Painting leads: how painting contractors get more jobs

Interior, exterior, and cabinets are three different businesses

Track them separately or your averages will lie to you. Interior repaints are quick to close and quick to schedule. Exterior work is weather-bound and seasonal, with a bigger ticket and a longer decision window. Cabinet refinishing carries the best margin per crew-day and attracts the most price shopping.

Buy leads with that in mind: an exterior lead in the last warm weeks of the season is worth chasing hard, while the same lead in January belongs on a spring follow-up list, not in your junk pile.

The only number that matters: cost per booked job

Lead price on its own tells you nothing. What tells you everything is cost per booked job — lead price divided by your close rate — measured against your average ticket.

Run it honestly for one month. Count every lead you paid for, every one you actually reached, every estimate you gave, and every contract you signed. Most contractors are shocked by the reach rate, not the close rate: leads you never get on the phone are the real leak.

• Cost per booked job = what you spent on the channel ÷ jobs signed
• At $5 a month per county with leads included, one booked job pays for years of coverage
• A $15 shared lead at a 1-in-20 close rate costs $300 per job — and eats four times the phone time
• Compare that number to your gross profit per job, not to your revenue

Speed to lead beats everything else you could change

The single highest-return change most contractors can make is calling faster. A homeowner who fills out a form is in buying mode for a window measured in minutes, not days. If you call back the next morning, you are quoting against someone who already walked the roof.

Build the habit into the crew's day: whoever is nearest a phone calls within five minutes, texts if there's no answer, and calls again that evening. Three touches in the first 24 hours, then weekly for a month. Most jobs that look dead are simply un-followed-up.

• Call within 5 minutes, text immediately if there's no answer
• Three contact attempts in the first 24 hours, at different times of day
• Every lead gets a written estimate or an explicit no — never silence
• Log the outcome of every lead so you can price your channels next quarter

The estimate is the sales process

Homeowners rarely choose a painter on price alone — they choose the one who made the job feel handled. Show up in the window you promised, walk the whole scope, and leave a written estimate that names the prep, the product, the number of coats, and the crew days.

Two things close painting work more reliably than a discount: a written scope the homeowner can compare line by line, and photos of your own work in their neighborhood. Both are free.

• Confirm the appointment by text the morning of
• Itemize prep, primer, product, coats, and cleanup
• Show three recent jobs of the same type nearby
• Send the estimate the same day, then follow up twice

Keep the shoulder seasons full

Most painting crews are turning work away in June and calling old customers in November. Steady lead flow fixes that better than a spring ad blitz. Buy consistently through the slow months when lead competition is thinner and homeowners are planning, and use interior and cabinet work to bridge the weather.

How Homeowner Henry does it differently

Henry is a homeowner-facing site: people arrive from local painting cost guides and city pages, describe the job, and verify their phone number by text before the request is released. There is no auction and no resale to directories.

Every job goes to a maximum of three painters, and only 3 contractors per county hold the trade at all. When three are in, the county closes. Coverage is $5 a month per county and every lead in your counties is included — no charge per lead, no contract, cancel any time.

What painting leads cost per booked job

Ranges vary by metro and season. Measure your own cost per booked job before scaling any channel.

Questions contractors ask

How much should a painting contractor pay for a lead?

Judge it against gross profit per job. On a $4,000 interior repaint at 35% gross margin, a $25 lead that closes one in five costs $125 per job — a small share of the profit. The same math fails fast on $600 touch-up jobs.

Why do purchased painting leads close worse than referrals?

Referrals arrive pre-trusted; purchased leads arrive comparing. Close the gap with speed, a written itemized scope, and local photo proof — not with a lower price.

What does a painting lead cost on Homeowner Henry?

Leads are included. You pay $5 a month for each county you cover, and every phone-verified homeowner in those counties comes to you at no extra charge. No contract, cancel any time.

Are the leads exclusive?

A job goes to no more than three painters, and only 3 painters hold a county at once. They are not resold to directories or bidding sites.

What if a lead is bad?

Wrong number, out of area, or not a real project gets a replacement credit. You tell us, we credit it — no dispute forms.