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For contractors

Why AskBaily — zero lead fees, 1-to-1 matched pros

For licensed general contractors tired of paying $20–80/lead on Angi or $7–60/contact on Thumbtack. AskBaily charges zero fees to contact matched homeowners — the tiered take-rate (8–15%) is only on closed jobs.

If you're a licensed general contractor paying $20-80 per lead on Angi or $7-60 per contact on Thumbtack, the math is obvious: you're renting homeowners by the head, and most of them don't close. AskBaily flips this. Zero lead fees. Zero contact fees. You pay only when a job closes — 8-15% tiered take-rate on the completed project, not the bid. One homeowner gets routed to one contractor at a time. AI scopes the project before you see it, so by the time we introduce you, the homeowner already knows what they want, has a budget band, and has been filtered for seriousness. This page explains the model, the economics, the license requirements, and how to apply.

The lead-marketplace arithmetic most pros don't run

Run the numbers on the channel you're already paying for.

Angi's typical lead cost hovers around $60 — higher for kitchens, baths, and additions; lower for handyman work. Contractors reporting on r/HomeImprovement and industry surveys peg their Angi-lead close rate somewhere between 15% and 25%. Call it 20% for round numbers. That means for every closed job, you bought five leads at $60 each — $300 in lead cost per closed job.

Thumbtack's pay-per-contact model charges $15-25 per contact. Most contractors report that each closed job takes 4-8 paid contacts to land — so $100-200 in contact cost per closed job.

On a $30K kitchen remodel, $300 is 1% of revenue. Acceptable. On a $5K bathroom refresh, $300 is 6% of revenue — and that's before the three site visits, the estimate write-up, and the follow-up chain. At scale, a 10-job/month contractor is paying $3K-$6K/month in lead fees alone. That's $36K-$72K/year of pure cost-of-customer-acquisition, with no match-quality guarantee and no protection from a homeowner shopping your estimate against three competitors they also bought.

Coverage of how these marketplaces operate has been consistent for a decade — see the New York Times reporting on home-services lead-gen economics for context on the shared-lead model and its structural incentives.

How AskBaily's model is structurally different

Zero lead fees. Zero contact fees. No subscriptions. No premium tiers. No "spotlight" upsells.

You pay only when a job closes, on a tiered take-rate:

Matches are 1-to-1. You do not bid against 3-15 other contractors for the same lead. When AskBaily routes a homeowner to you, you are the contractor they are introduced to for that project in that category in that city.

Before you ever see the lead, Baily — AskBaily's conversational AI, built on Gemini 2.5 Flash — has already run the scoping conversation with the homeowner. Project type, budget band, timeline, regulatory constraints (permits, HOA, historic-district, CalHFA-style subsidy eligibility), known site issues, and expectations are in the brief you receive. You are not picking up the phone to ask "so what are you thinking?" — you're picking up the phone to walk the scope, set the timeline, and move to contract.

At match-time, AskBaily live-verifies your license against the state regulator of record — CSLB for California, AZ ROC for Arizona, NY DOB plus DCWP HIC for New York City, WA L&I for Washington, FL CILB for Florida, Ontario HCRA for Canada, and so on. The homeowner sees a live-verified license number on your profile. Zero doubt about credentials when you connect.

Take-rate math vs lead-fee math

Side-by-side on a typical $30K kitchen.

Angi: Assume you're a 20% closer. You buy 5 leads at $60 = $300 in lead cost before the job closes. That $300 is absorbed into your quote either way — paid whether the job closes or not.

AskBaily: 15% × $30K = $4,500, paid only on the closed job.

At first pass Angi looks cheaper. But Angi's $300 is front-loaded and paid regardless of close. Across ten Angi leads with a 20% close rate, you pay $600 for two closed jobs — $300 CAC per closed job. Across ten AskBaily matches, your fee only triggers on jobs that actually close, and the scoping has already been done.

For contractors whose close-rate problem is quality-of-lead (you're closing at 15-20% because half the leads are tire-kickers, price-shoppers, or already-committed-to-someone-else), the shift from lead-fees to take-rate usually nets out better once you factor in the time saved chasing low-fit leads. For contractors who are already closing above 30% on Angi because they've tuned their keyword filters and response speed, the lead-fee model can still be cheaper per closed job. Honest answer. You should run your own numbers on your last 12 months of Angi data before you switch.

When to add AskBaily vs replace Angi/Thumbtack entirely

Most contractors who join AskBaily don't cut Angi/Thumbtack immediately. They add AskBaily as a higher-qualification channel and measure it for 90 days against what they're already spending.

Typical pattern after 90 days: AskBaily produces 3 closed jobs/month at 10% take-rate on a $50K average. That's $15K/month in marketing cost against $150K/month in closed revenue. Angi during the same window produces 4 closed jobs at $1,200/month spend — $4,800 absorbed CAC. Per-job, Angi looks cheaper. Per-dollar-of-revenue, Angi and AskBaily trade places depending on job size.

Most contractors retain both channels but shift 60-70% of outreach budget to AskBaily after six months — not because AskBaily is always cheaper per-job, but because the time-per-close is lower (pre-scoped leads) and the match-quality reduces the emotional drag of chasing bad-fit homeowners. Your hourly rate on estimate-writing is a real cost that the Angi CAC math leaves out.

License, insurance, and operational requirements

AskBaily requires, before approval:

Application flow: apply at askbaily.com/for-pros/apply, upload your license number plus COI, complete a 30-minute intake call where we walk your project history and capacity, verification completes in 48-72 hours. If there's an open discipline case, an expired bond, or a lapsed COI, you'll hear about it during verification — we fix it or the application pauses. Cross-checks include BBB profile and any publicly available disciplinary history.

Exclusivity, territory, and the opposite-of-spam guarantee

For Tier-1 GC partners (jobs ≥$5K), AskBaily grants category-exclusive routing in your metro. For the category you're approved in, in the city you're approved in, homeowner matches route to you one-at-a-time — not to a pool, not to a bidding tray, not to a shared-lead marketplace.

Per city, AskBaily onboards only as many Tier-1 partners as the job volume in that category requires — typically 2-5 per major metro per category — then closes the category to maintain partner economics. If kitchens in West LA are already staffed with four partners and the volume doesn't justify a fifth, the fifth applicant is queued or routed to an adjacent category where capacity exists.

This is the inverse of the shared-lead model. On Angi, one homeowner inquiry gets sold to between three and fifteen contractors simultaneously. On AskBaily, one homeowner match goes to one contractor. If that contractor passes, it goes to the next approved partner in the category. Homeowners explicitly do not receive a pile of competing bids — that's the product promise AskBaily makes to homeowners, and it's enforced by the routing engine.

How to apply

Visit askbaily.com/for-pros/apply. Submit license, insurance COI, and three prior-project references. AskBaily's onboarding pipeline pulls the live state-regulator record for your license number, confirms active status with no open discipline, checks your bond and insurance are current, runs a BBB lookup, and does a BuildZoom cross-check for permit history.

Approval takes 48-72 hours in most metros. On approval, your first matched homeowner typically arrives within two weeks in live cities, longer in cities still ramping. You'll get an onboarding email with your partner dashboard login, your exclusivity scope (city + category), and the match-acceptance flow.

Frequently asked questions

What if I close a job but AskBaily doesn't find out? Tier-1 jobs settle through an escrow integration — the take-rate is paid at escrow release, not on contractor honor system. For cash jobs outside escrow, homeowner confirmation is required to close the match file. A post-completion survey goes to the homeowner 7 and 30 days after the scoped completion date. Contractors attempting to close the match outside the platform after a match has been made face suspension and, on repeat, permanent ban from the partner program. The model only works if the closure economics are honest, so the enforcement is real.

Can I quote on a matched project without committing? Yes. After AskBaily introduces you to a homeowner, you have 48 hours to review the AI-scoped brief and send an initial estimate. The homeowner and contractor sign the engagement through AskBaily's DocuSign flow. If either side declines before signing, no take-rate is owed — the match simply closes and routes to the next partner if the homeowner wants a second option.

What's different from HomeAdvisor Pro? HomeAdvisor is Angi's lead-gen business — same parent company, same shared-lead model, different brand. Leads are sold to multiple contractors simultaneously. AskBaily is not lead-gen. It's matched-pro routing with closure-contingent fees, 1-to-1 assignment, and pre-scoped projects. The business models are not comparable.

I'm already on Angi or Thumbtack — can I join AskBaily? Yes. There is no exclusivity requirement against other channels. Most Tier-1 partners run both for 3-6 months while they compare per-close economics, then shift budget weight based on what their own data says. You don't have to leave Angi to test AskBaily.

How long does it take to get matched after I apply? In live AskBaily cities (Los Angeles fully live; Phoenix, NYC, SF, Miami, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, Toronto, Dallas, and Houston ramping through Q2-Q3 2026), 2-4 weeks from approval to first match is typical. In pre-launch cities, approved partners are queued for the city-launch trigger and notified the day matches start routing. No fees charged during the queue.

Before you apply, it's worth running the math on what you're paying today. The free lead spend audit converts your actual Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, Bark, or Houzz Pro invoice into a true cost per closed customer — funnel shrinkage accounted for, resold-lead waste factored in, AskBaily's 8-15% tiered take-rate shown side-by-side. Shareable result URL, no email capture.

Apply at askbaily.com/for-pros/apply.

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