Angi vs. Thumbtack vs. owning your own demand

How do Angi, HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack charge contractors?

Angi (which owns HomeAdvisor) charges per matched request inside a monthly spend target, plus optional ads and memberships. Thumbtack charges per lead at prices you set. Neither publishes a rate card.

Are Angi and HomeAdvisor the same company?

Yes. Angi Inc. was formed in 2017 by combining IAC’s HomeAdvisor business with Angie’s List, took the Angi name in 2021, and still runs the Angi, Angie’s List, HomeAdvisor and Handy brands. IAC spun it off as an independent company on March 31, 2025 (Angi Inc., Form 10-K, fiscal year 2025). For contractors, HomeAdvisor Pro is now called Angi Leads, and the pro site reads “HomeAdvisor powered by Angi” (Angi Leads Pro help center, seen October 26, 2026). “HomeAdvisor for contractors” today means Angi Leads.

How Angi Leads pricing works

• You pay per matched request. Price depends on project type, size and location. You see current prices after you enroll. You’re charged when a request is sent to you, whether or not you open it, respond or win the job (Angi Leads FAQ and General FAQ, seen October 26, 2026).
• Direct requests cost more. Exact Match, Instant Booking, Instant Connect and Job Opportunity leads cost 1.5 times a Market Match lead (Angi Leads General FAQ, seen October 26, 2026).
• Your monthly spend target is not a hard cap. Angi calls it an estimated monthly budget (Angi Leads FAQ).
• Memberships are annual and auto-renew. You can cancel any time, but the membership runs to the end of the paid term (Angi Leads Membership FAQ). Angi doesn’t publish the fee, so get it in writing before you sign.
• Ads are separate. Pros can pay to advertise on Angi, and Angi’s annual report lists advertising contracts, memberships, leads within a monthly budget, discounted leads in a subscription and pre-priced services as different ways pros pay (Angi FAQ, November 2023; Angi Inc. 10-K, FY2025). Ask how any ad contract is billed and how long it runs before you sign.

Credits cover bad data, not lost jobs: duplicates and wrong contact info qualify, a homeowner who hired someone else or never calls back doesn’t, and you have 30 days to ask (Angi Leads Pro, Lead Credit Guidelines, seen October 26, 2026).

How Thumbtack pricing works

• No membership or sign-up fee. “There’s no charge to join, no annual fees and no membership fees” (Thumbtack, thumbtack.com/pro, seen October 26, 2026).
• You set the price and budget. Prices vary with the type and size of the job, how many pros are available and your market. You choose how competitive to be with a lead price setting, and that’s the exact amount you pay per lead (Thumbtack Help, “How much do I pay for leads and opportunities?”, seen October 26, 2026). Thumbtack doesn’t publish a price list.
• Leads vs. opportunities. When a customer reaches out to you from search results and the job matches your preferences, you pay for the lead automatically. Opportunities show the price up front: you reach out first and only pay if the customer responds (same article).
• Refunds are limited. If a customer doesn’t reply to any pro within 72 hours, Thumbtack refunds the lead automatically. Other refunds are case by case if you ask within 45 days, and a customer who hired a different pro doesn’t qualify (Thumbtack Help, “What is Thumbtack’s Quality Commitment?” and “Refund policy for pros”).

What happened with HomeAdvisor and the FTC?

In April 2023 the FTC approved a final order requiring HomeAdvisor to pay up to $7.2 million. The FTC alleged that since at least mid-2014 HomeAdvisor made false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of its leads, including how often they turned into jobs, and the order bars it from misrepresenting its leads (FTC press release, April 2023). Those were allegations about past sales practices, settled by order. The takeaway for any lead source: judge it on your own booked jobs, not the sales pitch.

Are Angi and Thumbtack leads shared with other contractors?

Often, yes. A standard Angi request goes to several pros, and a Thumbtack customer can contact more than one pro. Speed and price usually decide who books.

• Angi Market Match: sent to up to four pros (Angi Leads FAQ).
• Angi Exact Match and Instant Booking: the homeowner picked you, but they can connect with as many pros as they choose (Angi Leads FAQ).
• Thumbtack: customers pick the pros they contact. Thumbtack caps it at five pros in the first four hours of a search, and customers can contact more after that (Thumbtack Help, “What is Thumbtack’s Quality Commitment?”). Other pros can also reach the same customer through opportunities.

That’s why one homeowner can get three calls in ten minutes. Call back two hours later and you’re often paying for a job that already booked with someone else, which doesn’t qualify for an Angi credit.

When is a lead marketplace worth it?

A marketplace is worth it when you need jobs this month and have no other way to get them. It stops being worth it once your own channels can book the same jobs for less.

Marketplaces make sense for:

• A new company with no reviews or Google presence yet
• A new service area where nobody knows your name
• A slow season or a new service you need to fill quickly
• Gaps in the schedule you can’t fill from repeat customers

They stop making sense when:

• Your cost per booked job from the marketplace is higher than from Google or referrals
• You’re competing on price for every job against the same three companies
• Your crew is booked out and you’re still paying for requests
• The reviews you collect live on the marketplace profile instead of your Google Business Profile

Homeowners still use marketplaces. In BrightLocal’s 2026 survey of 1,002 US consumers, Angi was among the review sites that grew in use, while Google’s share as a review source fell from 83% to 71% and stayed the largest by far (BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey 2026, February 2026). Most established companies end up with a mix. The goal is knowing what each piece costs per job.

What does an Angi or Thumbtack job actually cost you?

Cost per lead tells you almost nothing. A cheap request that never books costs more than an expensive one that does. Judge every source by cost per booked job.

A worked example (hypothetical numbers)

These numbers are made up to show the math. Yours will be different.

The marketplace lead is half the price, but the job costs a third more, because more of those requests booked with whoever called first. Your numbers could land the other way. Google leads aren’t cheap either: the median Google Ads lead across home services costs $90.92, and $127.74 for AC install and repair (LocaliQ, Home Services Search Advertising Benchmarks, updated July 15, 2026). What matters is how many book.

What’s the alternative to Angi and Thumbtack?

Owning your demand: homeowners who search Google and find you directly. You pay for the work and the clicks, not per request, nobody else gets the same request, and the reviews build on your own profile.

What owning your demand involves

• Google Business Profile and map results. Google ranks map listings on relevance, distance and prominence, and says “there’s no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google” (Google Business Profile Help, “Tips to improve your local ranking”). Complete services, photos and steady reviews do the work.
• Google Ads. Ads on the searches you want, like “water heater replacement [city]”, turned down when the board is full.
• SEO. A page for every service and area you want to rank in.
• A website that books. A clear phone number, a short form or online booking, and reviews on every service page, so the clicks turn into jobs.

How long does it take?

Ads are fastest. A new campaign can bring calls within days, but it takes a few weeks of booked-job data to know which searches pay. SEO and map rankings take months, not weeks, depending on your competition and where your site and profile start. Plan for that gap.

What does it cost?

Ads cost the click budget plus whoever manages the account. SEO and your Google profile cost mostly time (pages, reviews, profile updates) or someone you pay to do it. A website is a build plus upkeep. None of it is charged per request, so cost per booked job tends to drop as the work builds, but it costs more up front than a marketplace that charges nothing until a request arrives.

How do I switch without losing booked jobs?

Run both, compare, and move budget only after your own channels prove out.

Angi vs. HomeAdvisor vs. Thumbtack vs. your own channels

Questions

Sources: Angi Leads Pro help center; Angi Inc., Form 10-K, FY2025; Thumbtack pro page and Help Center (lead pricing, Quality Commitment, refund policy); FTC (April 2023); LocaliQ (July 2026); BrightLocal (February 2026); Google Business Profile Help.