Contractor Leads: Every Source Ranked by Real Cost Per Booked Job (2026)

The advertised cost per lead is the wrong number. Every lead vendor markets a per-lead price. Almost none of them market the two numbers that decide whether you make money: how many other contractors got the same lead, and what share of those leads you actually close.

Cost per booked job is the only number that matters:

Cost per booked job = cost per lead ÷ close rate

Run that on the real ranges and the ranking inverts. Here it is.

The ranking

Source	Typical CPL	Exclusive?	Realistic close	Cost per booked job
Referrals / past customers	$0–$150	Yes	40–50%	$0–$300
Your own SEO / organic	Time + content	Yes	25–40%	Low, slow to build
Google Local Service Ads	$50–$120	Effectively	15–25%	~$200–$800
Exclusive purchased leads	$100–$250	Yes	25–35%	~$300–$1,000
Thumbtack	$20–$80	Shared	10–15%	~$130–$800
CraftJack	$20–$75	Shared (fewer)	10–15%	~$130–$750
Modernize / Networx	$35–$120	Shared	10–15%	~$230–$1,200
Angi / HomeAdvisor	$15–$100 + ~$300/yr	Shared, often 3–8 ways	7–15%	~$300–$1,400+

The cheap lead is the expensive one. An $85 shared lead sold four ways, closing 10%, costs $850 per booked job. A $220 exclusive lead closing 30% costs $733. The $85 lead is 16% more expensive per job — and that is before you count the hours your team spends racing three competitors to the phone.

These CPL ranges are compiled from published vendor pricing and industry write-ups and are directional only. There is no audited public dataset of contractor lead costs, and most published figures originate with companies that sell leads. Treat any precise-looking number in this category — including a vendor's quoted close rate — as marketing until someone shows you the methodology.

The regulator has already examined these claims

In March 2022 the FTC filed an administrative complaint alleging that since at least mid-2014 HomeAdvisor made false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of the leads it sold — including telling providers that leads converted into jobs at rates it could not substantiate, and selling leads that did not match the services or geography the provider signed up for.

HomeAdvisor agreed to an order requiring payment of up to $7.2 million. The FTC approved the final consent order in April 2023 and began returning money to affected businesses that November.

Primary sources: the $7.2M order · final order · case file.

The lesson is not "never buy leads." It is that the conversion rate a vendor quotes you is the least reliable number in the transaction — and a federal regulator has now said so on the record.

The source nobody prices: permits

Here is the part most vendors get wrong on purpose.

A homeowner who has pulled a permit has already hired a contractor for that job. It is gone. Any vendor selling permit data as "homeowners waiting for your quote" is overselling, and you should discount everything else they tell you.

There are two catches and we would rather state them than have you find them after paying:

1. The job on the permit is sold. The value is territory, competitive intelligence and subcontract work — not an unsold homeowner.
2. Phone coverage is partial and varies by city, because many permit offices publish a business name and job address without a phone.

What permit data is the best available source for:

1. Territory that is actually active

Permits are the only public record of construction that is happening right now, with street addresses. A canvassing route built on active permits beats one built on demographics, because the demographic list tells you who could buy and the permit list tells you where work is already underway.

2. Competitive intelligence

55,374 distinct contractors pulled a permit in the last 30 days. You can see who is taking volume in your zips, in which categories, and what they declare per job. This is the only file in the trades where you can watch your competitors' activity while they cannot watch yours — and almost nobody looks at it.

3. Subcontract work

This is the most under-used row in the file. General construction is our largest category at 69,206 permits in 30 days, and each one names a general contractor running a job that needs trades. For a sub, that is a B2B introduction — a relationship worth many jobs — rather than a homeowner cold call.

What we actually have

Category	Permits, last 30 days
General Construction	69,206
HVAC	47,371
Electrical	40,220
Plumbing	35,461
Roofing	16,840
New Construction	10,874
Landscaping & Exterior	9,123
Interior Renovation	8,677
Addition	6,203

290,045 permits across 587 cities in the last 30 days. 155,103 carry a contractor name — 53%, and the gap is honest: many permit offices simply do not publish one, and we would rather show you the real ratio than quietly drop the rows that lack it.

Coverage varies by city because permit offices vary. Some publish daily with full contractor detail; some publish weekly with an address and nothing else; some publish nothing usable at all. Check your metro on the city list before you subscribe — that page is free and it will tell you what your market actually looks like.

Five questions that expose a lead vendor

Every one of these comes directly from what the FTC alleged HomeAdvisor got wrong. Ask them before you sign, and write the answers down.

1. "How many contractors receive this same lead?" If the answer is a range, or "it depends", assume the top of the range. Your cost per booked job scales directly with this number and nothing else in the pitch matters more.
2. "What close rate are you quoting, and how did you measure it?" The FTC's complaint was specifically about conversion claims the seller could not substantiate. A vendor who cannot describe the measurement is quoting marketing.
3. "Does the lead match the services and geography I signed up for?" Also directly from the complaint — selling leads outside the provider's stated service area and trade was part of the alleged conduct. Ask what happens, in writing, when it does not match.
4. "What is your refund process for a bad lead, and what percentage of leads get refunded?" The second number is the honest one. A vendor with a generous policy and no data on how often it is used is telling you the policy is hard to invoke.
5. "What am I actually buying — an introduction, or a record?" We will answer this one for ourselves: a record. A permit is a public record of work already sold. Anyone selling you a record while implying it is an introduction is doing the thing the FTC fined.

If a vendor answers all five without hedging, they are probably worth trying. Most will not.

The honest hierarchy

If you are deciding where the next dollar goes, in order of cost per booked job:

1. Referrals and past customers. Cheapest per job, always. Under-invested because it cannot be bought.
2. Your own SEO and Google Local Service Ads. Slow to build, then durable.
3. Exclusive purchased leads. Expensive per lead, defensible per job.
4. Shared marketplace leads. Last, and only with your close rate measured — not the vendor's quoted one.

Territory and competitive data make the cheap end of that list work harder. Knowing which streets have active construction, and which competitors are taking your zips, improves the close rate on leads you are already buying. That is the honest role of permit data: not a replacement for lead generation, but the layer that makes it convert.

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Trade-specific breakdowns: HVAC leads · Roofing leads See your metro: city list · permit leads for contractors

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