Guide · updated September 2026

How to get contractor leads, with and without paying per lead

The leads that cost nothing come from referrals, from being first to a neighbor’s post in a local group, and from knocking on doors after a storm. The ones you pay for come from Google Local Services Ads and the lead marketplaces, at $29 to $211 a lead in Q2 2026. Which is right for you depends mostly on how fast you can answer.

Below is what each one actually costs and what each one is bad at. We sell one of them, so we have put the argument against it in writing along with the rest.

Five ways to get contractor leads, compared
Channel	What it costs	How fast	The case against it
Referrals and repeat customers	Free	Slow to build	You cannot dial it up when you need work this month, and it goes quiet exactly when everything else does.
Google Local Services Ads	$29 to $211 per lead	Immediate	Costs scale with every job you win, and you are bidding against everyone else who wants the same emergency.
Lead marketplaces	Per lead, often shared	Immediate	You are rarely the only one who bought that lead, and the homeowner knows it.
Door-knocking after a storm	Your time	Immediate	It does not scale past your own legs, and plenty of homeowners now find it intrusive.
Neighborhood Facebook groups	Free to read, hard to catch	Minutes, if you see it	You have to already be a member of the groups, and without something watching them you will miss most of it.

Local Services Ads figures: Google Local Services Ads, Q2 2026 — 4,459 leads across $258,867 of real US contractor spend. Published by 99 Calls.

01Referrals and repeat customers

Do referrals still bring in the best work?

Still the best work you will ever get

Cost: FreeSpeed: Slow to build

Nothing beats it and everybody knows it. A referred customer arrives pre-sold, does not compare three quotes, and complains less. Every contractor who has been going ten years is mostly running on this.

The catch is that it is not a channel you can turn on. It is the output of work you did months or years ago, and it scales exactly as fast as your customer count — which is the problem if you are trying to grow now or you have just had a quiet season.

The case against it: You cannot dial it up when you need work this month, and it goes quiet exactly when everything else does.

02Google Local Services Ads

Are Google Local Services Ads worth what a lead costs?

Works, and the price tells you how well

Cost: $29 to $211 per leadSpeed: Immediate

You pay per lead, Google screens you, and the badge helps. It is the most predictable channel on this list: turn it on and leads arrive.

The price is the honest signal of what a job is worth. Landscaping averaged $29.05 a lead in Q2 2026 and roofing $101.15, because a roof is worth more and every roofer knows it. Damage restoration hit $211.07.

What the per-lead price hides is your win rate. A shared lead quoted by three companies costs you the lead price divided by how often you win — quote three, win one, and a $66 plumbing lead has actually cost nearly $200.

The case against it: Costs scale with every job you win, and you are bidding against everyone else who wants the same emergency.

03Lead marketplaces

Are shared leads from the marketplaces worth buying?

Fine if you can close fast and quote faster

Cost: Per lead, often sharedSpeed: Immediate

Angi, Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor sell the same request to several pros at once. That is the model, not a flaw in it — they are running an auction for the homeowner’s attention and you are one of the bidders.

It suits a business that is set up to respond within minutes and is comfortable losing most quotes. It suits a solo operator under a truck much less, because by the time you have washed your hands two other people have already called.

The case against it: You are rarely the only one who bought that lead, and the homeowner knows it.

04Door-knocking after a storm

Does door-knocking after a storm still work?

Still works, and roofers still do it for a reason

Cost: Your timeSpeed: Immediate

The roofing industry has not abandoned this because nothing has replaced what it does: it puts you in front of a homeowner within hours of the damage, before they have thought about calling anyone.

It is also exhausting, weather-dependent, increasingly regulated in some states, and it starts every conversation with a stranger at the door the morning after something bad happened to their house.

The case against it: It does not scale past your own legs, and plenty of homeowners now find it intrusive.

05Neighborhood Facebook groups

Can local groups bring in work without paying per lead?

Where the request usually starts

Cost: Free to read, hard to catchSpeed: Minutes, if you see it

Before most homeowners search for anything, they ask their neighbors. "Anyone know a good plumber?" is the first move, not the last, and it happens in a local Facebook group at ten at night.

These posts are free to anyone in the group. The problem has never been access, it is timing: a thread gets four names in the first hour and the homeowner calls one of them. If you check the group the next morning, the job is gone and you will never know it existed.

This is the channel LeadHunter USA watches, and it is worth being precise about what that means. It is read-only — it never posts, comments or messages on your behalf. It watches groups you are already a member of, signed in as yourself, and surfaces what you could already see. It is a timing tool, not an access tool.

The case against it: You have to already be a member of the groups, and without something watching them you will miss most of it.

The thing most of this comes down to

Almost every channel here is a way of buying earliness. The marketplaces sell you a request that already exists. Local Services Ads put you at the top of a page someone is already looking at. Door-knocking is a roofer physically arriving before the homeowner has finished thinking about it.

That is why the prices look the way they do. A roofing lead costs $101.15 not because the paperwork is expensive but because being early to a five-figure job is worth fighting over. And every one of those leads started as a homeowner with a problem, usually hours earlier, often asking their neighbors first.

Which is the whole argument for watching the place the question gets asked. Not because groups are magic — most posts are nothing — but because that is the earliest point in the chain, and everything downstream of it is being sold to you at a markup.

Where LeadHunter USA fits. It watches the local Facebook groups you are already in, and buzzes your phone within minutes of a matching post. Read-only: it never posts, comments or messages on your behalf, and it does not contact the lead for you. A flat $75 a month, every lead included, and we do not sell leads at all.

Start free — 7 days What a lead costs in your trade

Common questions

What is the cheapest way to get contractor leads?

Referrals, and it is not close — they cost nothing and convert best. The problem is that you cannot turn them on when you need work this month. Of the channels you can switch on, neighborhood group posts are free to read; the cost is having something watch them, because the thread is usually settled within an hour.

How much should I pay for a lead?

It depends entirely on the trade and on your win rate. On Google Local Services Ads in Q2 2026, landscaping leads averaged $29.05 and roofing $101.15. But if a lead is shared with two other contractors and you win one in three, your real cost per job is three times the sticker price. Compare against the value of a job in your trade, not against another lead price.

Are shared leads worth it?

They can be, if you are set up to respond within minutes and you are comfortable losing most quotes. They suit a company with someone answering the phone all day far better than a solo operator who is under a sink until four.

Do Facebook groups actually generate work?

They generate requests — the "anyone know a good electrician?" post is one of the most common things in any neighborhood group. Whether they generate work for you depends entirely on whether you see the post while the thread is still short. Most contractors are members of the right groups and simply never see the posts in time.

What does LeadHunter USA do?

It watches the local Facebook groups you have already joined, and pushes a matching request to your phone within minutes. It is read-only — it never posts, comments or messages anyone. $75 a month flat, every lead included, 7 days free with no credit card.

How this looks in your trade

Each page covers how work actually reaches that trade — how long the window stays open, whether the job repeats, and what a lead costs there.

Running a handyman business on your own? Two guides written for exactly that: why the phone stopped ringing, and what to do when you just started and nobody is calling.

Working the local Facebook groups yourself? Start with how to get jobs from local Facebook groups, then what you can post there — and when not to.

A plumber? Every channel for plumbing, ranked by cost, is in how a plumber gets more leads in 2026.