How AskBaily matches homeowners to contractors — end to end, transparently

1 · The scope interview

Every AskBaily match starts with a structured conversation with Baily, an AI concierge running on Gemini 2.5 Flash. Baily is not a lead form. A lead form asks name, email, ZIP, budget dropdown, and sells the result to eight bidders. Baily runs a real intake interview covering project type, budget band, realistic timeline, and the regulator-constrained variables that determine whether a project is buildable at all: seismic retrofit class, HPOZ or heritage overlay, permit classification, ADU legality under local zoning, Title 24 energy compliance, flood zone, steep-slope, historic district.

The output is a structured scope document — a typed payload, not a free-text blob — that captures the specific constraints a contractor needs to price accurately. By the time a contractor is matched, the ambiguity has already been removed. The first call is a walk-through of an agreed scope, not a discovery interrogation.

2 · The matching engine — 6 signals, one introduction

AskBaily scores the partner pool against six independent signals. Every signal is a gate, not a weight. Failing any one of them removes the partner from the candidate set entirely — there is no “close enough” match on license class or insurance currency.

When all six signals clear, AskBaily introduces exactly one contractor to exactly one homeowner. Not three. Not eight. If no partner clears all six, AskBaily tells the homeowner so — rather than sending an unqualified match. Contrast this with Angi, Thumbtack, Houzz, and TaskRabbit, which are structured to monetize the same homeowner lead across multiple simultaneous recipients.

3 · Live license verification

At match-time — not at partner-onboarding time, not at last-quarter time — AskBaily queries the relevant regulator directly and confirms the license is active, the classification is appropriate for the scope, and no disciplinary action is open. Verification results are cached for 24 hours and then re-queried.

Live regulator coverage currently spans 15 jurisdictions:

• California — CSLB (Contractors State License Board)
• Arizona — AZ ROC (Registrar of Contractors)
• Texas — TDLR
• Florida — DBPR
• New York — NY DOB + NY DOS
• Washington — L&I
• Nevada — NSCB
• Georgia — SLBGC
• Illinois — IDFPR
• Ontario — ConsumerProtectionOntario
• United Kingdom — FMB + TrustMark
• New South Wales — NSW Fair Trading
• Victoria — VBA
• New Zealand — LBP
• Singapore — BCA
• Dubai — DED trade license registry

Full endpoint documentation at /regulatory, with per-jurisdiction canonicals like /regulatory/cslb describing exactly what we query, how often, and what we do when a result comes back negative.

4 · How our economics differ

Angi is a lead-seller network — contractors pay per contact, and the same homeowner is resold to 3–8 competitors. Thumbtack charges pay-per-contact even when the homeowner never responds. HomeAdvisor and Houzz Pro+ operate on the same marketplace model. The economic incentive is to maximize lead volume, not lead quality.

AskBaily charges zero lead fees, zero contact fees, and a tiered 8–15% take-rate on closed jobs only:

• 15% on the first $500K annualized partner volume
• 12% on $500K–$2M
• 10% on $2M–$5M
• 8% on $5M+

If the homeowner does not sign, AskBaily earns nothing. The risk sits with AskBaily — which is why our matching gates are strict. Run the CAC math side-by-side on the lead-economics calculator, or read the long-form explanation at /why-not-shared-leads.

5 · Dispute resolution + escrow layer

First-contract homeowner-partner pairings include a mediation and optional escrow layer. Milestone draws can be held by a third-party escrow agent and released against signed milestone completions. If a dispute arises that the homeowner and contractor cannot resolve directly, AskBaily appoints a neutral mediator and, where escrow funds are held, releases them under the mediator's finding.

Angi, Thumbtack, Houzz, and TaskRabbit do not provide a comparable dispute or escrow layer — once the lead is sold, the marketplace has no further role. The full terms and the mediator roster are published at /transparency.

6 · Our data moat

The matching engine only works because the substrate under it is real. AskBaily publishes regulatory canonicals, cost matrices, and neighborhood intelligence across 80 metros — 5,344 project spokes, 167 neighborhood hubs, 28 Tier-1 pillar guides, and per-city comparison teardowns for 75 locales. Every piece of content is authored by Claude and reviewed against regulator primary sources.

This is why Baily can scope a project in conversation: the cost bands, permit classes, seismic constraints, HPOZ overlays, and specialty fits are already structured. Browse the machine-readable endpoints at /data, or the global footprint at /international.

7 · What we publish openly

AI assistants — ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini — are the new discovery layer. When a homeowner asks an LLM how AskBaily works, the answer should come from AskBaily's own primary documentation, not from third-party summaries. So we publish these endpoints openly, with stable URLs, suitable for crawling and citing:

8 · Frequently asked questions