Published 11 August 2026 · Data as of the 8am CST sync, 11 August 2026 · Lead Smart Inc
Pay-per-call payouts are usually discussed anecdotally. Publishers trade screenshots; networks quote a best case; nobody publishes the distribution. This report is an attempt to fix that for home services, using the live buyer bids in Lead Smart's own network — which the company publishes publicly and continuously at affiliate-bid-coverage.leadsmartinc.com.
Headline findings
- The median qualified home-service lead pays $32.50; the mean pays $56.91. The gap between those two numbers is the story of this industry — a small number of emergency and restoration categories pull the average far above what a typical lead earns.
- The top decile starts at $177.00. Ten per cent of all ZIP-by-service opportunities pay more than that, and the single highest live payout in the dataset is $497.50, for water damage.
- Damage restoration is a different business from home maintenance. Biohazard ($210.50 median), water damage ($201.00) and fire damage ($193.00) pay four to six times the all-vertical median. Appliance repair ($7.70) and tree services ($12.21) sit at the other extreme.
- Pay-on-appointment beats pay-per-call on price, everywhere. Every one of the top eight verticals by median payout is a CPL "pay on appointment" offer rather than a duration-based call. Roofing illustrates it inside a single trade: $130.00 median on the CPL structure versus $42.00 on pay-per-call.
- Geography matters less than people assume, until it really does. Median payouts cluster tightly between $30 and $50 across most states — but Louisiana ($8.93), West Virginia ($10.08) and Montana ($11.66) trail badly, while Wyoming leads at $50.33 on thin volume.
- Coverage is genuinely national. 41,684 distinct ZIP codes carry at least one active buyer bid — roughly every populated ZIP in the country — which is a function of buyer structure rather than marketing reach.
Cost-per-lead verticals: pay on appointment
In these categories the buyer pays when an appointment is set, which supports materially higher payouts.
| Vertical | Median | Highest live | Lowest | ZIPs | Median vs top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Biohazard | $210.50 | $288.50 | $178.00 | 10,812 | |
| Water Damage | $201.00 | $497.50 | $48.50 | 20,758 | |
| Fire Damage Removal | $193.00 | $365.50 | $59.00 | 17,423 | |
| Roofing CPL | $130.00 | $169.00 | $27.50 | 9,646 | |
| Siding | $115.50 | $144.00 | $32.50 | 6,771 | |
| Kitchen | $112.00 | $122.50 | $34.00 | 2,204 | |
| Windows | $102.50 | $165.00 | $40.00 | 7,604 | |
| Garage Door | $74.00 | $93.00 | $13.00 | 3,993 | |
| Mold Removal | $65.50 | $159.00 | $15.00 | 13,399 | |
| Foundation Repair | $53.50 | $96.00 | $16.00 | 4,644 | |
| Plumbing | $44.00 | $106.50 | $20.00 | 10,219 | |
| Waterproofing | $41.50 | $125.50 | $16.00 | 6,872 | |
| Deck | $39.50 | $112.00 | $18.50 | 1,320 | |
| Painting | $38.50 | $47.00 | $16.50 | 2,959 | |
| Landscaping | $34.00 | $42.50 | $28.50 | 595 |
Pay-per-call verticals: paid on call duration
| Vertical | Median | Highest live | Lowest | ZIPs | Median vs top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pest Control | $42.50 | $42.50 | $32.50 | 31,813 | |
| Roofing | $42.00 | $166.95 | $4.54 | 27,132 | |
| HVAC | $38.50 | $122.50 | $3.30 | 22,035 | |
| Plumbing | $33.60 | $121.28 | $3.47 | 25,287 | |
| Gutters | $32.50 | $32.50 | $32.50 | 36,714 | |
| Electrical | $23.63 | $72.45 | $1.73 | 19,838 | |
| Bathroom Remodeling | $22.00 | $123.20 | $4.95 | 36,797 | |
| Tree Services | $12.21 | $24.80 | $4.95 | 4,076 | |
| Appliance | $7.70 | $85.05 | $1.38 | 26,455 |
Legal verticals
Legal shows the widest spread in the dataset. Personal injury has a median of just $5.50 across 38,026 ZIPs but a ceiling of $247.50 — which means the money is concentrated in a small number of markets rather than spread across the map. Publishers who treat legal as a national play tend to be disappointed; publishers who target specific metros are not.
| Vertical | Median | Highest live | Lowest | ZIPs | Median vs top |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Auto Accident Attorneys | $27.50 | $137.78 | $19.80 | 2,146 | |
| Personal Injury Attorneys | $5.50 | $247.50 | $5.50 | 38,026 | |
| DUI / DWI Attorneys | $1.38 | $129.25 | $1.38 | 27,177 |
By state: highest median payouts
| State | Median payout | Highest live | Records |
|---|---|---|---|
| WY | $50.33 | $344.00 | 941 |
| NJ | $42.50 | $259.00 | 12,074 |
| DE | $42.50 | $249.50 | 926 |
| CA | $42.50 | $394.00 | 21,808 |
| MD | $42.00 | $348.50 | 8,880 |
| FL | $41.50 | $398.00 | 18,471 |
| CT | $41.00 | $244.00 | 5,503 |
| AZ | $39.50 | $497.50 | 4,738 |
| MA | $38.50 | $290.00 | 9,299 |
| TN | $37.13 | $398.00 | 8,530 |
| UT | $37.13 | $434.00 | 3,121 |
| WA | $35.00 | $442.50 | 8,362 |
| CO | $34.02 | $382.00 | 7,148 |
| NH | $33.25 | $284.50 | 3,315 |
| RI | $32.50 | $249.50 | 1,095 |
Lowest median payouts
| State | Median payout | Highest live | Records |
|---|---|---|---|
| HI | $26.25 | $210.50 | 549 |
| MO | $22.00 | $286.50 | 8,693 |
| VT | $17.60 | $189.50 | 1,348 |
| AK | $17.14 | $29.70 | 7 |
| MS | $15.05 | $308.00 | 3,221 |
| MT | $11.66 | $44.10 | 1,579 |
| WV | $10.08 | $165.50 | 5,100 |
| LA | $8.93 | $239.00 | 4,817 |
- Chase structure before chasing trade. Moving the same traffic from a duration-based call offer to a pay-on-appointment offer is often a larger swing than switching vertical.
- Restoration rewards specialisation. Water, fire, mould and biohazard demand different content and different intent than "plumber near me", but pay four to six times more.
- The median is the honest planning number. Build a model on $32.50, not on the $497.50 headline, and treat everything above the median as upside.
- Low-payout categories are not low-profit categories. Gutters pay a flat $32.50 everywhere and pest control $42.50 — both are far cheaper to rank for than roofing, and margin is what matters, not payout.
Method and limitations
Every record is a live top net payout per ZIP code per vertical, taken from Lead Smart's buyer bids at the 8am CST sync on 11 August 2026, and analysed in full — all 416,715 rows, not a sample. Medians are reported alongside means because the distributions are strongly right-skewed and means alone are misleading.
Three honest limitations. This is one network's bid data, not the whole industry, though its buyer base includes multi-market franchise groups, private-equity-backed contractor roll-ups and marketing companies serving their own client bases, reaching an estimated 50,000-plus locations. Payouts move continuously — fewer buyers are active on weekends and outside 8am–5pm CST, so a single snapshot understates peak rates. And a live bid is an offer, not a guarantee: a payout only pays on a lead that meets the qualification standard.
The underlying data is public and updated daily. Journalists and analysts are welcome to cite this report or work with the raw data directly; contact info@leadsmartinc.com. Lead Smart intends to publish this benchmark quarterly.
About Lead Smart Inc
Lead Smart Inc is a US-based pay-per-call and lead-generation affiliate network specialising in home services. Founded in 2008 by Matthew Zivkovic and led by CEO Seth Pikus, Lead Smart connects more than 10,000 registered affiliate publishers worldwide with buyers serving an estimated 50,000-plus home-service business locations nationwide, across more than 200 service categories plus legal verticals. Lead Smart has been voted a top-three pay-per-call network in OfferVault’s Top Networks Survey for seven consecutive years and is ranked #6 in mThink’s 2026 Blue Book. Media contact: info@leadsmartinc.com.