The difference in one line
Yelp sells you a contact. We hand you a booked job. That single distinction drives every number below — who carries the risk when a job does not happen, and whether you can lose money on a quiet month.
| Yelp | Pipe Well | |
|---|---|---|
| What you receive | Pay per lead / ad spend | A booked appointment with a time and address |
| Cost | Commonly reported around $100 per lead, plus monthly ad commitments | $0 to join, no subscription, no per-lead fee |
| When you pay | You pay when the lead is delivered, whether or not it books | Only after the customer has paid you |
| Exclusive? | No — the same request typically reaches several plumbers | One plumber per appointment |
| If the job never happens | You have still paid | You owe nothing |
| Who sells the job | You do | We do — it is booked before you hear about it |
Where Yelp is genuinely better
We would rather you chose well than chose us, so here is the case for them:
- Enormous consumer trust and search visibility, especially in dense metros
- A strong review profile keeps working for you long after you stop paying
- Good for high-ticket work where one win covers a lot of lead spend
Our honest verdict: Yelp is a genuine demand channel, but it bills you for attention rather than work. If your average ticket is small, the arithmetic is brutal.
Where Yelp costs plumbers money
- Cost per lead is high relative to a typical service ticket — on a $300 repair a $100 lead is most of the margin
- Contractors widely report aggressive sales calls and contracts that auto-renew
- Budget can be consumed by clicks and calls that were never real jobs
The number that actually matters: cost per booked job
Cost per lead is a marketing number. Cost per booked job is your number. A shared lead at $40–$85 that closes one time in six costs somewhere north of $300 per job you actually win — before counting the unpaid hours spent chasing the five that went nowhere. That money leaves your account whether or not you are ever paid.
Our fee is 50% of the job after your documented material costs come off the top:
| Collected | Documented materials | Net | Pipe Well 50% | You keep |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $400 | $40 | $360 | $180 | $220 |
| $1,200 | $520 | $680 | $340 | $860 |
| $2,800 | $800 | $2,000 | $1,000 | $1,800 |
| $8,500 | $3,200 | $5,300 | $2,650 | $5,850 |
Look at the last row honestly: $2,650 on one job is a lot of money. On big-ticket work a lead fee is cheaper, and we will not pretend otherwise. What you are buying is that every row above costs you nothing unless the work happened and you were paid.
When you should not join us
- Your schedule is full. You do not have a lead problem. Raise your prices instead.
- You live on repeat and referral work. That is the cheapest work there is — do not give away half the net of a job you would have won for free.
- You mostly do repipes and sewer replacements. The bigger the net, the more our share costs you in absolute dollars.
- You want to own every customer outright. Our agreement has a 24-month non-circumvention clause on customers we introduce.
Where we fit well: newer shops with open capacity, a second van to keep busy, seasonal gaps, and anyone who has been burned paying for leads that never became paid work.
Can you use both?
Yes, and most plumbers should. Yelp and Pipe Well fail in opposite directions: they cost money on quiet months and pay off on big wins; we cost nothing on quiet months and cost more on big wins. Running both smooths that out. Nothing in our agreement stops you — there is no exclusivity and no minimum.
Try it with nothing at risk
Free to join. No subscription, no lead fees. You only ever pay after a customer has paid you.
Apply Free →Common questions
How much does Yelp cost a plumber?
Commonly reported around $100 per lead, plus monthly ad commitments. You pay when the lead is delivered, whether or not it books. No — the same request typically reaches several plumbers
Is Pipe Well cheaper?
On work that does not convert, yes by definition — we charge nothing. On a large completed job our share is a bigger number than a lead fee. Compare cost per booked job, not cost per lead.
Is this a lead or a real appointment?
A real appointment: date, time window, address and the customer expecting you. Sent to one plumber, not auctioned to several.
What if the customer does not pay me?
You owe us nothing. Our share is calculated on money you actually collected, after materials.
Can I leave?
Seven days' written notice. No contract term, no minimum spend.
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