Water damage leads and what a restoration lead costs

Advertised prices, checked

Buying water damage leads without a published benchmark

1. Insist on calls rather than forms. A restoration enquiry that arrives as an email is usually already somebody else's job. Pay-per-call pricing costs more per unit and it is buying the only thing that matters in this trade, which is being first.
2. Define a qualifying call in the contract. Minimum duration, valid service area and an actual loss rather than a question. Without those three clauses you are paying for wrong numbers at emergency prices.
3. Price against your average mitigation job. Restoration job values run well above most home services, which is why the exclusive band published for the wider market reaches $550. Your own average invoice decides what a call is worth to you.
4. Ask about after-hours routing. Most water damage happens outside business hours. A source that stops delivering at five is selling you the least valuable part of its own inventory.

What is published, and by whom

Nothing specific to water damage. The closest published figure is 99 Calls' band for exclusive leads from the pay-per-lead networks, which names 33 Mile Radius among them and puts the exclusive market at roughly $40 to $550 per lead. 33 Mile Radius serves restoration contractors heavily and its own pricing page is a calculator with no prices in it.

So the honest position is that a restoration contractor has no published benchmark. The band above is one competitor's published view of the market and is printed here with that competitor named, never as 33 Mile Radius's own price.

Why this trade is priced by the call

In mitigation work the difference between arriving in an hour and arriving tomorrow is the difference between a job and a referral to somebody else. A form lead shared with three contractors is close to worthless at any price, which is why the shared marketplaces are weak in this trade.

That pushes the whole market towards pay-per-call, where a connected phone call is the billable unit. It costs more per unit for the obvious reason: a great deal of the noise has already been filtered out by the fact that somebody picked up the phone.

Aged restoration records

There is no aged restoration ladder in this record and it is hard to see how one would work. A homeowner with a flooded basement three months ago has dried it out, and the remediation was done by whoever was available that week.

The one adjacent use is insurance-driven follow-up work, which is a different sales motion. If a seller offers you aged water damage data, ask exactly what the homeowner asked for and when, before anything else.

Common questions

What do water damage leads cost?

No source in this record publishes a figure. The nearest published anchor is one competitor's band of roughly $40 to $550 for exclusive leads across the pay-per-lead networks, which is wide enough to be a starting point rather than a benchmark.

Is pay per call better for restoration?

For emergency mitigation, almost certainly. A connected call filters out the enquiries that never answer, and being first is worth more in this trade than in any other on this site.

Do the big marketplaces sell water damage leads?

Yes, and none of them publishes a price. The marketplaces that sell restoration work in volume either serve pages with no price or refused an unauthenticated read entirely.

Are free water damage leads real?

Offers of free restoration leads are normally an introductory batch attached to a term contract. Nothing in this record publishes a genuinely free restoration offer, so read what the free batch commits you to.

Prices by trade

• Roofing leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• HVAC leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• Solar leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• Home Improvement leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• Window leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• Siding leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• Kitchen leads: what the sources that publish a price charge
• Bathroom leads: what the sources that publish a price charge