Plumber Marketing: Beyond Angi and Thumbtack

Angi charges plumbers $65-150 per lead. Thumbtack runs $35-85. Those numbers look reasonable until you remember four other contractors are calling the same homeowner.

You pay for the lead whether you win the job or not.

Shared lead platforms have become the default marketing strategy for plumbers who don’t have time to figure out something better. They’re easy. Sign up, leads show up. But easy has a cost, and that cost keeps climbing.

The shared lead math

A plumbing lead on Angi runs $65-150 depending on service type and market. Emergency drain cleaning sits at the high end. Simple garbage disposal installs cost less. Thumbtack charges $35-85 on a pay-per-quote model where you only pay when you respond.

Sounds manageable. Run the actual numbers.

At $100 average per lead, buying 50 leads costs $5,000. If your close rate on shared leads is 10%, you win 5 jobs. Your cost per acquisition: $1,000.

Drop to a 5% close rate, which happens when you’re slow to respond or competing in a saturated market, and those same 50 leads produce just 2.5 jobs. Cost per acquisition: $2,000.

On a $300 drain cleaning call, a $1,000 acquisition cost means you’re losing money. On a $3,000 water heater replacement, the math barely works.

Compare that to a Google Ads campaign where your leads cost $120 each but you’re the only one calling. At a 25% close rate, 50 leads at $6,000 produces 12-13 jobs. Cost per acquisition: around $480.

The Google leads cost more per lead but deliver less than half the cost per job because you’re not fighting three other plumbers for attention.

Why close rates crater on shared platforms

35-50% of shared leads go to whoever responds first. That stat comes from Zillow research on home services. First caller wins, regardless of reviews, pricing, or expertise.

The average plumber takes 47 hours to respond to a lead. Nearly two full days. By then, the homeowner has already hired someone who answered the phone.

Responding in under 5 minutes gives you a shot. Responding in under 1 minute can boost your conversion rate by 391%. But even if you’re fast, you’re still one of five contractors the homeowner heard from in a 10-minute window.

That creates its own problem. When five plumbers call within an hour, the homeowner gets overwhelmed and defaults to price. They’re not evaluating expertise or reliability. They’re looking for the lowest number. You end up racing to the bottom on pricing just to compete.

Learn more about speed to lead and why 5 minutes matters.

What you’re actually renting

Every dollar you spend on Angi or Thumbtack builds their platform, not your business.

The reviews you earn belong to them. Leave the platform and your reviews stay behind. That 4.8 rating with 200 reviews doesn’t transfer to your Google Business Profile.

Your visibility depends on their algorithm. They can change rankings, raise prices, or favor bigger spenders anytime they want. You have zero control.

You’re not building an asset. You’re renting access to homeowners who found the platform first. Stop paying and the leads stop. There’s no compound effect, no growing equity.

Industry estimates put 10-23% of leads from shared platforms as fake or unresponsive. Bad phone numbers, tire kickers, people who just wanted to see what things cost. You pay for those too.

And then there’s the contract. Most platforms lock you in with cancellation fees. Getting out costs money even when the leads aren’t converting.

What the best plumbers do instead

The plumbing contractors with the lowest acquisition costs aren’t spending more on ads. They’ve built systems that generate leads without auction-based pricing.

Google Business Profile generates free leads

88% of people who search “plumber near me” contact a business within 24 hours. If you’re in Google’s Local Pack, the top three map results, you’re getting calls without paying per click.

The contractors dominating the Local Pack have 200+ reviews, photos that show real work, and weekly posts. They respond to every review within 24 hours. Their profiles are complete with service descriptions, hours, and a booking link.

Profiles with complete information get 7x more clicks than incomplete ones. Profiles with photos get 42% more direction requests.

This takes consistent effort. But the leads are free once you rank.

Learn more about optimizing your Google Business Profile.

Reviews compound over time

91% of homeowners check reviews before letting a plumber into their house. The company with 300 reviews beats the company with 30, even at the same star rating.

One pest control company went from 3 reviews to 100+ in a single month by texting customers within 2 hours of service completion. 42% response rate when you ask within 2 hours. 6% when you wait two days.

The plumbers winning on reviews have automated the ask. Every completed job triggers a text requesting feedback. Happy customers get routed to Google. Unhappy customers get routed to the owner for recovery.

Learn more about review generation systems and the ROI of automating the process.

Neighbor marketing turns one job into three

Every job you complete is a marketing opportunity hiding in plain sight.

The neighbors watched your truck pull up. They saw you working. Some of them have plumbing problems they’ve been putting off. A door hanger, a yard sign, and a quick knock can convert their curiosity into a call.

The close rate on neighbor leads is 30-40%. They already have social proof. They saw you do the work.

One roofing contractor generates 2-3 additional jobs from every completed project just by knocking on surrounding doors. A $5 door hanger and 10 minutes of time produces leads that close at double the rate of paid advertising.

Learn more about neighbor marketing strategy and door-to-door tactics.

Postcards actually work

Direct mail has a 90% open rate. Email sits at 20-30%.

Postcards are physical. They stick on the fridge. They sit on the counter until someone needs a plumber. Targeting makes them efficient. Mail the 500 homes surrounding recent jobs, past customers who haven’t called in 18 months, and new homeowners in your service area.

Targeted postcards with call tracking deliver leads at $15-25 each in many markets. Cheaper than Google Ads and dramatically cheaper than shared platforms when you factor in close rates.

Learn more about postcard marketing for home services.

Your database is gold

You have a list of every customer who ever hired you. Most plumbers ignore it.

The average home needs plumbing service every 2-3 years. Someone who called you for a clogged drain three years ago probably needs something else by now. Their water heater is older. Their faucets are dripping. Their sewer line hasn’t been scoped.

A quarterly newsletter to past customers, a seasonal maintenance offer, even a simple “we miss you” postcard can reactivate dormant relationships. One HVAC contractor generated $60K+ from a single email campaign to customers who hadn’t called in 2+ years.

Learn more about cold calling your database.

Building a mix that doesn’t depend on platforms

Healthy lead generation spreads risk across multiple channels.

Channel	% of Leads	Cost Per Lead	Close Rate
Google Business Profile	25%	$0	25%
Referrals	20%	$25	45%
Neighbor marketing	15%	$15	35%
Postcards	15%	$20	22%
Google Ads	15%	$100	20%
Database reactivation	10%	$8	30%

Notice what’s missing. Shared lead platforms aren’t in the mix. Some plumbers keep them at 5-10% for overflow capacity, but they’re supplements rather than the foundation.

The combined cost per lead across all channels runs $25-35. Close rate averages 28-32%. That produces a cost per job around $100-125.

Compare that to $1,000+ per job on shared platforms alone.

When shared leads still make sense

Platforms work in specific situations.

If you’re new and need jobs immediately, you have to get leads from somewhere. A new plumber with no reviews can’t wait 6 months for SEO to kick in. Shared leads fill the gap while you build owned channels.

If your schedule has holes this week, platform leads can fill empty slots. Some revenue beats no revenue, even at thin margins.

If you’ve mastered speed to lead, you can actually win the game. Some contractors build entire systems around responding in under 60 seconds. They capture that 35-50% of leads that go to whoever calls first.

The key is treating platforms as a supplement, not the strategy.

Tracking what works

None of this matters without measurement.

Unique phone numbers for each channel, promo codes on postcards, “how did you hear about us” on every call, dedicated landing pages for each campaign. You need to know cost per lead AND close rate for every source.

Cost per lead is vanity. Cost per booked job is sanity.

A $20 lead that closes at 10% costs $200 per job. A $100 lead that closes at 40% costs $250 per job. They’re nearly equivalent despite 5x difference in lead cost.

Review monthly. Cut what doesn’t work. Double down on what does.

Learn more about marketing attribution for plumbers.

Stop renting, start owning

Angi and Thumbtack will always have a place for contractors who need leads right now. But building your business on rented attention is a losing strategy.

Every month you pay for shared leads without investing in your own marketing assets, you fall further behind contractors who are building review profiles, neighbor marketing systems, and databases of happy customers.

The math is clear. A strong Google Business Profile, systematic review generation, neighbor marketing after every job, and regular outreach to past customers produces leads at 1/10th the cost of shared platforms.

The leads close better because they found you specifically, not because a platform sold their info to five contractors.

Plumbers who get this are thriving while the ones dependent on Angi are watching their margins shrink every year.

Build something you own.