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

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

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

Cost per booked job = cost per lead ÷ close rate

The ranking

Source	Typical CPL	Exclusive?	Realistic close	Cost per booked job
Referrals / past customers	$0–$200	Yes	35–50%	$0–$570
Your own SEO / organic	Time + content	Yes	20–35%	Low, slow to build
Google Local Service Ads	$60–$120	Effectively	15–25%	~$240–$800
Exclusive remodeling leads	$100–$300	Yes	25–35%	~$300–$1,200
Houzz Pro	$65–$399/mo + leads	Mixed	10–20%	Varies with volume
Thumbtack	$20–$80	Shared	8–15%	~$130–$1,000
Angi / HomeAdvisor	$25–$100 + ~$300/yr	Shared, often 3–8 ways	7–15%	~$330–$1,400+

The cheap lead is the expensive one. A $50 shared lead closing 8% costs $625 per booked job. A $250 exclusive lead closing 30% costs $833 — nominally more, but it consumes far less estimator time per job won, and estimator time is the binding constraint in most remodeling shops.

These CPL ranges are compiled from published vendor pricing and industry write-ups and are directional only. There is no audited public dataset of remodeling lead costs, and most published figures originate with companies that sell leads.

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 conversion rate a vendor quotes you is the least reliable number in the transaction.

The best row in this file is not a homeowner

A homeowner who pulled a remodel permit has already hired a contractor. That job is gone, and any vendor selling it otherwise is overselling.

But remodeling permits are different from every other category we hold, because of what happens next on that job.

A remodel or addition permit names a general contractor who is about to need:

• electrical rough-in and finish
• plumbing
• HVAC modification
• drywall, then paint
• flooring, cabinetry, trim

For any of those trades, the permit is not a homeowner lead. It is a B2B introduction to the person doing the hiring, on a job that is already funded, permitted and scheduled — three qualifications a homeowner form-fill never has.

That is the single most under-used thing in this dataset. A subcontractor working a list of 14,789 active remodels is having a completely different conversation from one buying $80 shared homeowner leads, and almost nobody does it.

If you ARE the general contractor, the value is competitive rather than prospecting: who is taking remodel volume in your market, on what scope, and where. The permit usually appears at or after the point your work was awarded, so it will not find you the next job — it will tell you who is winning the ones you did not bid.

How a subcontractor actually works this list

The B2B angle only pays if you know what to do with it, so here is the concrete version.

Time it to the trade sequence. A permit is pulled before work starts, which means the trades are hired in order over the following weeks. Rough-in electrical and plumbing go early; drywall, paint, flooring and finish go late. A permit dated this week is a demolition-and-rough-in conversation. The same permit is a paint and flooring conversation two months later. Calling every permit on the day it appears wastes three-quarters of them.

Call the contractor, not the address. The homeowner already chose their GC and has no reason to talk to you. The GC has a schedule with holes in it and is actively deciding who fills them. That is the whole difference between this and a homeowner lead list.

Lead with capacity, not price. The question a GC actually has is "can you be there in week six?" Most subs open with a rate. The ones who open with availability and a reference on a comparable scope get called back.

Build the relationship on one job, not one call. A GC filing multiple permits a month is worth pursuing for a year, not a week. Sort your list by repeat contractor, not by permit date — the file supports that and almost nobody does it.

What does not work: blasting every permit with a generic introduction. GCs get those constantly and they read as spam because they are. A specific message — this job, this scope, this window — is a different thing entirely, and permit data is the only place the specifics come from.

What we actually have

14,789 remodeling and addition permits across 335 cities in the last 30 days — just behind roofing (16,840) over the same window: 335 cities to roofing's 349.

Metro	Remodel permits (30d)	With a contractor name
Columbus, OH	1,424	1,306
Miami, FL	1,002	976
New York City, NY	713	713
Baltimore, MD	461	113
Philadelphia, PA	455	455
San Jose, CA	426	425

Contractor-name coverage overall is 50% (7,369 of 14,789). The gap is honest: many permit offices do not publish a contractor at all. Portland, for example, files over 800 remodel permits a month and names the contractor on none of them — which is why it is not in the table above, despite the volume.

We would rather show you the real ratio, and tell you which cities are blank, than quietly drop the rows that lack a name and quote you a prettier percentage.

Check your metro on the city list before subscribing.

What kind of remodel, specifically

"Remodeling leads" is one keyword covering several different businesses. Here is what the last 30 days of descriptions actually contain:

Scope mentioned in the description	Permits (30d)
Bathroom	1,969
Kitchen	1,766
Garage	348
Basement	222
ADU / accessory dwelling	136

Two things worth reading off that table.

Bathroom outnumbers kitchen. Kitchen remodels get the marketing attention and the higher ticket, but bath work is filed more often — smaller jobs, more of them, and a shorter sales cycle. If you are a plumber or a tile sub, the bath column is your list and it is the bigger one.

These are floors, not totals. They count permits whose description text names the scope, and plenty of permits say only "interior renovation". So 2,903 is the number of bathroom jobs we can positively identify, not the number that exist. We would rather quote the identifiable figure than inflate it with a guess about the unlabelled remainder — which is the same reason the contractor-name rate below is 51% and not a rounder, friendlier number.

The honest summary

• Subcontractors — electrical, plumbing, HVAC, drywall, paint, flooring, finish: this is the strongest use of permit data we have. 14,789 funded, permitted, scheduled jobs, over half naming the contractor who will hire you.
• General contractors: competitive intelligence, not prospecting. The permit lands after award.
• Nobody: a list of homeowners waiting for a remodeling quote. That is not what this is.

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Related: Contractor leads, all trades ranked · HVAC · Roofing · How to research a project