I have a rule with every remodeler I work with. The day they sign on, the first thing we do is shut off the HomeAdvisor or Angi spend. Not negotiate it. Not “wind it down.” Off.
That makes some owners nervous. They’ve been spending $1,500 to $4,000 a month on those platforms for years. The leads weren’t great, but at least they were leads. Right?
Wrong. And the longer you spend money there, the more it’s costing you in ways that don’t show up in your bank statement.
I’m not anti-Angi out of principle. I just think most remodeling business owners don’t actually understand the business model they’re paying into. Once you do, the decision to leave gets easier. Let me walk you through what’s really happening with every lead you buy.
The Shared-Lead Model in Plain English
When you buy a lead from HomeAdvisor or Angi, you are not buying an exclusive lead. You are buying a seat on a list. That same homeowner inquiry gets sold to up to four other contractors in your service area, often within seconds of being submitted.
So the moment that homeowner finishes hitting submit on the form, four other remodelers in your zip code get a notification with the same name, same phone number, same project description. The race to call them first is on. And the homeowner answers the third or fourth call thinking, “Wow, these guys are aggressive,” because everyone is calling at once.
The pricing on these leads is set up to make this look reasonable. A kitchen remodel lead might cost you $80 to $120. A whole-home or addition lead can run $200 to $400. You see “$120 lead” and your brain compares it to your average job value of $25,000 and thinks “great deal.” The platform is counting on that comparison.
But the actual cost per signed job is what matters. And shared leads close at miserable rates because every homeowner is talking to four other contractors at the same time. They’re getting bids before you’ve even returned the first call.
The Real Math Most Owners Never Do
Let’s run the numbers on a typical remodeling business buying shared leads:
- 25 leads per month at an average cost of $100 = $2,500 in lead spend
- Of those, you’ll connect with maybe 12 to 15 (the rest go to voicemail, were already booked, or chose another contractor first)
- Of the ones you connect with, you’ll book a consultation with 4 or 5 (the others ghost or are price-shopping)
- Of those consultations, you’ll close 1 or maybe 2
So that $2,500 produced 1 to 2 signed jobs. Best case: $1,250 in lead cost per signed job. Worst case: $2,500.
That’s not the worst part.
The worst part is which jobs close. Shared-lead buyers close on price. The homeowner just got four bids. They picked yours because you came in lowest. So now you’ve spent $2,500 in lead acquisition cost to win a job at 8 to 12 percent below your actual quoted price. You’ve paid to discount your own work.
Compare that to a remodeler running their own Google Ads campaign with proper conversion tracking. They’re spending $2,500 to generate 6 to 10 exclusive leads, talking to homeowners who haven’t called four other contractors, and closing at full price because there’s no live bidding war. Same spend. Different math.
Why the Platform Will Never Fix This for You
Some owners ask me, “Can’t I just upgrade to a higher tier so I get fewer competitors per lead?” You can pay more for “exclusive” leads on some platforms. The exclusivity is real for a few hours, then the platform sells the lead anyway if you don’t book it fast enough. The model is the model. The platform makes more money the more times it can sell the same lead.
The platform isn’t doing this by mistake. The entire reason the business exists is to sell each lead multiple times. Their unit economics depend on it. Asking HomeAdvisor or Angi to stop doing that is like asking a casino to stop offering free drinks.
The other thing nobody talks about: when a lead you bought from one of these platforms turns into a job, the platform now has your customer’s contact information and a record that they hired you. Some of these companies use that data to target the same homeowner for additional services later, often connecting them to your competitors. You paid to acquire a customer who is now in their database, not just yours.
What I Recommend Instead
There are three places I send remodeling owners’ marketing dollars when we shut off the shared-lead spend:
1. Google Local Services Ads (LSAs). This is Google’s pay-per-lead product, and the leads are yours. They’re not shared. The “Google Guaranteed” badge gives you placement above regular Google search results when someone searches for a remodeler in your area. It’s the closest thing to a perfect lead source for local home services. Read the complete guide to Local Services Ads for remodeling contractors for the full setup.
2. Google Search Ads to a real landing page. When someone searches “kitchen remodeler in your city,” your ad shows, they click through to a landing page built to convert (not your homepage), and they fill out a form or call you. You own the lead the moment it comes in. No bidding war. No race to call. Get this right and your cost per booked consultation drops below what you were paying just for unqualified Angi clicks. Here’s why most remodelers’ Google Ads aren’t working and how to fix it.
3. Google Business Profile optimization. Free leads from organic Google searches and Maps. The remodelers who win locally have their profile dialed in (categories, services, photos, posts, reviews surfacing). Most don’t, which means the ones who do show up first when a homeowner searches “best kitchen remodeler near me.” Pair this with a real review-generation system and the compounding starts.
These three sources, run together, replace the entire shared-lead model. The leads cost more per click but close at higher rates and at full price. The math goes from underwater to compounding.
The Question That Settles It
Pull your last 12 months of HomeAdvisor or Angi spend. Add it up.
Now look at the jobs you actually closed from those leads. Total revenue from those signed jobs. Subtract your project costs. What’s left?
That’s what shared leads are actually producing for you.
If you’ve never done this exercise, do it this week. Most remodelers I run through this discover that the platforms are running at a loss for them once they account for the discounted close prices. The “leads” feel productive because the phone is ringing. The bank account tells a different story.
You don’t need more leads. You need a lead source you own, a system that responds fast, and a process that books the consultation before the homeowner has called four other contractors. That’s the actual business you’re trying to build.
If you want a free 30-minute Lead Flow Audit where I’ll walk through your current spend, your current sources, and what it would take to replace the shared-lead model with one you control, you can book one at bad2badass.com. No pitch. Just the numbers and the path.