How Much Do Tree Service Leads Cost in 2026?

Platforms like Angi and HomeAdvisor advertise a low price per lead, and the number on their page is genuinely low. What it leaves out is that the same homeowner is sold to several contractors at once. Shared leads close somewhere around one in five to one in ten for most crews, so the figure that matters is not what you paid for the lead, it is what you paid for the one job that came out of the batch. Work it out on your own invoices: take what you spent with a shared source last month, divide it by the jobs you actually booked from it, then add the fuel and the hours burned on the bids you lost. That second number is usually a shock, and it is the only one worth comparing between sources.

An exclusive lead carries a higher sticker price, because you are the only contractor who gets it. The trade is that exclusive, appointment-booked leads close far better, commonly around four to six in ten rather than one or two, since nobody else is calling the same homeowner and the visit is already agreed. Run the same division on both and the ranking usually flips: a higher price per lead with a close rate two or three times better ends up cheaper per booked job. The sticker price is the least useful number on the page. What a lead should cost you depends on your trade, your area and the size of job you take, which is why the rate is quoted per territory rather than published as one figure that would be wrong for most crews.

Cost per lead is the sticker price. Cost per booked job is what that lead really costs once your close rate is applied, and it is the only number that tells you whether a source makes you money. The arithmetic is one line: divide what you pay per lead by the share of those leads you close. A lead that turns into one booked job in six costs you six times its sticker price. The same money at one in two costs twice. That is why the cheaper lead is very often the more expensive job.

A quick way to compare sources honestly: track what you paid, the share of leads that turned into booked work, and the drive time burned on the ones that did not. The thing that wrecks the math is sharing, because a lead sold to four crews drags your close rate down no matter what the sticker price was, so make sure whatever you buy is exclusive first.

Now put the lead cost next to what a job is worth to you. Take your own average ticket on a standard residential removal and multiply it by the share of exclusive leads you close. That is what one lead is worth in booked work before you have paid anything for it. Set your lead cost against that figure, not against the cheapest lead you can find. For most tree crews the gap is wide enough that a single booked removal covers a long run of lead spend. The real risk is not paying too much per lead, it is paying for shared leads you cannot close and quietly losing money on wasted trips.

StingLeads is a US marketplace that sends exclusive, appointment-booked tree leads. Each lead is one homeowner already booked for a free on-site quote, given to you alone. You pay per booked appointment, with no contracts, no subscriptions and no minimums, and if a homeowner does not show or was never qualified you report it and the credit goes back on your account. The rate is quoted for your trade and your territory rather than published as one national figure, because what a booked tree appointment is worth in a dense metro is not what it is worth in a rural county, and a number that fits one is wrong for the other. Tell us your ZIP codes and you get the figure for your own area.

The alternative to competing on speed is tree service leads sold to one contractor, with the visit already agreed.