Porch: Contractors Pay for Leads

What is Porch?

Porch is one of several online platforms that promises to connect contractors of all types — woodworkers, plumbers, electricians, handymen, painters, locksmiths, etc. — with clients.

How it works

Providers of moving, painting, cabinetry or any other home improvement service, can sign up to be a “pro” on Porch. This allows you to post a profile, explaining what you do and where. After that, you can buy “leads,” which are supposed to be from consumer inquiries about having appropriate work conducted on their homes.

The only specific requirement for signing up is that you’re over the age of 18.

Porch review

However, each lead costs anywhere from $10 to $60. And contractors complain to the Better Business Bureau that the site sends worthless leads from disconnected numbers, consumers who are not interested in their services, or who never answer the phone.

To be sure, with 83 complaints over the past three years, the volume of complaints is much lower than with competing lead-generation factories, such as now discredited HomeAdvisor or Thumbtack.

And, it appears that you have the ability to personally screen the leads you buy, which is a big improvement over HomeAdvisor and Thumbtack. But, contractors should still be careful about giving this site access to your credit card.

Where leads come from

Notably, Porch says that the leads it provides to contractors come from consumers, who have requested a service on the site. However, the site’s terms say that leads can come from other places, too. This includes partners, like Walmart and

“Vetted pros”

Porch also promises that if you become a “vetted pro,” at an additional cost of $360 annually, that Porch will automatically credit your account if you buy a lead and are unable to connect with the client after multiple attempts.

Specifically, if you call the consumer twice and message twice, with no response, you get a credit. But there are no cash refunds for leads. You just get your leads back.

Vetted pros must pass an annual background check that looks for criminal activity. Otherwise, there are no specific requirements. Renewal is automatic.

Crickets

We attempted to reach several of the professionals that give testimonials on the Porch website. None returned our phone calls. We consider that — and the BBB complaints — a red flag.

In addition, when we tested the site as a consumer, it provided a deceptively cheap estimate. There also was no way to look at contractor profiles, giving clients no way to direct where your lead was going. In our view, the site’s system generates maximum income for Porch with minimum benefit to both contractors and clients.

Recommendations

Better options for contractors can be found with ToolBelt and JiffyOnDemand.

You can also advertise your ability to provide a wide array of contracting jobs on TaskRabbit — for free.

What their users say (from Indeed)

This is a very nice place to start off as a handyman you make good money per hour it all depends on how many jobs you take that’s how much you make you can make a lot of money or you can make a little bit of money it all depends on your experience.

From the Better Business Bureau

Porch send me four fake leads within the past two weeks. That is no right and they giving me a hard time to get my money back, stay away from Porch. Scammers, i’m currently calling every hour now their number not going through. (Porch responded to this complaint by crediting this contractor for three of four leads (which cost between $33 and $50 each. The fourth lead was a valid phone number, according to Porch.)

Signed up for Porch.com 2 years ago. I added $500 to our profile account to purchase leads. Not 1 credible lead has come from them. One lead had no idea he was even being sent to me as he requested no Services from anyone including Porch. Porch send innocent victims info to Contractors, charge us a fee and then fight to credit you back when the lead was fake. *** asked for my Money back 26 times. There was no place in the onboarding that said the lead money was not refundable. Theft by deception here in ****. Stealing others info and sending it to people also another Criminal act in the ************* called Identity Theft. All Contractors Beware and stay far away from Porch.com

Bait and switch

Porch.com “baits” its contractors with a promise of great customer service, vetted leads, and a refund policy if anything is wrong. All of that could not be further from the truth. For my company, we are going to look into if there is an avenue for legal action against Porch.com for the thousands of dollars we have wasted over the recent two years.

Porch.com not only sends out fake leads, I have proof that they do. I contacted a customer for painting services that supposedly they needed. I finally got in contact with the person. Their exact words in text form: I don’t know who porch is…I did not request any painting to be done . My name is not ***. Its ***** . Porch not only had the name wrong but the gender of the person as well. This has happened to me with porch over and over again I have spent over 400.00 in fake leads.

Company is sending bad leads, charging from $10 to $28 dollars for each lead. Most of the time you don’t qualify for refunds.

Not one legit customer

Out of probably 100 leads I was sent I haven’t had 1 legitimate customer.

Their “cancellation department” seems to never be available. I tried calling several times at different times of the day. They just kept charging my credit card and giving me the run around. I have disputed the charges and feel confident that they will be removed, but still what company does this?!? I dug into the company and they laid off half of their employees last year…not a good sign. Spend your money elsewhere…

I have requested a refund on the $$$’s I have spent on their so-called qualified referrals only to hear that my requests are denied due to refund policies.

Won’t cancel subscription

We requested our Porch Pro subscription be cancelled back in March. We thought they did and they even sent us an email about us requesting the cancellation. They are currently refusing to refund us ~$360 for a subscription that we tried to cancel back in March. The deadline to cancel was October 12, but we did not receive any communications about a renewal because we thought we had already cancelled it back in March. (Porch responded that this contractor’s subscription was “on hold” not officially cancelled and they don’t provide refunds.)

Updated 1/24/2024