A lead isn't a job.
One number tells them apart.

A lead machine is any company you pay to make your phone ring. Angi. Thumbtack. Google. Yelp. There's a short list of them, and they all promise the same thing: more calls. A lead, in their words, is a stranger's name and number handed to you.

Every one of these machines answers to the same single number — what a real, closed job actually costs you. This page is all of them on one map, judged the same way, free, no signup.

Think about how you price your own work. You build the number up from what it actually costs — materials, labor, your time, a margin — and if a customer asks you to break it down, you can.

A lead machine gets to skip that. It bills you before anyone is a job. You pay when a stranger clicks, or contacts you, or gets handed your name — not when the wrench turns and the check clears. So the machine reports what it can count: leads, contacts, clicks, "impressions." Whether the check cleared happens in your books, not theirs.

The sellers say so themselves. Thumbtack's help pages state it can't guarantee each lead or booking will result in a hire. Angi's posted lead-credit terms go further: a customer who never calls you back is listed as not eligible for a credit, because that outcome is already accounted for in the lead price. Nobody's hiding it. It's in the terms. That gap is the whole subject of this manual.

So here's the rule the map runs on. Every machine on it bills you before anyone becomes a job, which means the only honest judge is what a closed job actually costs you.

The one number, in plain math

You don't need a spreadsheet to see it. Three steps.

• What does one lead cost you? Don't go hunting for one posted rate — on Thumbtack, for instance, you set your own lead price, and that is the exact amount you're charged. You're not missing a screen in the account; build the number yourself, from last month's spend divided by the leads it bought.
• How many of those leads turn into a booked, paid job? You count this. Only you can.
• Divide. That's your cost per closed job — the real one.

A lead that costs $50 isn't cheap if one in twenty ever books. A lead that costs $200 isn't dear if half of them do. The sticker price on a lead tells you almost nothing until you carry it all the way to a job that paid. Running that math for real, on each machine, is the judgment chapter's whole job.

The map: every machine, sorted by how it bills you

Here's the board. What matters isn't the logo — it's what fires the charge, because that's the number the machine reports back to you. Read the right-hand column with an eye on this: not one of these bills you on a closed job.

Before you budget a dollar for LSA, search your own trade and your own town on your phone and see whether the unit even runs there.

Read the right column one more time. Leads, contacts, clicks — every one is a number that lands before anyone becomes work. The closed job, the only number that pays your crew, is the one you have to compute yourself. Each machine below gets its own chapter.

The machines you already own

Before you rent a single stranger, one honest question: are you closing the calls you already get?

The cheapest closed job there is was already ringing your phone — a call you earned for free and let slip. Miss it, and no machine on the board above can sell that same job back to you for less than it would've cost to just pick up.

• You don't have an SEO problem, you have a phone problem — the calls slipping past you right now, and what one of them actually costs.
• Missed-call text-back — the tool that texts a caller back when you can't answer, running on a number and an account you own, not a vendor's.
• Facebook, Nextdoor & neighborhood groups — what the free channels genuinely turn into work, and what just quietly eats your week.

Before you spend, three tools to judge with

The map shows how each machine bills. These three chapters tell you whether to spend at all.

• The one math, run for real — the single formula applied the same way to every machine.
• The fee-versus-ads split test — a test you run yourself, over the same few weeks, so you know instead of trust.
• When ads make sense — by shop size, season, and trade. For plenty of shops the honest answer is "not yet," or "not you."

The chapters, matched to the map

• The one math that judges every machine The formula, and the fee ratio behind it.
• Angi & HomeAdvisor: the shared-lead math One request, several pros, and the record on file.
• Thumbtack & the pay-per-contact games When exactly you're charged, and where refunds live.
• Local Services Ads What an LSA is, the badge, and disputing a junk lead.
• Google Ads for a one-truck shop Pay-per-click reality, and when to hire it out and inspect.
• The fee-versus-ads split test Run the comparison yourself and read the result.
• When ads make sense By size, season, and trade, including the honest "not yet."
• You don't have an SEO problem, you have a phone problem The calls you're already losing.
• Missed-call text-back A tool you own from day one.
• Facebook, Nextdoor & neighborhood groups What works, what wastes the day.
• Yelp: the meter you can't read How it bills, and what the review filter does.

Run the number on your own bill

Do this with last month's bill from whatever you already pay — Angi, Thumbtack, Google, Yelp, any of them.

1. Find the total you paid last month. Pull the card statement, filter on the vendor's name, add them up. Checkable: a screenshot of the total.
2. Count the jobs it actually booked and paid — real work, not calls, not "leads." Count only the ones you can trace yourself and write it as "at least ___." Checkable: a floor number, written down.
3. Divide the bill by that count. Checkable: your real cost per closed job, said out loud.
4. No paid jobs at all last month? That's an answer too — write "zero closed," and start with the one math before you spend another dollar.

Whatever that number came out to, it just named your first chapter. Renting leads and unsure they close: the one math, then the machine's own chapter. Phone rings but won't turn into work: the phone problem. Dropping calls you can't answer in the moment: missed-call text-back.

Run the map one more time. Every machine here bills you before anyone is a job — the click, the contact, the lead, all charged up front. So judge every one of them by the same number: what a closed job actually costs you. The chapter you need is the one your own bill just pointed at.

Related, off this manual

• What web work actually costs a trade shop The price map for builds and retainers, same rule: parts named, or it's fog.
• How customers find a contractor, start to finish The free listing side of getting called.
• Reviews without begging The proof a stranger checks before your phone rings.