You don’t pay for leads. You don’t pay for impressions. You pay for a homeowner on your calendar who agreed to be there. One price per booked estimate, set before we start and locked for ninety days. If an appointment doesn’t meet the definition below, you don’t pay for it — and I replace it.
First, one honest gate. This is for owners who already have their Market Number and want volume against it. Haven’t run the fourteen days yet? Start there. I won’t quote a per-appointment price against a market I haven’t measured — and anybody who does is guessing with your money.
When you buy a lead from Angi or HomeAdvisor, here’s what you bought: a name and a number that three to eight other contractors bought at the same moment. You’re not first. You’re not even necessarily fifth. You’re one of a group racing to a phone that’s already ringing.
That’s why the close rate is what it is. It was never about the quality of the name — it was about how many people were holding it.
Hiring an agency buys something different but not better: you buy activity. Ads went live. Leads came in. Here’s a report with impressions on it. Whether any of that turned into a man on your driveway with a tape measure was, somehow, not on the report.
Same problem, different clothes. You’re paying for the part that happens before the part you care about.
You buy a block of booked estimates — say, twenty. You pay one price per appointment, agreed before we start, and you pay it once. Not a retainer. Not a management fee. Not a percentage of spend on top.
The ad spend is mine. The creative is mine. The follow-up is mine. If it takes me four hundred leads to produce your twenty estimates, that’s my problem — and it doesn’t change your price.
A no-show is still billable. I can get a man to agree to a time on his own calendar. I can’t make him open his door — and any company that tells you they can is either lying or building a refund policy they’ll fight you on later.
You have five business days to flag anything that failed the six. After five days, appointments are final. That isn’t me being difficult — it’s that a dispute about a call from three weeks ago can’t be settled by either of us, and a rule we both agreed to beforehand beats an argument neither of us can win.
I’m not going to quote you a per-appointment price for your trade on a web page — because I haven’t measured your market yet, and a number I made up would be worth exactly what you paid for it.
What I will do is put a live ad account on a screen share. Real spend, real dates, real cost per lead. You look at it and decide whether the person managing it should be managing yours.
And the price you get is built from your own fourteen-day measurement — not from an industry chart.
One price per booked estimate — agreed before anything runs, locked ninety days. Ad spend is mine; if costs rise inside that window, I absorb it.
A six-point definition of billable, in writing, before you pay a dollar. Failed appointments are replaced, not argued about.
Every appointment lands with the homeowner’s name, number, address, and what he said he needs. You keep the creative and the angle. No retainer, no management fee, no percentage of spend.
The risk reversal here is structural, not a promise on a page: I don’t get paid unless an estimate lands on your calendar and meets all six criteria. If I’m wrong about your market, I eat the ad spend — not you.
On timing — the honest version. I fund the traffic, so I can only run a few blocks at once. It’s a cash limit, and I’d rather say that than dress it up. When the slots are full, the next start date is the next opening. And if you’re seasonal, count backward: twenty estimates arrive across a month, not on a Tuesday.
One price per booked estimate, built from your own measurement, replaced if it fails the six. If nothing lands, you owe nothing.
Get my per-appointment price Priced from your own 14-day measurement · locked 90 days · replaced if it fails the six