How to sell · 5 of 5
Angi and Thumbtack Cost Per Lead
Checked · 5 min read
Written by Mateusz Cieśliński · Creator of LeadScanner
In short
Angi and Thumbtack sell a request to several contractors, so the contact price is not the cost of a booked job. Compare sources by dividing total spend by jobs won. Public Facebook, Reddit, and X requests are never resold, but they still need to be found, qualified, and answered quickly.
What local lead marketplaces charge
Angi Leads combines access charges with per-lead charges. Lead Truffle’s contractor-report roundup from 3 February 2026 says most contractors pay about $300 a year for access, then about $15 to $85 for a typical lead. Charges of $100 or more per lead are common in high-competition trades. The same report says contracts usually run for 12 months, renew automatically, and that cancelling early costs 30–35% of the remaining value.
For Thumbtack, PipelineOn reported on 21 May 2026 that leads range from $8 to $150 or more, with most home-service trades at $25 to $75. Its reported ranges were $30 to $65 for plumbing repair, $35 to $75 for HVAC repair, and $40 to $90 for roofing repair, with reported high ends of $95, $110, and $130. Google Local Services Ads use per-lead billing: The Valley Marketing Group, citing SearchLight Digital data on 5 August 2026, reported a $53 average from $6.72 million in spend across 888 contractors and 126,650 leads.
Angi typically sells each lead to this many contractors at the same time.
Lead Truffle, 3 February 2026What the price list leaves out
Shared requests create a race for the first useful response. A 2026 Management Science study of 11.6 million buyer-seller interactions on Fiverr found that a one-hour delay in a seller’s reply lowered the chance of being chosen by 46%, while a one-day delay lowered it by 90%. PipelineOn reported in May 2026 that 78% of homeowners on Thumbtack go with the first contractor who responds.
Contractor complaints describe the pressure behind those figures. Thumbtack’s Trustpilot page had a TrustScore of 2.1 out of 5 from 6,611 reviews when read on 11 September 2026. One contractor wrote on 1 September 2026, “they sell leads to 4 professionals for one lead and charge 80+ dollars to each of them then the homeowner pays nothing”; another wrote on 9 September 2026, “Charging me $100 for a job that I can only charge max $250”. These are contractor statements, not independent pricing research. Google Local Services Ads allows disputes for bogus-lead credits, but The Valley Marketing Group says the process takes effort and not every invalid lead is credited.
The lead nobody paid for
A homeowner can request a plumber in a public Facebook group, a Reddit thread, or on X before entering a marketplace form. The post is visible to the community and is never resold as a contact to several contractors. Nobody bought that request, and nobody split it between five shops.
Public posts still take work. They must be found among ordinary discussion, separated from a tradesperson’s advertisement, and answered while the request is current. LeadScanner reads public Facebook groups and pages, all of Reddit or chosen subreddits, and X for posts asking for a tradesperson, contractor, or service; the customer never gives LeadScanner an account.
Finding real requests without keyword noise
Keyword matching alone can mistake contractor advertising for buyer demand. In a measurement by LeadScanner on 10 September 2026 using 76 hand-labelled posts from Reddit and X search results, keyword matching flagged 21 posts and found 2 buyers. Twelve false alarms were tradespeople advertising, producing 10% precision.
AI qualification flagged 18 posts, of which 15 were buyers, for 83% precision; it found 15 of the 16 buyers in the hand-labelled set. For a contractor weighing alternatives to Thumbtack, that is the difference between a feed of requests and a feed of other contractors' adverts. LeadScanner drafts a reply for each qualifying lead but never posts it: the customer copies the draft and posts from their own account, because communities can lose trust when bots answer on people’s behalf.
Compare sources by jobs won
Across these sources, the comparable measure is total source spend divided by jobs won from that source. Dividing by contacts received measures activity rather than acquisition outcome. Record marketplace access charges, paid contact charges, and the time assigned to finding and handling public posts, then compare each source over the same period.
LeadScanner bills by scans of sources rather than by a promised lead count. A scan of one source uses 1 point, while a scan that includes AI qualification uses 2 points; the panel shows the points used and leads returned for each source. It does not promise a number of leads per scan, and current plan prices are on the pricing page.
Questions that come with it
How much does Thumbtack charge?
PipelineOn reported on 21 May 2026 that Thumbtack charges from $8 to $150 or more per lead, with most home-service trades at $25 to $75. Its reported plumbing repair range was $30 to $65, while roofing repair was $40 to $90. Each request is shared with 4–5 other pros.
What does “Angi leads cost” include for contractors?
Lead Truffle’s contractor-report roundup on 3 February 2026 says most contractors pay about $300 a year for access plus about $15 to $85 per typical lead. It reports $100 or more per lead as common in high-competition trades. Angi typically sells each lead to 3–8 contractors.
Are marketplace leads shared with other contractors?
Lead Truffle reports that Angi usually sells a request to 3–8 contractors. PipelineOn reports that Thumbtack shares each lead with 4–5 other pros. In Lead Truffle’s example, an $80 roofing lead sent to 5 roofers produces $400 in payments across those contractors.
Are public group posts free leads for contractors?
The post itself is public and is never resold to contractors. A contractor still has to find the request, distinguish it from advertising, and respond promptly. LeadScanner scans public sources and drafts a response, while the customer posts it from their own account.
How to get plumbing leads and how to get roofing leads from public posts?
Search public Facebook groups and pages, Reddit, and X for posts where people request a tradesperson, contractor, or service. LeadScanner can scan those sources and use AI qualification to reduce advertising-related false alarms. Measure the result by source spending divided by jobs won, rather than contacts received.
A shared marketplace contact is an entry fee rather than the cost of a job. The useful measure is total spending on that source divided by jobs won from it. Public group requests are never resold; the work is finding genuine posts and replying from your own account.
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About the author
Mateusz Cieśliński · Creator of LeadScanner
A software engineer, graduate of Lodz University of Technology, who builds AI-based systems for a living. LeadScanner grew out of his own work: before it was a product, he was fishing for enquiries in public Facebook groups himself, by hand, every morning, for years — and the measurements in the guides here, dates attached, are his.