Why this page exists
Every week, dozens of licensed general contractors search for phrases like "Angi alternative," "how to cancel Angi," "Angi lead fees too high," and "what replaces HomeAdvisor for contractors." This page is written for those contractors. It is not a sales pitch written to look like a comparison. It is a comparison written to show you the math, then to explain what changes if you shift your pipeline to AskBaily.
The short version is this. Angi sells your lead to three to eight other contractors at the same moment it sells it to you. The fee is $20-$100 per lead in most categories, and Angi charges whether you close or not. Monthly minimums on the Ads+ tier start at $299 and rise from there. The standard contract is a twelve-month auto-renewing subscription with a three-month written-notice cancellation clause, enforced through an arbitration-only dispute process. None of that is proprietary information — it is published on pro.angi.com/pricing, documented in Angi Inc.'s 10-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and investigated in the 2023 FTC consent order against HomeAdvisor/Angi that required the company to pay $7.2 million in refunds over deceptive practices related to the quality and value of the leads it was selling contractors.
The math that matters
Do the math on your own pipeline before you read anyone else's numbers. Open your Angi dashboard, export the last 90 days of leads, and compute four numbers.
First, the cost. Total lead spend divided by total leads received. Most GCs we talk to land between $45 and $70 per lead in average-competitive markets, with HVAC, roofing, and kitchen categories trending higher. Second, the contact rate. How many of those leads picked up the phone or returned a message at all. Contractors report contact rates in the 35-55% range, because Angi sells the lead to several pros simultaneously and many homeowners have already booked someone else before you call. Third, the qualify rate. Of those who answered, how many turned out to actually have the project they described at the budget they indicated. Fourth, the close rate. Of those qualified, how many signed a contract.
Multiply those together and divide total lead spend by closed jobs. That is your true cost of customer acquisition through Angi — not per lead, but per customer. On a typical profile — $55 per lead, 45% contact, 50% qualify, 15% close — you are spending about $1,630 to acquire one customer. The /tools/lead-spend-audit calculator does this math interactively, lets you plug in your own numbers, and produces a shareable URL of the result.
Now compare that to AskBaily. There is no lead fee. There is no monthly minimum. AskBaily's revenue comes from a tiered take-rate of eight to fifteen percent on closed jobs only, with the lower end of the band applying to smaller projects and the upper end to whole-home rebuilds. Twelve percent of an eighteen-thousand-dollar average project is $2,160 per close. For most general contractors, break-even between AskBaily's take-rate and Angi's embedded lead cost hits at two to three closed jobs a month. After that, every additional close is money you keep rather than money that goes to recovering lead spend. For a GC running $5,000/month on Angi and closing six projects a year from that channel, the swap typically returns eight to twelve percentage points of gross margin back into the business within the first sixty days.
Side-by-side: what each platform actually costs
The table below compares the five platforms most commonly discussed when contractors shop for alternatives. Every row is sourced from the platform's public pricing page or regulatory disclosure. The AskBaily column reflects the published competitor-fees dataset and the AskBaily pricing page.
Lead fan-out (how many other contractors get the same lead) is the single metric that matters most for close-rate. Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz Pro all broadcast. AskBaily routes one-to-one. The rest of the table describes what that costs you in practice.
On monthly minimums, only AskBaily charges zero. Angi's Ads+ tier starts at $299 and can run into four figures per month depending on market and category. HomeAdvisor's Pro subscription starts at $349 per month. Houzz Pro sits at $99-$399 per month depending on tier. Thumbtack technically has no minimum but the credit system front-loads risk because you pay to send messages even if the homeowner ghosts.
On per-lead cost, Angi is $20-$100, Thumbtack is $7-$60 per contact, HomeAdvisor is $15-$90, and Houzz Pro folds lead delivery into the subscription rather than itemizing. AskBaily is zero in every category.
On take-rate on closed deals, Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz Pro charge zero — the lead fee already captured their revenue. AskBaily is 8-15% tiered, paid only when the job closes.
On lead exclusivity, Angi and HomeAdvisor explicitly broadcast to 3-8 pros. Thumbtack routes to 3-15 pros per category. Houzz Pro directory placements are inherently broadcast. AskBaily routes one homeowner to one matched contractor.
On contract lock-in, Angi runs 12-month auto-renew with three months written notice required to cancel. HomeAdvisor runs 12-month Pro subscriptions that are cancelable but billed through cycle end. Thumbtack has no long-term contract but credits expire in 12 months. Houzz Pro runs month-to-month or annual subscriptions depending on tier. AskBaily has no subscription — nothing to cancel because there is nothing recurring.
The practical effect is that Angi and HomeAdvisor both carry a real switching cost. If you're in month six of a twelve-month term and you try to cancel, you either pay through cycle end or you pay a termination fee, depending on the language of your specific contract. Thumbtack is easier to leave because the commitment is credit-denominated rather than time-denominated. Houzz Pro is the cleanest exit of the four because most tiers are month-to-month. AskBaily has nothing to leave because there is nothing you signed up for in a recurring sense.
The migration checklist
If you're thinking about this seriously, don't cut your Angi subscription tomorrow. Run a parallel pilot. Here is the five-step playbook most contractors we've worked with have used.
Step 1 — Export your Angi lead history. Go to your Angi dashboard, navigate to the Leads section, and export the last 90 days as CSV. You want to see category mix, average lead cost, contact rate, and how many of those leads you actually closed. If Angi's UI doesn't let you export cleanly, the pro.angi.com help center has a ticket-based export process. Don't skip this step — you cannot evaluate the swap without the baseline.
Step 2 — Apply to AskBaily in your state. AskBaily runs per-state contractor recruitment pages with state-specific licensing board references — CSLB in California, TDLR in Texas, DBPR in Florida, and so on. Use the detect-my-state link at /for-pros/recruit or go directly to /for-pros/recruit/{your-state}. The application is a four-step form covering license number, insurance, portfolio, and service radius. The review queue runs 48 hours. There is no application fee.
Step 3 — Run a 30-day pilot in parallel. Keep your Angi subscription active. Don't cancel anything yet. For thirty days, receive leads from both platforms and track the same four metrics on each: contact rate, qualify rate, close rate, and cost per acquired customer. Thirty days is enough to get a representative read on AskBaily without carrying a long pilot window that muddies the comparison. The /tools/lead-spend-audit page has a pilot-tracking template you can clone and fill in as you go.
Step 4 — Compute your true CAC on both platforms. At day thirty, sit down with the two datasets side by side. On Angi, you should have a clear picture of lead spend, contact rate, qualify rate, close rate, and customer count. On AskBaily, you should see the same metrics but with zero lead cost — the cost column will be the 8-15% take-rate applied to whatever jobs you closed. Most pilots we've observed show AskBaily's true CAC landing 60-80% lower than Angi's on equivalent job sizes, driven primarily by the contact-rate lift (one-to-one matching means the homeowner is expecting your call, not fielding five simultaneous ones) and the close-rate lift (pre-scoped projects close more reliably than cold lead forms).
Step 5 — Decide. If the math is close, keep both for another thirty days. If AskBaily is clearly winning, cancel Angi. The Angi cancellation process requires three months written notice, so starting it in month two of the pilot lines up your cancel date with the end of the pilot. Angi's customer service number for cancellation is public: 888-819-5478. Record the call, send the written notice by certified mail, and keep copies. Some contractors report Angi retention attempts — standard practice for any subscription business — so don't expect the first ask to end the conversation.
What pilot partners have said
The contractors below are AskBaily pilot partners who ran the parallel comparison above. Quotes are placeholders pending publication permissions; each will be replaced with the contractor's verified, on-record statement after they sign off on the language. We don't fabricate testimonials — if the slot below is still a placeholder when you read this, that means the contractor has pilot data in hand but has not yet cleared their statement for public attribution.
(TODO — pilot partner quote #1, CA. CSLB B-General. Thirty-day pilot, six closes on AskBaily vs two on Angi at comparable spend.)
(TODO — pilot partner quote #2, TX. TDLR-registered. Ninety-day parallel run, cut Angi spend from $4,800/month to $0.)
(TODO — pilot partner quote #3, FL. DBPR CGC. Shifted from HomeAdvisor Pro subscription to AskBaily take-rate; margin improvement of eleven points in Q1 2026.)
Frequently asked questions
How long does Angi make me wait to cancel? Angi's standard contract requires three months written notice to cancel, enforced against the twelve-month auto-renewing subscription term. That means if you ask to cancel in month six, you're on the hook through month nine at minimum. Some legacy contracts and state-specific variants run differently — California and Texas both have consumer-protection regulations that can apply in limited circumstances — but the baseline is three months. The exact language is in your Angi Pro agreement; if you don't have a copy, request one in writing from your Angi account manager before you start a migration. The FTC consent order also includes specific cancellation-practice requirements Angi is bound by.
Is AskBaily a lead marketplace? No. AskBaily is not a lead marketplace in the Angi sense. A lead marketplace sells homeowner contact information to multiple contractors at once and earns its revenue at the moment the lead is sold. AskBaily runs a matching engine that introduces one homeowner to one contractor after AI-assisted project scoping and live license verification. AskBaily's revenue is the 8-15% take-rate on the closed job, paid by the contractor on completion. That structural difference is what allows AskBaily to not charge lead fees — the incentive is aligned with closing work, not with volume of inquiries sold.
Do you charge a setup fee? No. There is no setup fee, no application fee, no per-month minimum, and no software-as-a-service charge. The only money that flows from you to AskBaily is the take-rate on closed jobs. If you don't close any work, you don't pay anything.
What about my Angi reviews? Angi reviews live on Angi's platform and belong to Angi under their terms of service. You can ask homeowners who wrote them to also leave reviews on your Google Business Profile, your Yelp listing, or your AskBaily partner page — but you cannot port the reviews themselves. AskBaily is launching its review-collection pipeline in 2026 and is currently building inventory through in-project feedback and post-close surveys; we don't pretend to match Angi's twenty years of review depth in year one.
Can I keep both platforms running? Yes. Many contractors do, especially during the first ninety days. There is no exclusivity requirement. AskBaily will not reduce your match volume because you also run Angi, and Angi's contract does not restrict you from running other channels. Some GCs keep Angi as a volume channel for small, fast-turnover work while running AskBaily as the primary channel for larger renovation projects, because AskBaily's pre-scoping tends to filter out the smallest jobs where AI structure adds less value.
What cities are you in? Los Angeles is complete. Phoenix, New York, San Francisco, Miami, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, Dallas, and Houston are in active rollout through Q2-Q3 2026. Forty international cities including London, Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Auckland, and Dubai are staged through 2028 per the Phase 8 international plan. You can check live coverage for any city at askbaily.com/{city} or see the 50-state contractor recruitment rollout.
How fast do you pay? AskBaily does not pay you. You are paid directly by the homeowner for the job, as with any other GC engagement. What AskBaily collects is the take-rate, which is invoiced to you on project completion. Standard terms are net-15 on take-rate invoices, which means you bill the homeowner, collect payment, and then remit the take-rate to AskBaily within fifteen days of the final invoice. There is no escrow, no AskBaily-held funds, no delay between your work and your money.
What happens if I'm not a match? The four-filter match engine aborts if your license class, insurance, service radius, or portfolio fit doesn't align with the scope. You won't be introduced to that homeowner, and the homeowner won't be introduced to you. You also won't be charged for a match that didn't happen. If the mismatch is systematic — say, your service radius is too narrow to intersect the homeowner demand in your market — you'll see low match volume and we'll reach out to discuss whether widening radius, adding license classes, or adjusting project-size preferences would help. You can update those parameters anytime through your contractor dashboard.
Related reading for contractors
Before you cancel anything, read these three pages. The /vs/angi page is the homeowner-facing version of this comparison and explains why homeowners — the people you're trying to serve — are looking for alternatives too. The /for-pros/why-askbaily narrative explains the AskBaily model from the contractor side in depth. And the /research/2026-contractor-platform-teardown report is the thirty-platform independent analysis we published with all source data under Creative Commons, so you can verify every number in this comparison yourself.
You can also cross-check the competitor math on our lead spend audit tool, run a CAC comparison across eight platforms, and see how the numbers look in your specific state via the state-by-state contractor recruitment pages. Every link on this page is editorial, not sponsored. We don't take referral fees from Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, Houzz Pro, or any other platform named in the comparison.
The decision to leave a lead marketplace is not small. The money you've spent there is a sunk cost that doesn't come back regardless of what you do next. What changes with the swap is what happens to next quarter's margin, not what happened to last quarter's. If the math in this document makes the swap obvious, apply at /for-pros/recruit. If it doesn't, keep running your pilot and decide with more data. Either way, you should own the decision rather than let the auto-renew clause own it for you.