Angi, HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack vs building your own HVAC lead flow

How do Angi, HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack send HVAC leads?

All three collect requests from homeowners and pass them to contractors who pay for access. HomeAdvisor matches each request to several pros at once. Thumbtack lets pros set a lead budget with no membership fee. Angi's pro sign-up page promotes volume but lists no prices. The details below come from each company's own pages.

I'm Sam, and I run audits, strategy and media buying at Scale Theory. We build lead flows for HVAC contractors, so we are not neutral on this topic. I have tried to describe each platform from its own pages, fairly, and to show you the one comparison that matters. We are new to the US market, so there are no client results in this post, only the method.

HomeAdvisor and Angi Leads

HomeAdvisor's pro site now carries the Angi Leads name, with an Angi, Inc. copyright. On the homeowner side, HomeAdvisor's How It Works page says: "You'll receive information for up to four pre-screened, local home improvement pros." It adds that "As soon as your request is processed, we send your information to your matched pros."

The pro About Us page puts it this way: requests and contact details are "sent immediately to 3-4 Angi Leads members" so they can contact the homeowner directly.

On price, the pro FAQ says "you pay a nominal fee for each lead you match to. Different sized jobs have different Lead Fees." It does not list HVAC amounts, and neither did any other page we opened.

Angi

Angi's pro sign-up page is headed "Get Leads, Win Jobs, Grow Your Business" and says there were "Over 1.5M opportunities on Angi last month". It lists no prices and does not explain on that page whether a lead goes to one pro or several. If you talk to Angi, ask both questions directly and get the answers in writing.

Thumbtack

Thumbtack's pro page says: "No subscription cost. There's no charge to join, no annual fees and no membership fees." It says "You'll receive leads from customers that choose you" and "You control your pricing and budget for leads, which determines how many leads you get." It also lists "Limited competition per lead" as a feature. It gives no lead prices on that page.

Are marketplace HVAC leads shared with other contractors?

On HomeAdvisor, by its own description, a standard request goes to up to four pros. Thumbtack describes limited competition per lead rather than exclusivity. Angi's sign-up page does not say. In practice, assume a marketplace lead is being worked by other contractors unless the product terms say it is exclusive.

A shared lead is not bad in itself. It changes how you have to work it. When three or four companies get the same homeowner at the same moment, two things decide who wins the estimate: who calls first, and who sounds most credible in the first minute. Price comes later.

That is why contractors who do well on marketplaces tend to have someone watching the app all day and calling within a minute or two. If your CSR is also dispatching, booking tune-ups and answering the main line, shared leads will go to whoever is faster.

What does building your own HVAC lead flow involve?

Your own lead flow means ads in your own accounts, a landing page on your domain, a qualifier that filters out jobs you do not want, a CRM that replies inside 60 seconds and a follow-up sequence after every estimate. Leads that come through it go to you alone, and the pieces stay yours if you change agencies.

In our version, the HVAC Profit Machine, it runs like this:

1. Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram) and Google Search ads lead with system replacement and installation offers, not repairs.
2. The ad sends homeowners to a landing page for your service area.
3. Six questions sort out home type, current system and age, replacement or repair, timing, budget range and whether they own the home.
4. Only qualified leads go to the CRM, which texts and calls inside 60 seconds and books an in-home estimate on your calendar with the answers attached.
5. Estimate follow-up goes out on days 1, 3 and 7 in your name.
6. After install, an automated review request goes out and your Google Business Profile is kept current.

Two differences from a marketplace matter most. First, the lead is exclusive: nobody else got that form. Second, you own the ad accounts, the landing pages and the lead history. If you stop working with us, all of it stays with you.

How do shared leads and your own lead flow compare?

Marketplaces win on setup time and on having no minimum spend. Your own flow wins on exclusivity, control over job type and ownership. The table sums up what each side offers, based on the platforms' own descriptions and on how we build lead flows.

How do you compare the real cost of marketplace leads?

Compare cost per booked estimate, not cost per lead. Take everything you spent on a source in a month and divide it by the in-home estimates it produced. A cheap lead that rarely books can cost more per estimate than an expensive lead that usually books. Track it for at least 60 days per source.

You can do this without knowing anyone's price list, because the math works from your own numbers.

Then look past the estimate. A booked estimate from a shared lead may close at a lower rate, because the homeowner is getting three other estimates the same week. Track close rate by source too.

When do marketplace leads make sense for an HVAC company?

When you need work this week, when you are new and have no reviews or ad history yet, or when you want repair and service calls that our kind of replacement-focused ads deliberately screen out. Marketplaces also suit contractors who have a person who can respond within a minute or two all day.

That is a fair use. Plenty of good contractors built their first few years on marketplace leads. The risk is staying there after you have outgrown it, because the platform keeps the customer relationship before you get it, and the leads stop the day the payments stop.

When does your own HVAC lead flow make more sense?

When replacements are the jobs you want, your advisors have room in their calendars and you can commit to a steady ad budget for several months. Your own flow takes weeks to build and a few more to settle, but each month adds to data and assets you own.

It is not for everyone. Our minimum is $4,000 a month of ad spend paid directly to Meta and Google, on top of our fee, and we only take one HVAC contractor per service line per metro. If you are a two-truck shop mostly running repairs, a marketplace plus good follow-up may be the better fit for now. We would rather tell you that on a call than sign you and have you leave in three months.

Can you run marketplace leads and your own flow together?

Yes, and for the first few months you should. Keep each source tagged separately in your CRM, all the way to jobs sold, and compare cost per booked estimate and close rate side by side. Move budget toward whichever source is producing replacement jobs at a lower cost.

Two practical tips. Use the same 60-second reply and the same follow-up texts for every source, so you are comparing lead quality, not how well each one was worked. And mark every estimate won or lost with a reason. Without that, you can count leads by source but not profit.

What changes for HVAC contractors in Miami?

Miami has year-round cooling demand, but less single-family housing than most Sun Belt metros. That means more condo and small-system requests that do not fit a replacement offer. A qualifier that asks about home type matters even more there, whichever lead source you use.

NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Miami International show 4,656 cooling degree days a year and only about 104 heating degree days. The Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey shows only about 40% of housing units in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach metro are detached single-family homes, and about 90% of occupied homes heat with electricity. So most qualified replacement leads are heat pump or straight-cool jobs in single-family homes, and a lot of requests will be condo work.

On rebates, FPL's Residential HVAC Program Standards, effective September 1, 2025, say "The rebate amount is $200 per qualifying unit", for systems at least one SEER2 point above the federal minimum, installed by an FPL Participating Independent Contractor. If you are one, that belongs in your ads and landing page. A marketplace profile gives you little room to say it.

More local detail is on our Miami HVAC marketing page. For how we build the flow itself, see HVAC lead generation. If you keep buying marketplace leads, the post on HVAC lead follow-up will help you win more of them.

Sam

Co-founder. Audits, strategy and media buying

Sam runs every strategy call and buys every ad. Before going HVAC-only, he ran a performance marketing agency: SEO, Meta and Google ads, CRM automation.

More about Sam