Angi vs HomeAdvisor vs StingLeads (2026): An Honest Cost Breakdown

Angi Inc. was formed in 2017 by merging Angie's List and HomeAdvisor, and the whole thing was rebranded to "Angi" in 2021. On the contractor side, HomeAdvisor's pro platform now operates as Angi Leads. Angi completed its spin-off from IAC into a fully independent public company in April 2025.

What this means for you as a buyer: choosing between Angi and HomeAdvisor is mostly a branding choice, not a business-model choice. Both run the same core mechanic. A homeowner submits a request, and that same request is sold to multiple competing contractors who all get the contact at once. The pricing structure, the shared distribution, and the contract terms come from the same parent. If one frustrates contractors, the other tends to frustrate them the same way, because it is the same system underneath.

Reported per-lead pricing on Angi and HomeAdvisor generally lands in these ranges, depending on your trade and market:

• Typical shared lead: roughly $15 to $100+ per lead, with most trades cited in the $25 to $120 band and some high-value markets pushing past $100.
• Distribution: a single lead is commonly shared with 3 to 8 competing contractors (many sources cite 3 to 5), so you are paying for a contact that several other pros are calling at the same time.
• Membership and contracts: many categories require an annual membership. Contractors report being locked into 12-month agreements, auto-renewals, and cancellation fees, with refunds often issued as expiring "credits" rather than money back.

The sticker price per lead is only half the story. The number that decides whether you make money is the cost per closed job, and that is where the shared model gets expensive.

The complaints are well documented and, in some cases, backed by regulators:

• FTC action for deceptive lead marketing. In January 2023, the FTC ordered HomeAdvisor to pay up to $7.2 million for making false or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of the leads it sold to service providers. By late 2023 the FTC had mailed more than $3 million in refunds to over 110,000 home-service businesses.
• State enforcement. In October 2025, the Vermont Attorney General settled with Angi over its use of the term "Angi Certified Pro," which implied a credential that does not exist. Angi agreed to stop using the term and to pay $100,000.
• Contract and refund pain. Contractors widely report annual lock-ins, auto-renewals, cancellation fees, and refund requests answered with expiring credits instead of money back.
• Lead quality gripes. Common complaints include wrong numbers, homeowners who never requested service, and leads that go unanswered because several other contractors are calling the same person.
• Poor contractor sentiment. On third-party review sites, Angi's contractor-side rating sits near the bottom of the scale, and BBB has logged well over 1,000 complaints in recent years. BBB's letter grade is based on its own criteria and does not factor these customer reviews in, which is why the grade and the sentiment can diverge.

To be fair to Angi and HomeAdvisor: the model does self-qualify buyers. Homeowners who submit a request are genuinely in-market, and a January 2025 change lets homeowners choose which pros can contact them, which improved intent for some trades. The volume is real and it is instant. The problem is not that the leads are fake across the board. The problem is that you are buying a shared contact and paying whether or not you ever win the job.

A cheap lead is not cheap if you rarely close it. Here is the reframe that changes the decision.

Shared leads typically close at roughly 10 to 20 percent, because you are one of several contractors racing to call the same homeowner. Exclusive leads, where you are the only contractor, close far higher, with commonly cited ranges of 25 to 40 percent. Now put dollars on it using figures reported across the industry:

• Shared lead example: a $30 to $80 lead shared with 4 or more pros, closing around 10 percent, can push the true cost per closed job past $1,400 to $1,700 once you count every lead you paid for but did not win.
• Exclusive lead example: a $60 to $80 exclusive lead closing at roughly 1 in 4 can land near $240 to $320 per closed job.

Same trade, same market, wildly different economics, because the shared model makes you pay for the losses too. When you compare Angi vs HomeAdvisor on per-lead price, you are optimizing the wrong number.

StingLeads is built on the opposite model from the shared marketplace. Every lead is exclusive and sold to one contractor, only you. And it is not a raw contact you have to chase. Our AI SMS assistant texts the homeowner, qualifies them, and books a free-quote visit directly onto your calendar before you ever get involved. The homeowner is expecting the call, and the appointment is already set.

What that changes for a contractor:

• No race to call. The lead is yours alone. No other pro is dialing the same person.
• Appointment already booked. You are not buying a phone number to chase. You are buying a confirmed free-quote visit on your calendar.
• Pay per lead or pay per close. Simple pay-per-lead pricing (about $50 to $75) or a pay-per-close option, so you can tie spend to outcomes.
• No contracts. No annual lock-in, no auto-renew trap, no cancellation fee.
• Protection built in. Bad-lead and no-show protection. If a booked appointment no-shows, that is not on you.

The proof, from our own platform: 1,372+ appointments booked, a 94% show-up rate, a 4.8/5 rating, and 200+ companies served. Today we focus on pressure washing, soft wash, and tree service and removal, with more trades being added.

The table below is honest about where the shared marketplaces win. Angi and HomeAdvisor genuinely offer the lowest per-lead sticker price and the fastest raw volume. StingLeads wins on exclusivity, on the appointment already being booked, on pay-per-close, and on protecting you from the outcomes you cannot control. Read it against your own close rate, not against the sticker price.