<p style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;margin:0 0 10px;letter-spacing:.08em;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:ui-monospace,SFMono-Regular,Consolas,Menlo,monospace">Issue 2 · 2026-07-28 · The verdict</p>
<h2 style="font-size:20px;line-height:1.3;margin:30px 0 8px;font-weight:700">The situation</h2>
<p style="margin:0 0 14px">A roofing business owner got pitched on signing up with Angi's List after being told the lead system was overhauled under new leadership and is working better now. Other operators weighed in with mixed experiences: some said it's only worth it if you already have a strong Google Business profile, since Angi mainly brings tire-kicker leads. Others described their info being sold to multiple competitors at once, leading to frustrated homeowners fielding tons of calls. One operator shared getting nine leads, most duds, ending up owing over $200 with a suspended account after barely any real conversations came from them.</p>
<p style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72">Paraphrased from a public thread in r/smallbusiness — <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/smallbusiness/comments/1sxbfx2/angis_list/" style="color:#0f9aa8">original here</a>. Their figures are self-reported and I have not verified them. Mine are measured, and I'll show my working.</p>
<h2 style="font-size:20px;line-height:1.3;margin:30px 0 8px;font-weight:700">Nobody in that thread knew what the alternative costs</h2>
<p style="margin:0 0 14px">That is the whole argument, every time. People weigh a lead source against a feeling rather than a number, because the number is genuinely hard to find. Here it is for roofing.</p>
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<td width="50%" style="padding:16px 12px;border:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,.30);border-radius:10px;text-align:center;vertical-align:top">
<div style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;margin:0 0 6px;letter-spacing:.07em;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:ui-monospace,SFMono-Regular,Consolas,Menlo,monospace">Roofing on search</div>
<div style="font-size:26px;line-height:1.15;font-weight:700;font-family:ui-monospace,SFMono-Regular,Consolas,Menlo,monospace">$26.01/click</div>
<div style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;margin-top:6px">$130.05–$390.15 per booked job at 1-in-5 to 1-in-15 (measured)</div>
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<div style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;margin:0 0 6px;letter-spacing:.07em;text-transform:uppercase;font-family:ui-monospace,SFMono-Regular,Consolas,Menlo,monospace">Break-even</div>
<div style="font-size:26px;line-height:1.15;font-weight:700;font-family:ui-monospace,SFMono-Regular,Consolas,Menlo,monospace;color:#0f9aa8">$390.15</div>
<div style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;margin-top:6px">gross profit one job must clear before the channel pays for itself</div>
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<h2 style="font-size:20px;line-height:1.3;margin:30px 0 8px;font-weight:700">The verdict</h2>
<p style="margin:0 0 14px">Any lead source has to beat <strong>$130.05 to $390.15 per booked job</strong> to be worth using, and it has to do it on jobs you would not have won anyway. That second half is where most of these arguments actually live and almost nobody measures it.</p>
<p style="margin:0 0 14px">Shared leads make it worse in a way the price never shows. If the same inquiry goes to four contractors, you are not buying a lead, you are buying a one-in-four chance at one — so a $26.01 click and a shared lead at the same headline price are not the same purchase.</p>
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<td style="font-size:15px;line-height:1.5"><strong>What this means:</strong> arguing about whether a lead source is a rip-off is usually the wrong argument. Roofing needs roughly <strong>$390.15</strong> of gross profit per job before paid search covers itself. If you don't know your close rate on each source, you're not comparing prices — you're comparing guesses.</td>
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<h2 style="font-size:20px;line-height:1.3;margin:30px 0 8px;font-weight:700">What I'd do</h2>
<ol style="margin:0 0 16px;padding-left:22px">
<li style="margin-bottom:9px"><strong>Tag every lead by source for 30 days.</strong> Not a CRM project — a column in a spreadsheet. You need close rate per source, and nobody can give it to you.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom:9px"><strong>Compare cost per booked job, never cost per lead.</strong> A dear lead that closes half the time beats a cheap one that closes one time in twenty, every day of the week. Price per lead tells you almost nothing on its own.</li>
<li style="margin-bottom:9px"><strong>Fix speed-to-lead before you change vendors.</strong> Shared leads go to whoever calls first, so the same list is worth several times more to the fastest caller. That's free to change.</li>
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<p style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;border-top:1px solid rgba(128,128,128,.16);margin-top:26px;padding-top:14px"><strong>Who's writing this.</strong> I build lead-generation sites for home-service companies and rent them to one contractor per market. Every week I take one thing a real operator is arguing about online and run it against the numbers.</p>
<p style="font-size:13px;line-height:1.55;opacity:.72;margin-top:14px"><strong>Method.</strong> Roofing priced on the search term its customers type, National (US), Google Ads data via DataForSEO (2026-07-28). Cost per booked job assumes 1-in-5 to 1-in-15 clicks — a band, not a point estimate, because it is not knowable from outside your business. Worth saying plainly: I sell leads for a living, and this newsletter is about what leads cost. Every number here comes from Google's own ad data, not from my books, so you can check it independently.</p>
<p style="margin:0 0 14px;margin-top:22px"><strong>Got one?</strong> Reply with what you pay per lead, your trade and your market, and I'll run it. The good ones become issues, anonymised.</p>
<p style="margin:0 0 14px">— Chris</p>