Last updated September 2026. Prices in Canadian dollars.
The short answer: buying leads means paying a marketplace such as HomeStars, Angi, Bark or Networx a set fee for each homeowner’s contact details, and in most cases that same homeowner is sold to three or four other contractors at the same moment. Working with a lead gen partner means paying a flat monthly fee to have campaigns run in your own name, so every lead is yours alone and everything built along the way stays yours. Bought leads are cheaper to start and never get any better. A partner costs more in month one and gets better every month after. Which one fits depends on where your business is right now, and the rest of this article is meant to help you decide honestly.
If you have ever typed “buy roofing leads,” “roofing leads for sale” or “verified renovation leads” into Google, you have seen the pitch: pay only for results, no contracts, leads in your inbox tomorrow. Some of that is true. Here is the part the pitch leaves out. The same logic applies whether you are looking for roofing leads, renovation leads or HVAC leads. The trade changes; the model does not.
How buying leads actually works
A lead marketplace runs its own ads for “roofer near me” and “basement renovation cost” across the province, collects the homeowner’s name, number and project details on its own website, and then sells that contact to contractors in the area. Three things about that model decide everything else:
- The homeowner is usually shared. Most platforms sell one request to several contractors. The homeowner gets four calls in ten minutes and picks whoever answered first or quoted lowest. You are in a race you did not start, against people you cannot see.
- You pay whether or not it closes. Wrong number, outside your area, “just pricing it out,” already hired someone last week: you paid for all of those. Credits exist on most platforms, but you spend your evenings arguing for them.
- The platform earns more by selling more. Its revenue goes up when the same lead is sold to more contractors. Your close rate goes down when that happens. Those two facts pull in opposite directions, and the platform is the one holding the controls.
Prices vary by trade and platform, but shared roofing and renovation leads in Ontario typically run $40 to $150 each, and platforms that advertise “exclusive” or “verified” leads charge $150 to $400 for the same contact. Some add a monthly subscription on top, and most bill you automatically as leads arrive.
There is one honest exception. Google Local Services Ads charges per lead too, but the lead comes from a homeowner who clicked your own listing, with your reviews and your Google Guaranteed badge, and you can dispute the junk. For emergency trades like plumbing and HVAC it is worth running alongside whatever else you do. It still teaches you nothing about your customers and builds you nothing you can keep, which is the theme of everything that follows.
The math nobody puts on the pricing page
The number that matters is not cost per lead. It is cost per booked job. Here is a typical Ontario roofing comparison, using the kind of numbers we see in real accounts:
| Shared lead you buy | Exclusive lead from your own campaign | |
|---|---|---|
| Price per lead | $60 | $150 |
| Contractors who receive it | 4 to 5 | 1 |
| Typical close rate | 8% to 15% | 20% to 30% |
| Cost per booked job | $400 to $750 | $500 to $750 |
| Calls made to book one job | 7 to 12 | 3 to 5 |
| What you own afterwards | Nothing | Ad accounts, tracking, profile, pages, data |
| When you stop paying | Leads stop the same day | Profile and content keep producing |
Read the third and fourth rows again. The “cheap” lead and the “expensive” lead cost about the same per roof. The difference is everything around the number: how many calls your estimator makes to book one job, how many price-shoppers you drive out to, and what you are left with after a year. One path leaves you with a working machine in your own name. The other leaves you with a credit card statement.
What a lead gen partner does that a marketplace cannot
They learn your business
A partner learns the nuances of your business: which customers you actually want, what those customers care about, which offers land and which ads speak to your ideal client. Three months in, your campaigns know that your best jobs are steel re-roofs in the older parts of town, that a free inspection offer beats a discount, and that your estimator closes better on Tuesday mornings than Saturday afternoons. A marketplace knows none of that and never will. Paying for leads is a gamble that does not take any of it into consideration, because the platform is selling the same homeowner to everyone regardless of fit.
Your success is their success
This is the part we care about most. We work with local Ontario businesses only, month to month, on a flat fee. There is no contract holding a client in place, so the only way we keep one is to keep the leads coming and the cost per job falling. That shared benefit keeps everyone lined up behind the same goal: your phone ringing with the right jobs. A marketplace gets paid the moment it sells the contact, whether or not you ever hear back from the homeowner, and it gets paid again when it sells the same contact to the roofer down the street.
Every lead is yours alone
Exclusive by design, not by promise. The lead came from an ad in your name, in your service area, for your offer. There is no race to the phone against four strangers, and no homeowner wondering why five roofers are calling when they filled out one form.
The creative moves with your season
Storm-damage ads for roofers when the weather turns, no-heat messaging for HVAC companies in January, before-and-after carousels for painters and kitchen remodelers, and a new financing offer the same week you launch it, all built from your own job photos. A marketplace listing is the same listing in January as it is in July.
A before-and-after from your own jobs outperforms any stock image, and it is yours to reuse anywhere. This is the kind of creative a marketplace cannot make for you.
Quality gets fixed at the source
Qualifying questions on the form, negative keywords, service-area limits and job-type targeting mean the junk never arrives, instead of arriving and having to be argued over. When a bad lead does slip through, the fix is a targeting change, not a refund request.
You keep everything
Ad accounts, tracking, Google Business Profile, service pages, and the data on what works: all of it lives in your name. Stop tomorrow and it all stays with you, and the profile and content keep producing on their own. Cancel a lead subscription and you are back to zero by lunchtime.
When buying leads still makes sense
We would rather tell you the truth than sell you a package. Buying leads is the right call when:
- You are brand new, with no reviews and no photos, and you need five jobs this month to make payroll. Buy leads for 60 days while you build the proof your own campaigns will need.
- Your total budget is under $1,000 a month. Campaigns need enough spend to learn what converts. Below that, per-lead is the only option that produces anything at all.
- You want to test a new service line for a month before committing real money to it.
- You are an emergency trade and want Google Local Services Ads running in the background. Do it. It is the one form of per-lead buying we recommend without reservation.
And the traps in any lead-buying agreement, whichever platform it is: auto-renewing terms, minimum lead commitments, credits that require proof you cannot easily produce, and “exclusive” claims that mean exclusive among that platform’s buyers, not exclusive to you. The homeowner may still have filled out three other sites. Read the terms twice.
A three-question test
- Can you commit roughly $1,000 a month in ad spend, plus management, for 90 days? If not, buy leads for now and come back when you can. Our Google Ads cost guide explains why that floor exists.
- Do you want to own your pipeline or rent it? If you are tired of the race and want something that compounds, a partner.
- Can you, or someone on your team, call a new lead within five minutes? If not, neither option will work until that is fixed. Speed to lead beats everything else on this page.
What working with us looks like
A flat fee from $800 a month, with your ad spend paid directly to Google and Meta so you always know where the money went. Exclusive leads from campaigns in your name. Month to month, cancel anytime, and everything stays yours if you do. The person who builds your campaigns is the same person who answers your emails; you can read about that on our about page, and hear it from clients on the reviews page. We reply to every enquiry within one working day, and if you should be buying leads for another six months instead of hiring us, we will say so.
Frequently asked questions
Are bought leads ever truly exclusive?
Some platforms sell exclusive leads at two to four times the shared price. Exclusive means the platform sold it only to you. It does not mean the homeowner only asked you; many fill out several sites in one evening. The only way to know a lead is yours alone is for it to come from your own campaign.
Why do shared leads close so badly?
Four contractors, one homeowner, and a decision made on speed and price. Many homeowners also did not realize they were requesting calls at all; they wanted a ballpark number from a website. Both problems disappear when the lead comes from an ad that says your company name and asks for a quote from you.
Is Google Local Services Ads the same as buying leads?
It is per-lead pricing, so technically yes. The difference is that the homeowner chose your listing, your reviews are on it, and Google credits disputed junk. For plumbers, HVAC companies and roofers doing repair work it is a good supplement. It is not a substitute for campaigns and content you own.
Can I do both at once?
Yes, and many contractors do for the first few months: bought leads to keep the crews moving while their own campaigns learn, then a taper as the exclusive leads take over. Just track cost per booked job for each, separately, so the decision to stop buying is made on numbers.
How fast do partner campaigns produce leads?
Google Search campaigns produce calls within days, because you are appearing for people already searching. Meta campaigns take one to two weeks to learn who converts; our Meta ads cost guide covers what to expect. Costs usually settle by the second or third month, which is why we ask for 90 days to judge it properly.
Read next
- How much does Google Ads cost in Ontario? 2026 costs for trades
- How much do Facebook and Meta ads cost in Ontario? 2026 cost per lead
- Ontario roofing leads, plumbing leads, HVAC leads, painting leads
- Home renovation leads, basement finishing leads, kitchen and bathroom leads, window and door leads
Not sure which one you need?
Tell us your trade, your service area and your budget through the contact form. We will reply within one working day with a straight answer about whether you should be running your own campaigns yet, and what a realistic cost per lead looks like for your situation if you are.