Leads and follow-up. Reviewed October 29, 2026
Shared lead vs exclusive lead
Also called: Exclusive leads, Shared leads
A shared lead is sold to several contractors at once, so each is racing the others to the phone; an exclusive lead goes to one business, which is why a lead from your own website is worth several marketplace leads.
In practice
With a shared lead the win rate is set by speed. With an exclusive lead the homeowner chose you, often after reading your reviews, and the conversation starts with how soon can you come.
The cheapest exclusive leads are the ones the website and the Business Profile produce for free after the work of ranking is done.
Related terms
- Lead marketplaceA lead marketplace is a site such as Angi, HomeAdvisor, Thumbtack or Networx that collects homeowner requests and sells each one to one or more contractors for a fee.
- Speed to leadSpeed to lead is the time between a lead arriving and the business responding, and the first contractor to respond wins a large share of the jobs.
- LeadA lead is a person who contacted the business about work by phone, form, text, chat or booking, before anyone has checked whether the job is real.
More leads and follow-up terms
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