How to get roofing leads: 7 channels, ranked by cost per job

Most lists of lead sources rank them by how fast you can turn them on. That is the wrong order. Rank them by cost per acquired job, and the picture changes. Here are the seven channels, with the honest tradeoffs.

1. Referrals and repeat customers

The lowest cost per job you will ever have, and the slowest to scale. A happy customer who sends a neighbor costs you nothing but the work you already did well. The limit is volume: referrals come at their own pace, and you cannot turn them up when the schedule is thin.

Build for it anyway. A simple follow up after every job, a photo of the finished roof, and an easy way to pass your name along compounds over years.

2. A ranked website and Google Business Profile

Slow to build, low cost per job once it works. A claimed and active Google Business Profile, real reviews, and a handful of pages that answer what homeowners search puts you in front of people already looking. It takes months to rank, and it keeps paying after it does. The leads are yours alone.

3. Google Local Services Ads and paid search

You pay per lead or per call, and the lead is exclusive to you. Local Services Ads put you at the top with a Google Guaranteed badge. Costs vary by market and rise after a storm. The upside over aggregators is control: you own the inquiry, and you are not sharing it with four other roofers.

4. Lead aggregators (shared)

Companies like Angi and Modernize sell homeowner requests, usually to several contractors at once. Fast volume, low price per lead, high cost per job. The shared model puts you in a bidding war before you say a word. See how much roofing leads cost for the math on why cheap shared leads are rarely cheap.

5. Exclusive lead services

Same idea as aggregators, but the lead is sold to one contractor. You pay more per lead and close more of them. The thing to verify is what exclusive actually means, because the word gets stretched. We cover how to check in exclusive roofing leads.

6. Door knocking and storm canvassing

High control, real labor cost. Canvassing works, especially after a storm, but knocking a whole subdivision at random burns hours on roofs that were replaced two years ago or never took damage. The fix is not more doors. It is knowing which doors before you walk the street.

7. Property and storm data

The newest channel and the one that makes canvassing efficient. Public records show which roofs are old, which homes recently changed hands, and which addresses sat inside a recorded hail or wind core. Start from the qualifying roofs, then knock or call. You are not buying a homeowner who raised a hand. You are choosing the right doors before anyone else gets there. This is the approach behind Databird.

So where should you start

A practical order for most contractors:

• Keep referrals and your Google Business Profile running as the base. They cost the least per job.
• Use Local Services Ads or exclusive leads when you need work fast and want to own the inquiry.
• Skip cheap shared leads, or test them with a strict cap and measure cost per job, not cost per lead.
• Make canvassing pay by targeting qualifying roofs from property and storm data instead of walking blind.

The one habit that separates contractors who profit from leads and those who complain about them: they track cost per acquired job for every channel, and they cut the ones that do not earn their place.