Is Angi Leads Worth It? A Break-Even Test for Contractors
Short Answer
Is Angi Leads worth it? Angi Leads is worth it only if your close rate on its leads beats your break-even rate, which is the lead price divided by gross profit per job. On a $60 lead, that is 30% for a $200-profit repair but about 2% for a $3,000-profit roof. Measure your own rate for 90 days.
On a $60 Angi lead and a repair that earns you $200 in gross profit, you have to win 30 percent of those leads just to break even. On a roof that earns you $3,000 in gross profit, the same $60 lead breaks even at about 2 percent. The product is identical. Whether it is worth it depends entirely on which of those jobs you sell.
That break-even number is the cleanest way to answer the question for your own business, and it is the one most Angi discussions skip. This post gives you the formula, a table, a 90-day test, and a decision rule. It does not re-run the general case, which we cover in is Angi worth it, or the pricing, which is in what Angi charges per lead.
The Formula
Break-even close rate = price per lead ÷ gross profit per job
Gross profit is what the job earns after direct costs: labor, materials, and anything you would not spend if you did not do the job. It is not revenue. Using revenue makes every channel look better than it is.
Here is the formula applied across lead prices and job types. The gross profit figures are rough illustrations, not Angi data, and the lead prices sit inside the ranges we estimate in our cost per lead breakdown.
| Lead price | $200 profit (small repair) | $630 profit (water heater swap) | $3,000 profit (roof replacement) |
|---|---|---|---|
| $40 | 20% | 6.3% | 1.3% |
| $60 | 30% | 9.5% | 2.0% |
| $90 | 45% | 14.3% | 3.0% |
| $120 | 60% | 19.0% | 4.0% |
Read it as a gate. If you sell $200-profit jobs and pay $90 a lead, you need to win nearly half of them to merely cover the lead cost. No shared-lead marketplace delivers that. If you sell $3,000-profit jobs, you can lose 96 of 100 leads and still break even.
Break-even is not the goal
Breaking even means the lead cost exactly equals the job profit. You also spent time on the phone, drove to estimates, and carried the risk. As a rule of thumb, which is ours and not an industry standard, we want to see your actual close rate at least 1.5 times your break-even rate before calling a channel worth it. At a 2 percent break-even, that is 3 percent. At 30 percent, it is 45 percent, which is why small-ticket work rarely clears the bar.
What Close Rate Should You Expect?
Our estimate for shared marketplace leads is 15 to 25 percent, drawn from the platform comparison in Thumbtack vs. Angi vs. Google LSA. That is an estimate, not a promise, and yours could be well above or below it. The only close rate that matters is the one in your own account.
Put the two numbers together:
| Your job type | Break-even at a $60 lead | Typical shared-lead close rate (estimate) | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Small repair, $200 profit | 30% | 15-25% | Below break-even; likely a loss |
| Water heater swap, $630 profit | 9.5% | 15-25% | Clears break-even; thin margin of safety at the low end |
| Roof replacement, $3,000 profit | 2.0% | 15-25% | Clears break-even comfortably |
The pattern is consistent. Angi Leads tends to make sense when profit per job is large relative to the lead price, and tends to lose money when it is not.
One Exception: Repeat Business
Small-ticket jobs can still work if the first job turns into a relationship. A $200-profit repair that costs you $240 to acquire loses $40 on day one. If that customer calls you directly three more times over the next five years, the first job was an investment.
The catch is that this only works if the customer calls you, not the platform again. That requires giving every customer your direct number, a reason to remember you, and a request for a Google review the same day. Otherwise, the next job goes back through the marketplace and you pay the acquisition cost again. That is the difference between renting a customer and owning one.
The 90-Day Test
Stop debating and measure. For 90 days, keep one simple log.
| Column | What to record |
|---|---|
| Lead received | Date, time, job type |
| First contact | Minutes until a real conversation |
| Outcome | Booked, lost, or junk |
| Job profit | Gross profit if booked |
| Lead price | What Angi charged, and any credit |
| Customer kept | Did they get your direct number and leave a Google review? |
At the end of 90 days, calculate three numbers:
- Your close rate: booked jobs ÷ leads you actually reached
- Your break-even rate: average lead price ÷ average gross profit per booked job
- Your ratio: close rate ÷ break-even rate
If the ratio is 1.5 or higher, Angi Leads is working for you. Cap it and keep going. If it is between 1.0 and 1.5, it is marginal, and the sensible move is to hold the budget flat and improve your response time. If it is below 1.0, you are paying more for leads than the jobs return, and every extra dollar of budget makes it worse.
Count the speed effect
Look at the first-contact column. On shared leads, minutes matter. If your wins cluster in leads you reached within five minutes and your losses cluster in leads you reached after an hour, your problem may be response time, not the platform. Fix that first, because it improves every channel you run.
Raise Your Close Rate Before You Raise Your Budget
If your ratio is under 1.5, the cheapest fix is usually not a different platform. It is a better first five minutes. The levers, from cheapest to most expensive:
- Answer faster. Set the account to ring your cell and a backup. If you are on a roof, have someone else call back inside five minutes. This is free.
- Use a short first-call script. Confirm the job, give a price range, and offer two specific appointment times. Homeowners who submitted a request want a next step, not a conversation about your company history.
- Text right after a missed call. “Sorry I missed you, this is [name] from [company]. Are you free for a quick call at 3 or 4?” Many homeowners will answer a text when they will not answer an unknown number.
- Put proof where they will look. Recent reviews, real job photos and a clear service area on your profile. A homeowner comparing four contractors checks.
- Qualify by ZIP code and job type. Tightening your territory to where you can arrive quickly, and your job types to what pays, raises close rate and lowers wasted drives.
Here is what a small improvement does to the math. Take a $60 lead and a $630-profit job, so break-even is 9.5 percent.
| Close rate | Leads for 1 job | Cost per booked job | Ratio to break-even |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10% | 10 | $600 | 1.05 |
| 15% | 6.7 | $400 | 1.58 |
| 20% | 5 | $300 | 2.1 |
| 25% | 4 | $240 | 2.6 |
Moving from a 10 percent to a 20 percent close rate takes you from marginal to comfortable without changing the price of a single lead. That is the real argument for fixing response speed first: it improves Angi, and it improves every other channel you run.
What You Have After the 90 Days
Break-even only counts dollars. It does not count what is left. Add one more column to your thinking.
| After 90 days of Angi Leads | What you have |
|---|---|
| Jobs completed | Yes |
| Cash after lead cost | Yes, if you cleared break-even |
| Customers who now have your direct number | Only those you deliberately moved over |
| Reviews on your Google Business Profile | Only those you asked for |
| Rankings that keep working | None |
| If you stop paying tomorrow | The lead flow stops with the invoice |
This is the ownership test, and it is the reason Contractor Bear exists. Rented leads are a cost that resets to zero every month. Owned channels are an asset that compounds. A channel can pass the break-even test and still leave you with nothing built. That is acceptable for a season. It is a risk as a permanent plan.
You can build the owned side yourself. It is roughly 6 to 10 hours a month: keep your Google Business Profile complete, ask every customer for a review, publish a real page for each service and city, and track where calls come from. If you would rather it just get done, Contractor Bear builds and runs these channels for you starting at $500/mo, and the website we build is yours to keep. Not rented. Yours.
A Decision Rule You Can Use Today
If you want an answer before the 90 days are up, use this:
- Keep and cap Angi Leads if you sell high-profit jobs, answer in minutes, and your break-even rate is under about 10 percent.
- Test and watch if your break-even rate is 10 to 25 percent. Run the 90-day log before you raise anything.
- Move budget out if your break-even rate is above 25 percent. You would need a close rate that shared leads rarely deliver.
Those thresholds are our rules of thumb, not published standards. Adjust them with your own data. What does not change is the order: measure first, spend second.
Frequently Asked Questions
What’s better than Angi?
For most established contractors, a Google Business Profile with steady reviews and a website that ranks locally. There is no per-lead fee, and the customer relationships and reviews are yours. Among paid options, Google Local Service Ads charge per lead with fewer contractors shown per search. Referrals cost nothing and close best of all.
Which is better, Thumbtack or Angi?
It depends on how you want to spend. On Thumbtack you read the project first and choose whether to spend credits. On Angi, leads are sold to you against a monthly budget. Both share leads with competitors and both are rented. Run the same break-even test on each. Our platform comparison has costs by trade.
Why is Angie’s list in trouble for contractors?
Angie’s List began as a consumer review membership. It merged with HomeAdvisor in 2017, and the brand was later folded into Angi, which sells leads to contractors. Contractors commonly raise shared leads, hard-to-credit bad leads, and budget pressure. We cannot speak to the company’s finances, only to what the break-even math shows on your side.
Is Angi reliable for contractors?
It is reliable at sending leads, not at holding a steady cost per booked job. Lead price, lead quality and the number of contractors sharing each lead are set by Angi and shift by market. Reliable, for your business, means your close rate stays above your break-even rate. Track the ratio each quarter and let it decide.
Worth It Is a Number, Not a Feeling
Angi Leads is worth it when your close rate clears your break-even rate with room to spare, and when you use the customers it finds to build something you keep. It is not worth it when the ticket is small, the lead is shared four ways, and the platform is your whole pipeline.
If you want the version that does not reset to zero every month, Contractor Bear starts at $500/mo. The website is yours, the profile is yours, and when you stop paying us you keep all of it. See the tiers on our pricing page.