Home Lead Supply vs Angi Leads: What the Two Models Actually Cost You

A contractor asking whether Angi Leads is worth it usually wants two things Angi does not put on one page: how many other companies get the same homeowner, and what happens to the money when none of you win the job. Angi publishes both answers. They sit in four different documents, so this article quotes them and links each one.

What happened to CraftJack?

Looking up CraftJack? It's Angi Leads now. Same shared-lead model: one homeowner's info goes out to several pros at once, and you race to the phone. If you're comparing CraftJack, you're comparing Angi Leads, and this page is that comparison.

Is HomeAdvisor the same thing as Angi Leads?

Yes. Different logo, same lead sold to up to four pros. If you've been burned by HomeAdvisor leads, that wasn't bad luck. It's how shared leads work: whoever dials first wins, and everyone else paid for a homeowner who'd already picked someone.

Home Lead Supply leads are exclusive. One lead, one contractor, one trade, and qualified before it reaches you. We never sell it twice.

How many pros get the same Angi lead?

Angi's help centre states it plainly: "Each time a homeowner submits a project request, we will match them with no more than five pros." A second answer on the same page says, "We will match a homeowner with up to five pros. The faster you respond, the better your chance of winning the job." Both are in Angi's Opportunities and Leads FAQ.

The Angi Pro Agreement says the same thing in the contract you sign: "We have competition limits on our service requests, but we may send a lead to multiple pros, based on the homeowner's choice." Elsewhere in that agreement: "frequently a Lead is sent to several other Approved Pros, including to contractors that use Angi Services".

One thing worth reading side by side. The number five is published in the pro-facing help centre. The homeowner-facing Angi Project Submission Customer Agreement, which is the document the homeowner accepts, says the homeowner consents to "calls from Service Providers that can help you with your request" and names no number at all. Both are Angi documents. We are not suggesting anything by that; a contractor comparing suppliers should simply know that the cap is a commitment Angi makes to pros, not a number the homeowner has agreed to.

HomeAdvisor tells homeowners up front they'll hear from up to four pros. So when you call, you're one of four, and the fastest dialer usually wins, not the best contractor.

Do you pay for an Angi lead you do not win?

The Pro Agreement puts this in its own opening questions, and the answer is unambiguous:

That is normal for pay per lead. Every supplier charges for leads, not for jobs, and any supplier claiming otherwise is selling something else. What matters is what else the agreement says around it. The same document states that Angi makes no warranties about its services, "including how many leads you will receive or how many jobs you will win", and that estimates given during onboarding are an estimate only.

Angi's help centre adds one detail that is easy to miss when you are planning capacity: "You are charged for leads whether or not you open or respond to them."

What does the Angi commitment look like?

Angi sells two ways: per lead, and as a subscription. The subscription terms in the Pro Agreement are worth reading before signing, because they are the part a contractor cannot change later.

• It renews by itself. Angi describes it as "an automatically renewing, fixed term commitment". You can stop a renewal by giving notice before the new term starts.
• The price can rise on renewal. "Angi may increase the Subscription Fee up to ten percent (10%) more than the price you paid during the previous term for the Subscription."
• Leaving early can cost extra. The agreement defines an Early Termination Fee and says it "covers the administrative costs of your onboarding and early termination". The amount is not in the agreement: "The existence and the terms of any ETF will be disclosed and agreed to in the Approved Pro's Contract." So the figure is in the contract you sign at onboarding, not on the public page.
• Cancelling is a phone call. "You may cancel your account by contacting Customer Care at (877) 947-3639, and, where applicable, paying the ETF."
• Billing disputes have a short window. Charges must be disputed within 30 days of being incurred, and the agreement says disputes not raised in that window are waived.

There is also a trap worth naming because it catches people who thought the subscription was the safer option. Angi's help centre lists the conditions for a lead credit, and one of them is that "You do not have an annual subscription." The same page states: "If you have an annual subscription, you can report leads, but credits are not offered for those leads." That is in How to Request a Lead Credit. A contractor on a subscription can report a bad lead but does not get credited for it.

When will Angi not credit a lead?

This is the single most useful page Angi publishes, because it draws the line between a problem they will fix and a problem that is yours. The lead credit guidelines list situations that are not eligible for a credit, including:

• "Consumer is not calling you back"
• "Consumer already found someone to complete the work"
• "Consumer changed their mind"
• "Consumer is just 'shopping'"
• "You did not win the job"
• "You contact us more than 30 days past the date on which the lead was received"

And on what a credit is: "Credits will be issued as store credits, which will be applied toward future charges to your account. Credits will expire, if not used, six months after the date the Credit was issued."

Read those two lists together and the shape of the product is clear. Angi stands behind the data being real. It does not stand behind the homeowner being reachable, decided, or yours. That is a defensible place to draw the line and most suppliers draw it in roughly the same place. It is also the line most contractors assume is somewhere else.

One more thing to be aware of if you ever need to use this process. The guidelines on Angi's pro site say you lose eligibility if you contact them "more than 30 days past the date on which the lead was received". Angi's help centre article on requesting a credit says "The lead must be less than 45 days old." Those are two Angi documents giving two deadlines. Work to the shorter one.

What did the FTC find?

In January 2023 the Federal Trade Commission issued an order requiring HomeAdvisor, which the FTC describes as affiliated with Angi, to pay up to $7.2 million and to stop deceptively marketing its leads. The FTC's complaint alleged that HomeAdvisor made false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of the leads it sold, including representing that pros would only receive leads matching their services and preferred geography when many did not, and telling pros its leads result in jobs at rates it could not substantiate. The same FTC release records that pros joining the network "generally pay an annual membership fee of $287.99, in addition to a separate fee for each lead they receive."

The source is the FTC's own press release. We are reporting a regulator's action, not characterising a company. The order is from 2023 and Angi's current documents, quoted above, are what govern a contract signed today. The reason it belongs in a comparison is narrower than it looks: it is a reminder that the claims worth relying on are the ones written into an agreement, not the ones made on a sales call.

Angi alternatives for contractors

If you are looking for Angi alternatives, the useful split is not by company name, it is by what you are buying. There are two products in this market and most of the names belong to the first.

• Shared leads. The same homeowner goes to several companies and you pay whether or not you win. Angi, HomeAdvisor and Networx all publish how many. The economics turn on your close rate against three or four other callers.
• Exclusive leads. The lead is sold once and never resold, so the only question is whether it fits what you sell. You pay more per lead and compete with nobody for the call.

Work out which one your margin can carry before you compare brands, because a cheaper shared lead and a dearer exclusive one are not the same thing bought at different prices. Our head to head comparisons cover Networx, Modernize and Thumbtack, each quoting that company's own published terms.

How Home Lead Supply is different

Three differences, and they are the only three we would argue about.

One contractor per lead. We run our own homeowner advertising and send each qualified lead to one contractor. The same homeowner is not sold to your competitor. That is the whole premise, and the trade is that an exclusive lead costs more per lead than a competed one. Whether it is worth the difference is arithmetic you can do with your own close rate, and we have written that arithmetic out in exclusive leads versus shared leads.

You set what counts as a lead. Our base standard is the same for everybody: the person is the homeowner or an authorized decision-maker, a name and phone number are provided in a valid format with consent to be contacted, and the lead is not a duplicate within 60 days. Everything beyond that is yours. Your service area, whether you want replacement only, a minimum project size, anything else that decides whether a job is worth your truck. If a lead misses the criteria in your order, it does not count toward your order, and another qualified lead takes its place.

No subscription, no retainer, no renewal. You buy a set number of leads at a price fixed for that order. When the order is finished you decide whether to place another. There is nothing to cancel.

What Home Lead Supply does not do

The honest half of a comparison, and the part a large network has more trouble writing.

• We do not confirm that a phone number is live or that a person is who they say they are. We check that the contact details are in a valid format and that consent was given. That is a format check, not identity or contact verification, and we will not describe it as more than that.
• We do not book appointments. You get the homeowner's details and you make the call.
• We do not publish a price list. A price quoted before we know your trade, your service area, your criteria and your order size is a guess. Our pricing page explains how the number is arrived at instead of inventing one.
• We do not promise a reply time, a close rate or revenue. We have no close rate to show you and we are not going to produce one. Any supplier's conversion figure that you cannot audit should be treated as marketing.
• We are not an agency. We do not run your ad accounts or manage your marketing.

Which should you choose?

Angi is a reasonable choice if you have real homeowner volume to work, an inside sales team that answers in seconds, enough margin to absorb the leads you do not win, and you would rather have more conversations than better ones. At its scale, nothing else puts that many homeowner projects in front of you.

Home Lead Supply is the better fit if your sales team is small and its hours are the constraint, you sell on the quality of the consultation rather than on being first to dial, and you want to decide what a lead has to look like before you pay for it.

Either way, judge it the same way: tag the source in your CRM, run it for a full sales cycle, and compare cost per sold job rather than price per lead. The method is in how much contractors should pay for qualified leads.

To see what exclusive leads would look like in your service area, tell us your trade, your service area and the jobs you want through the contractor application, or read how it works first.

If you are already buying and the leads are not working out, how to stop paying for bad leads sets out which failures these policies cover, which they refuse, and the five questions worth asking any supplier before the next order.