You're renting your own customers.

The email shows up in the slow months. The lead service you count on has new pricing, or new rules about which leads you get. You read it twice. You’ll probably pay it. Those leads are a real share of your year, and there’s nowhere else to move that money in time.

That’s the trap. The more of your work comes through someone else’s service, the less say you have over what it costs.

What one lead service’s own numbers show

Angi, which owns HomeAdvisor, is a public company, so it reports its numbers to the SEC. In the third quarter of 2026, the pros on Angi got 18% fewer leads than a year before. Over the same months, Angi’s revenue per lead, its US revenue divided by those leads, rose 10%. The year before showed the same pattern: 21% fewer leads, and revenue per lead up 11%. (Angi Q3 2026, Angi Q3 2025)

Angi says the change comes from its own choices. Homeowners now pick which pros get each request, and Angi is moving toward larger pros. That may be good for some roofers. For a smaller crew, it can mean fewer leads at a higher cost each.

Lead services are also moving into the chat apps. Angi has an app inside ChatGPT, and Thumbtack announced one. A homeowner can ask the app for a roofer and get names from those services. (Roofing Contractor, Business Wire)

The customers that are yours

Most homeowners still start with a name. In Roofing Contractor’s 2026 homeowner survey, 74% of homeowners follow a recommendation from someone they know, and 62% go back to a company they’ve used before. Owens Corning, which sells roofing materials, sponsored it. (Roofing Contractor)

Referrals and repeat customers come to you by name. Nobody can raise the price on them.

How to own more of your work

You don’t have to quit lead services. Some of them bring real jobs. The goal is to make sure every job you win also builds something that stays yours.

1. Know what each lead service costs per signed job. Add up last year’s spend and count the jobs you actually signed from it. Say you pay $60 a lead and sign one job in fifteen. That’s about $900 per signed job.
2. Keep your own customer list. Address, date and what you installed, for every job, however it came in. After a storm hits an area you’ve worked, call those customers first.
3. Ask every customer for a Google review, including the ones who found you through a lead service. Reviews on your own Google listing stay with you.
4. Make sure your website and Google listing are in your name. Log in once and check that the domain account and the listing’s owner are you. If someone else set them up years ago, get them moved to you.
5. Ask for referrals out loud. When the job’s done and the homeowner is happy, ask who else on the street might need a roof looked at. It costs you nothing to ask.

Every review, every past customer and every referral is something a price-change email can’t take away.