How Shared Lead Pricing Actually Works

Contractors search for marketplace pricing constantly, and almost every page that answers them prints a confident dollar range with no source behind it. This one does not, because there is no published benchmark dataset of marketplace lead prices and manufacturing one would defeat the purpose. What can be established is how each model bills, what the regulatory record actually says, and the arithmetic that turns a lead price into the number your business runs on.

An enquiry sold to more than one contractor at the same time. The homeowner submits one request; the marketplace bills several businesses for access to it; each of you calls the same person within minutes of the others. You are not buying a job, you are buying a place in a race, and the entry fee is charged whether or not you win.

Because you pay for every lead and win only some of them. Your true acquisition cost is the lead price divided by your win rate — at 18%, roughly five and a half leads per booked job. The invoice shows the numerator. Your P&L feels the quotient, and the gap between the two is where most marketplace disappointment actually lives.

The pro sets the price. Thumbtack's own pro documentation states that you choose how competitive you want to be by setting your lead prices, that this is the exact amount you pay for each lead, and that prices vary with job type, job size, how many pros are available, and your market. That is a materially different mechanism from a marketplace that prices for you.

• On Thumbtack you pay for leads — customers who reach out to you directly - Thumbtack Pro Help Centre.
• The pro sets their own lead prices, and that is the exact amount charged per lead - Thumbtack Pro Help Centre.
• Prices vary based on job type and size, pro availability, and market - Thumbtack Pro Help Centre.
• When a customer reaches out directly and the job matches your preferences, the lead is auto-paid - Thumbtack Pro Help Centre.
• Opportunities, also called open leads, show prices upfront and are only charged if the customer responds to you - Thumbtack Pro Help Centre.
• Payment history records what was paid for every lead and opportunity - Thumbtack Pro Help Centre.

That the claims made to contractors about lead quality and source were the subject of federal enforcement. The FTC charged HomeAdvisor, Inc. in March 2022 with making false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims to service providers since at least mid-2014, and a January 2023 order required the company to pay up to $7.2 million and stop the conduct.

• March 2022: the FTC filed an administrative complaint alleging false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims to service providers about lead quality and source dating to at least mid-2014 - FTC.
• January 2023: an FTC order required HomeAdvisor, Inc. to pay up to $7.2 million and stop deceptively marketing its leads - FTC.
• The FTC's filings identify HomeAdvisor, Inc. as doing business as Angi Leads and HomeAdvisor Powered by Angi - FTC.
• November 2023: the FTC announced it was returning more than $3 million to businesses that paid for HomeAdvisor memberships, issuing 110,372 checks - FTC.

Nobody credibly knows, and that is the honest answer. Marketplace pricing moves with trade, job size, market and platform, at least one major platform lets the pro set the number, and no benchmark study publishes it. Every widely-circulated range traces back to agency blogs and forum threads rather than a dataset with a sample size attached.

This side is genuinely benchmarked. WordStream/LocaliQ's Facebook benchmark, across 726 US lead campaigns running April 2024 to June 2025, put Home & Home Improvement at $41.26 per lead against a $27.66 all-industry median. Their 2026 Google Ads benchmark, across 13,474 campaigns, put the same industry at $90.92 per lead.

Usually the exclusive channel, because exclusivity raises the close rate rather than lowering the lead price. SearchLight's February 2026 benchmark put Local Services Ads at $233 per paying customer against $472 for Google Ads across the same dataset. A marketplace lead that looks half the price of an LSA lead is not half the price of a customer.

A little, and less than contractors hope. Every marketplace has a dispute process and none of them refund everything. Build the recovery you actually achieve into your effective lead price rather than the rate-card price — if one lead in ten is successfully disputed, your real cost per lead is about 10% below the sticker, not zero.

Not as a first move. They are a rented pipeline with a genuine cost of exit, and switching off before an owned channel produces leaves you with no lead flow at all. Run the arithmetic, cap marketplace spend at the volume that clears your break-even win rate, and move the surplus into a channel whose audience you keep.

• Work out your break-even win rate: lead price divided by gross profit per job. Below it, every job you win loses money.
• Split win rate by source before using it — blending referrals into the average is the most common way this analysis goes wrong.
• Cap marketplace volume rather than cancelling it, so you keep lead flow while an owned channel ramps.
• Track cost per booked job on both sides, never cost per lead. The channels are not comparable on cost per lead.
• Count what you keep: marketplace spend builds the marketplace's brand and audience, owned spend builds yours.