A HomeAdvisor alternative, and what HomeAdvisor is today

Is HomeAdvisor still its own company?

No. HomeAdvisor is one of several brands owned by Angi Inc. Angi's annual report for 2025 lays out the history in a few lines:

• 2017: IAC combined its HomeAdvisor business with Angie's List, Inc. The new company was incorporated as ANGI Homeservices Inc., and the combination closed in September 2017.
• 2018: the company bought Handy, a platform for household services.
• March 2021: it renamed itself Angi Inc. and rebranded Angie's List as Angi, to focus marketing on a single brand.
• March 31, 2025: IAC completed the spin-off of its ownership stake, and Angi now operates as an independent public company.

The same filing says Angi "continues to operate under multiple brands including Angi, Angie's List, HomeAdvisor, and Handy," and names Angi, Angie's List and HomeAdvisor as three of the leading home services brands in the United States. So when an owner asks about HomeAdvisor today, the honest answer is that it is a door into Angi's marketplace. The basic annual membership, per the 10-K, includes a business profile page on both HomeAdvisor.com and Angi.com.

That matters for this comparison. The current rules, prices and credit policies are Angi's. Our Angi alternative page covers those in detail. This page focuses on the HomeAdvisor side: its history with pros, what changed, and what to build instead.

How do HomeAdvisor pros pay now?

Through Angi's programs. The 2025 10-K describes four kinds of offering pros used that year: full-price leads capped by a monthly budget, cheaper leads bundled into a subscription, double opt-in leads purchased individually, and services sold at a set price. Membership sits on top, and the report notes that referrals through membership generally carry additional fees.

One sentence in the revenue section deserves to be read twice. Angi describes its lead revenue as match fees that pros owe even when they never end up doing the work. The charge is for the connection. Whether that connection becomes a paid job is up to you.

Angi publishes no price list for pros. If you are weighing HomeAdvisor against other options, pull your own invoices and count jobs won. Our guide to what Angi leads cost explains how to read them.

What did the FTC allege about HomeAdvisor?

In March 2022 the Federal Trade Commission filed an administrative complaint against HomeAdvisor, Inc., named in the complaint as also doing business as Angi Leads. It alleged that, starting no later than mid-2014, HomeAdvisor had made false, misleading or unsubstantiated claims to pros about its leads. According to the complaint, HomeAdvisor:

• presented leads as people planning to hire soon, when many were not;
• presented leads as matching each pro's services and area, when many did not;
• suggested leads came from people who sought out HomeAdvisor, when many were bought from third parties;
• advertised conversion rates from lead to job that it could not support.

The complaint put numbers on the costs at the time. According to it, pros paid $287.99 a year for membership plus a charge per lead, and HomeAdvisor regularly sold a $347.98 package that included one month of mHelpDesk software, which auto-renewed at $59.99 monthly unless cancelled.

HomeAdvisor did not go to trial. In January 2023 the FTC announced a proposed consent order under which HomeAdvisor would pay as much as $7.2 million, and which bars false or unsupported claims about its leads, and the final order was approved in April 2023. A consent order is a settlement. In the decision and order, HomeAdvisor neither admits nor denies what the complaint alleges, and the matter was withdrawn from adjudication without a ruling on the merits. Later in 2023 the agency mailed 110,372 checks, worth over $3 million in total, as refunds, to businesses that had bought HomeAdvisor memberships.

A private class action brought by pros in 2016, Airquip v. HomeAdvisor, also ended without a liability finding. The court declined to certify the classes based on deceptive practices, and the parties filed a joint notice of settlement in April 2025; the public docket entries do not state its terms. Our FTC settlement guide walks through both cases. This section summarizes public records; it is general information, not legal advice.

Do the old HomeAdvisor complaints still apply?

Partly. Much of what pros remember, such as requests sent automatically to several companies at once, describes a system Angi has largely retired. Its first-quarter 2025 earnings release says Angi moved nearly all domestic experiences to homeowner choice in January 2025, so homeowners connect only with available pros they select, and it stopped most auto-matched experiences. Fairness requires saying that plainly.

What has not changed is the basic deal. Matches are still paid for whether or not you win. The 10-K's definition of a lead still allows one homeowner request to produce several leads. And the homeowner still meets you through a brand that is not yours.

Who might still use HomeAdvisor?

• New companies with no search presence. A profile on a big marketplace can put you in front of homeowners while your own site and reviews are still thin.
• Crews with a temporary gap. A capped budget for a few weeks can fill open days.
• Owners testing a service. A small number of matches can show whether homeowners in your area want it.

Treat it as a short-term tool with a budget cap, and track cost per job from the first week.

What should you check before renewing?

A membership renewal is a good moment to look at the real numbers. Before you pay for another year, pull these from your account and your own records:

1. Total spend. Membership plus every match fee over the last twelve months, including any software or add-ons billed alongside.
2. Matches received and jobs won. Divide spend by jobs won. That is your cost per job, and it is the only number that compares fairly with other channels. Our lead cost calculator does the division.
3. Credits requested and credits used. Angi's lead credit rules ask for a call attempt within 24 hours of receiving the lead, limit credits to leads less than 45 days old, and exclude accounts on an annual subscription. A credit is applied automatically to later lead charges, and it lapses six months after it is issued if you haven't used it. Count how many you lost to the clock.
4. Repeat work. How many of those customers have hired you again, and how many are in your own CRM with a working phone number and email?

If the cost per job is high and repeat work is low, the renewal is paying for introductions you are not keeping.

What should you build instead?

Four assets, all registered to you, do the work instead:

1. Your website, with pages for each service and each town you cover, and a quote form that feeds your CRM. See our websites service.
2. Your Google Business Profile and reviews, backed by local SEO, so homeowners can find you in the map results without a match fee.
3. Your phone number, answered every time, with text back for missed calls and an AI receptionist after hours.
4. Your customer list, in a CRM that records where each job came from, so you can see when bought leads stop paying their way.

We built the same system for our own service companies first. Owned channels take months to build, so keep any paid source you rely on until your own calls cover the schedule. If you want to know where you stand today, start with our free system quote.

Frequently asked questions