Shared roofing leads: who wins when several roofers get the same homeowner?

Usually the roofer who reaches the homeowner first and books a time. Not the cheapest, not the biggest. The first one who gets them on the phone and puts a date on the calendar.

That's the deal with shared leads. You're not buying a customer. You're buying a place in a race that started the moment the homeowner hit "submit."

How shared leads work

A homeowner fills in a request on a lead service. The service passes their details to more than one roofer in the area, often within seconds of each other. The services don't all publish how many pros get each request, and it varies by area and by job. Roofing marketing firms that track it commonly put it at three or four.

Housecall Pro's guide to getting work from Angi says it plainly: the first pro to respond often wins the job. That fits what homeowners tell surveys. In Roofing Contractor's 2024 survey, most planned to get three quotes. Once they have three appointments booked, they stop picking up for number four.

What the FTC found about one lead seller

Lead quality is a fair worry. In April 2023 the Federal Trade Commission approved a final order requiring HomeAdvisor to pay up to $7.2 million in redress to service providers. The FTC had charged that, since at least mid-2014, HomeAdvisor made false, misleading or unsupported claims about the quality and source of the leads it sold. HomeAdvisor settled and said it hadn't been found guilty of any wrongdoing.

That doesn't make every lead service bad, and it doesn't make every lead bad. It's a reason to count your own results instead of trusting anyone's sales pitch, including mine.

Count booked inspections, not leads

The number that matters is what each booked inspection cost you, not what each lead cost. Work it out for one month:

• Add up what you spent on the lead service.
• Count how many of those leads you actually spoke to.
• Count how many turned into an inspection on the calendar.
• Divide the spend by the inspections.

If you spoke to fewer than half your leads, the fix probably isn't a different lead service. It's speed. The leads you never reached cost the same as the ones you did.

How to win the first few minutes

• Call first, text second. A phone call is how you get the appointment. A text is how you get a second chance if they don't pick up. Our text-back playbook has wording that works.
• Have the calendar ready before you dial. Offer two real times: "I can be there tomorrow at 9 or Thursday at 2." Homeowners book the roofer who makes it easy.
• Don't stop at one try. Plenty of homeowners don't answer an unknown number the first time. Keep going for about six attempts, spread over a couple of weeks.
• Check your service area and job types. Paying for leads two counties away, or for jobs you don't do, eats the budget fast. Most services let you dispute leads that don't match what you set.

Who has to prove the homeowner agreed to a call?

If you call or text a lead using automated tools or an AI voice, the rules about consent apply to you, the business doing the calling, not just to the lead service. Ask your lead service what the homeowner agreed to, in writing. We go through the rules in can an AI voice call your roofing leads back?

Common questions

What are shared roofing leads?

They're homeowner requests that a lead service sends to more than one roofer at the same time. You're competing with the other roofers for that homeowner from the first minute.

Are shared roofing leads worth it?

They can be, if you reach the homeowner fast and keep following up. Work out what each booked inspection cost you over a month. That tells you more than the price per lead.

How do I win more shared roofing leads?

Call within minutes, offer two real appointment times on the first call, send a short text if they don't answer, and keep trying for about six attempts over a couple of weeks.

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