are paying full price for fractional exclusivity. The platform's profit-maximizing move is to sell each lead more times, not fewer.
If you have no other channel running, start there. Get cash flowing while you build something durable. But the goal should be to make marketplace leads a shrinking percentage of your booked jobs over six months, not a growing one.
WilDi Maps' Cost Per Verified Delivery (CPVD) sits in a different architecture entirely: $0.20 per GPS-verified delivery to a real driver moving through a corridor you've leased. No auction, no shared-lead split, no Middleman Tax. For service businesses with a measurable CAC who've outgrown the marketplace tap, that's the math that pencils.
For the underlying breakdown of where ad-tech revenue gets siphoned in the marketplace model, see What is the Middleman Tax?
The product
WilDi Maps is not a single flat-rate product. You pick the tier that matches how local you need to be. All three are GPS-verified per claim — no auction, no exchange rake, no Middleman Tax.
1-mile road strip
Premium
Hyper-local, just-in-time
Lease a one-mile stretch. When a driver enters the strip, they get a just-in-time message — perfect for emergency services, on-route specials, and anything where being right there now beats brand awareness later.
Best for
1-square-mile area
Premium
Hyper-local, area-based
Lease a one-square-mile block — not tied to a single road. Catches the residential cluster, retail district, or industrial park where your work actually lives. Same just-in-time delivery as tunnels; different geometry.
Best for
City-wide rotation
$0.20
per claim, fixed
City-wide brand presence on rotation. Highest reach for the budget — best when familiarity beats precision. The $0.20 fixed rate is the only flat-rate tier WilDi sells.
Best for
What the driver gets when an ad is claimed
If the driver wants to act on the ad, the app navigates them straight to the advertiser's location.
Click-through to any URL — ordering page, brand site, blog post, lead form.
Open a specific page inside the WilDi app — promo details, daily specials, claim instructions.
See the full pricing breakdown on the pricing page.
Angi (and the rebranded HomeAdvisor / Angi Leads product) charges roughly $15–$85 per shared lead, with high-value trades like HVAC and roofing pushing $65–$100+ in major metros. There's also an annual membership fee of around $300. Each lead is typically distributed to three to eight pros simultaneously, so the per-booked-job cost is much higher than the per-lead price suggests — contractor surveys frequently report effective customer-acquisition costs over $1,400 once close-rate is factored in.
It depends on volume needs and how you spend. Thumbtack uses contractor-initiated, pay-per-contact pricing with no subscription — pros set their own max bid, lead costs commonly fall in the $35–$60 range, and you only pay when you message the homeowner. HomeAdvisor (Angi Leads) charges per lead transmitted, whether the homeowner ever responds or not, plus a ~$300/yr membership. Thumbtack tends to have a slightly better cost-per-booked-job for contractors who carefully select which leads to pursue. HomeAdvisor delivers higher lead volume in most markets.
When the same homeowner request is sold to three to eight contractors at once, you're competing for the same job at the same instant — typically on speed-to-lead and price. Industry-aggregate data shows shared HVAC leads close at roughly 10–20%, with Angi and HomeAdvisor specifically reporting close rates around 5–10%. Exclusive leads — where you are the sole point of contact — close at 40–60% in the same trades. The gap is structural, not a tuning problem; you cannot speed-to-lead your way out of being one of five contractors calling the same homeowner.
For an HVAC shop with no other marketing channel running, yes — at least temporarily. A $65 shared HVAC lead at a 7% close rate works out to roughly $929 per booked job, which is rough but is still better than zero leads. For an HVAC shop with a tracked CAC from Google LSA, paid search, fleet branding, or referrals, marketplace economics almost always lose: an exclusive lead at $80 closing at 45% costs about $178 per booked job — five times cheaper. Most mature HVAC operators we work with cap marketplace spend at a slow-season fill-in budget rather than running it as a primary channel.
Three alternatives produce a better cost-per-booked-job at scale: (1) Google Local Service Ads (LSA), which pre-screens you and ranks on review volume — pay-per-lead but exclusive contact; (2) tracked organic / referral pipelines built on a service-area-business website with consistent review velocity; and (3) GPS-verified delivery channels like WilDi Maps' CPVD, which charges $0.20 per delivery to a real driver in a corridor you lease — no auction, no shared-lead split, no annual fee. The right mix depends on your trade, your market, and your existing channel maturity.
Cost Per Verified Delivery (CPVD) is the pricing model WilDi Maps runs: $0.20 each time your message is delivered to a real phone moving through a corridor you've leased. The delivery is GPS-verified at the device level, not inferred from a third-party bid stream and not shared with three other contractors. There's no auction, no exchange rake, no annual membership, no per-lead fee on top of subscription — just a $50/month subscription and $0.20 per verified delivery. It is a different architecture from the lead-marketplace model, not a tuning of it.
About this analysis
Written by Timm Ross, founder of WilDi Maps · Jacksonville-based · Veteran-owned. Sources cited inline; numbers updated as the underlying research updates.
More about WilDi MapsFixed $0.20 per GPS-verified delivery. No auction, no exchange rake, no Middleman Tax.
