Shared leads vs exclusive leads vs hand-verified leads: what contractors should actually pay for

“Buying leads” covers three very different products, and contractors routinely pay for the wrong one. Before you spend another dollar, it’s worth being precise about what each model actually sells you — because the failure modes are completely different.

Full disclosure up front: LeadRadar sells the third kind. We’ll make the case for it, but we’ll also tell you honestly when the other two are the better buy.

Model 1: Shared marketplace leads

This is the HomeAdvisor/Angi/Thumbtack model. A homeowner or property manager fills out a request form; the platform sells that contact to several contractors at once, each paying per lead.

The good

• Real, timed intent.Someone actively asked for the work. That’s a genuinely valuable moment.
• Instant volume. You can turn it on today and have phone numbers by tonight. No ramp-up.
• Pay per lead. No retainer, easy to start and stop around your schedule.

The bad

• You’re racing.The same lead typically goes to several contractors. Whoever calls in the first minutes usually wins, so you’re paying for a sprint, not a lead.
• Price competition is structural.When every bidder arrived through the same form, the buyer’s easiest comparison is price.
• Quality varies wildly. Wrong numbers, tire-kickers and duplicate requests are common, and disputing bad leads is its own part-time job.
• Mostly residential.Commercial building owners and facility managers largely don’t use these platforms.

When it makes sense:you’re a newer residential-focused business with gaps in the schedule, you can answer the phone within minutes during business hours, and you treat it as paid practice at closing. That’s a legitimate use.

Model 2: Exclusive lead generation

Here an agency runs ads and landing pages under your brand (or theirs) and sends every resulting inquiry only to you. You typically pay a monthly retainer plus ad spend, or a higher per-lead price.

The good

• No race. The lead is yours alone, so you can actually run a sales process instead of a speed drill.
• Compounding assets. Done well, you end up owning landing pages, tracking and creative that keep working.
• Scalable. If the economics work, you can spend more and get more.

The bad

• Expensive to find out. Retainer plus ad spend means you can be thousands in before you know whether the agency is any good. Ramp time of one to three months is normal.
• Intent still varies. An ad click is shallower intent than a code violation with a compliance deadline. Plenty of exclusive leads are early-stage price shoppers.
• You rent the channel. Ad costs in contractor keywords keep climbing, and your lead flow is hostage to platform auction prices.

When it makes sense:you’re established, you can fund a real ad budget for a full quarter without flinching, and you have someone who will actually work the leads. For high-ticket residential and some commercial trades, this can be excellent.

Model 3: Hand-verified, research-based leads

This is LeadRadar’s model, and it works differently at the root: instead of waiting for a buyer to raise their hand on the internet, we find evidence that a building needs work. Our radar scans public signals — permits, code violations, tenders and RFPs, review complaints, storm reports and capital-funding announcements — and a human verifies every lead before delivery. Each one arrives with the quoted evidence, a confidence score, decision-maker contact details and a suggested opening angle.

The good

• Evidence, not a form fill. You know why this building needs your trade before you make contact, which changes the entire first conversation.
• No shared list.Leads are curated per contractor and territory — you’re not one of five names dialing the same number.
• Commercial-grade. The signal sources (violations, tenders, funding) skew heavily toward commercial buildings and larger tickets.
• Cheap to evaluate. Applications are free and your first three verified leads are free, so judging quality costs you a phone call, not a retainer.

The honest trade-offs

• You make the first move.These are evidence-backed prospects, not inbound callers. If your team won’t do outreach, this model isn’t for you.
• It’s not unlimited volume. Human verification caps throughput. This is a quality model, not a firehose.
• You have to apply.There’s no self-serve checkout — we review every application by hand and only take contractors whose territory we can actually serve. Pricing is custom, sized to your capacity, rather than a public rate card.

How to decide

Three questions cut through most of it:

• Residential or commercial? Marketplaces are residential machines. For commercial work, signals-based research or a very good exclusive program are the only real options.
• Can you answer in 90 seconds, or sell over a week? Shared leads reward speed. Verified commercial leads reward a considered, evidence-led approach.
• What can you afford to learn with? Marketplaces cost tens of dollars per lesson, agencies cost thousands. A model with free first leads costs you the time to check.

Plenty of good contracting businesses run a mix — a marketplace to plug schedule gaps, plus a higher-quality channel for the work that actually grows the company.

If commercial work is where you’re headed, the cheapest way to test our model is to use it: apply for your territory, and if we approve it, your first three hand-verified leads are free.