Since 1 October 2026, Google charges contractors for Local Services Ads calls they miss. Its help page now counts a lead as valid when "you missed a phone call during your business hours and the customer stays on the line for more than 20 seconds." Construction lead generation used to be about buying more leads. It is now mostly about not wasting the ones you already pay for.
This is what the evidence says works for general contractors, remodelers and specialty trades, and what each option actually costs you.
Where do contractors' leads actually come from?
Mostly from people who already know them. In a 2026 survey of 1,198 US homeowners, the two most common ways people found the professional they hired were having worked with them before (31%) and a referral from friends or family (31%). Paid channels compete for what is left.
Those figures are from the Home Improvement Research Institute's Q1 2026 tracker, as reported by Angi. Contractors say the same from their side: in Jobber's survey of 1,050 home service owners, 59% named referrals and repeat work as a top lead source.
The other sources in that survey sat a long way behind: Facebook at 32%, local networking at 25%, Google Search at 20%, Local Services Ads at 19%, and lead-generation sites at 16%.
The practical reading: referrals are the base, but they are not a plan. They arrive unevenly, they cannot be turned up when a crew is idle, and a referred homeowner still looks you up before calling. What they find decides whether the referral converts.
Is buying leads from Angi, Thumbtack or Houzz worth it?
Sometimes, as a top-up, if you measure cost per signed job rather than cost per lead. The structural problem is that a shared lead is sold to several contractors at once, so you pay for the chance to compete, not for a customer.
Angi says so itself. Its help page for professionals explains that a request is used "to connect customers with multiple Angi Leads service professionals", and that "you pay a nominal fee for each lead you match to", with fees varying by job size. Houzz works differently: its pricing page lists software from $199 a month and an advertising package from $499 a month.
There is also a regulatory record. In 2022 the US Federal Trade Commission charged HomeAdvisor with making "false, misleading, or unsubstantiated claims about the quality and source of the leads" it sold. The 2023 order provided for up to $7.2 million in redress.
The FTC later reported sending more than $3 million to businesses across 110,372 cheques. That was a settlement, not a finding of guilt, and it concerns one company's past marketing. It is still a reason to ask any lead vendor how a lead is sourced and how many firms receive it.
If you buy leads, track three numbers per vendor: what you paid, how many became a site visit, and how many became a signed contract. Most invoices show only the first.
How do Google Local Services Ads charge contractors?
Per lead, not per click, and from October 2026 that includes some calls you do not answer. Google states: "You're charged for each valid lead you receive through your Local Services ad," with prices varying by location, job type and lead type. A voicemail counts as a valid lead.
Two other details matter. Google no longer runs a manual dispute process in the way older guides describe: its page says low-quality leads "may be issued credits automatically". And Google warns that "if you regularly fail to answer calls or respond to messages, your ad ranking may be affected."
The badge has changed too. Google has replaced its separate badges with a single "Google Verified" badge, and ended the money-back guarantee that used to sit behind the Google Guarantee.
Put together, an unanswered phone now costs you three times: the lead fee, the job, and your ad position. Local Services Ads remain one of the better paid options for trades, because the enquiry comes to you alone. They only pay back if someone picks up.
What decides whether you show up in Google's local results?
Relevance, distance and prominence, in Google's own words, and you can only influence two of them. Google's guidance on local ranking says "local results are mainly based on relevance, distance, and popularity", and adds: "There's no way to request or pay for a better local ranking on Google."
Distance is fixed by where the customer is. Relevance comes from a complete Google Business Profile: the right categories, every service listed, accurate service areas, and real photos of finished work. Prominence comes largely from reviews. Google says "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking."
Reviews also do the convincing after the click. BrightLocal's 2026 survey of 1,002 US adults found 97% read reviews for local businesses. The only sustainable way to get them is to ask every customer, every time. Paying for reviews or asking only the happy ones breaks platform rules.
This is the core of what we do in local SEO for contractors: the profile, the reviews system, and a page for each service and area that says something specific.
How fast do you need to respond to a new lead?
Faster than most contractors do. Invoca's 2026 analysis of home services calls found a person answered 52% of calls overall, and 65% of calls lasting longer than 15 seconds. In the homeowner survey above, 14% of people who struggled to find a professional cited a lack of response.
Treat the Invoca figures with care. They come from a vendor's own customers, who skew towards larger brands, and Invoca sells call-answering software. The direction is still consistent with everything else here: a meaningful share of enquiries reach nobody.
Construction has a harder version of this problem than emergency trades. The owner is on site, the office is one person, and a remodel enquiry needs qualifying before anyone drives out: budget, scope, timeline and location.
There are three workable answers. Staff the phone properly. Use an answering service that can see your calendar. Or use an AI receptionist built for your business that answers, asks the scoping questions, books the consultation and hands over to a person when asked.
Whichever you choose, follow up estimates. A sent estimate with no follow-up is the cheapest revenue most contractors lose, because the lead has already been paid for and the site visit already made.
Do homeowners really ask AI assistants for contractor recommendations?
A growing number do, though no survey measures contractors specifically. BrightLocal's 2026 survey found use of ChatGPT and similar tools for local business recommendations rose from 6% to 45% in a year, making them the third most popular source after Google and Facebook.
That covers all local businesses, from one panel of about a thousand people, so do not read it as "45% of homeowners find contractors with ChatGPT". What it does show is direction, and that 42% of respondents trusted AI recommendations as much as traditional reviews.
An assistant builds its answer from what the web already says about you: reviews, directory listings, your own site and structured data. The work that gets you recommended is largely the same work that gets you into the map pack, plus being described consistently everywhere. We cover the mechanics in how Claude chooses which websites to cite.
What should a contractor do first?
Fix the leaks before buying more volume. In order: make sure every call and form is answered and logged, complete your Google Business Profile, ask every customer for a review, follow up every estimate, and only then add paid leads, measured by cost per signed job.
A practical sequence for the next ninety days:
- Count your missed calls for two weeks. Your phone provider's log is enough. This number usually changes the whole plan.
- Complete the Google Business Profile: categories, services, service areas, hours, and at least twenty real project photos.
- Start asking for reviews at job completion, by text, from every customer.
- Publish project pages by service and area, with your own photos and the scope of the job. Remodelers should put the same projects on Pinterest, where homeowners collect ideas before they call anyone.
- Follow up every estimate on a schedule: day two, day seven, day twenty-one.
- Then test paid leads, one channel at a time, tracking each to a signed contract.
Demand is steady rather than booming. The National Association of Home Builders' Remodeling Market Index read 62 in the third quarter of 2026, with its leads-and-inquiries component at 53. In a flat market, the contractor who answers and follows up takes work from the one who does not.
The short version
Referrals and repeat work still bring most construction leads, shared leads make you compete for a customer you have already paid for, and Google now bills for some calls you miss. The highest-return work is unglamorous: answer, qualify, follow up, and build the profile, reviews and pages that you own.
We set out how we approach this for general contractors and remodelers, with separate pages for roofing and HVAC and plumbing. Every package is priced on one page, from $1,000.