The short version
When you request estimates through this site, the contractors who receive that introduction pay us a referral fee. You never pay us anything, and the fee doesn't change the price you're quoted.
No contractor can buy a position in a cost table, buy a more favorable figure, or review a page before it publishes. Our cost data is compiled and technically reviewed before any commercial relationship touches the page it appears on.
Our revenue sources, in detail
1. Referral fees from contractors
Our primary revenue. When a homeowner requests estimates — by calling a tracked line or using a get-matched form — the contractor or lead network pays us for the introduction. Typical industry rates run $25 – $90 per qualified call.
What this means for you: the contractor has paid to reach you, so treat their bid the way you'd treat any bid — get two more, ask for itemization, and check it against our tables. We tell you this on the same page where we offer the introduction, which is the point.
2. Affiliate commissions
Some links to national repair companies or to products are affiliate links, meaning we earn a commission if
you book an inspection or make a purchase. These are marked rel="sponsored" in the page markup
and disclosed where they appear.
If we ever participate in the Amazon Associates program, we'll earn from qualifying purchases through those links, and this page and our privacy policy will say so explicitly.
3. Display advertising
We may run display ads. Advertisers have no input into editorial content, no advance sight of pages, and no ability to influence a cost figure. Ads are labeled as advertising.
What money can and cannot influence
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Can a contractor pay to change a cost figure? | No |
| Can a contractor pay for a place in a cost table? | No |
| Can a contractor see a page before it publishes? | No |
| Do we rank or order contractors by what they pay? | No |
| Does the referral fee change your price? | No |
| Does referral revenue fund the site? | Yes — that's this page |
| Do we choose topics partly by commercial value? | Yes — and we say so |
That last row deserves the honesty. Which topics we cover is influenced by which topics can sustain the site — that's how any publisher works. What isn't influenced is what we say once we cover something. A page about foundation repair costs exists partly because foundation repair is commercially valuable; the number on it is the number regardless.
The conflicts we actively manage
Our revenue rises when homeowners hire contractors. Meanwhile a good share of our content tells people they may not need to hire anyone — that a hairline crack needs a pencil mark rather than a repair, that gutters and grading fix many "wet basements" for $100 – $600, and that an independent engineer often specifies less work than a free inspection proposed.
That tension is real and we've resolved it in one direction deliberately: the advice stands regardless of what it costs us. A reader who leaves having saved $9,000 by not buying a drainage system they didn't need is the reader who comes back and recommends us. A site that can't say "do nothing" isn't worth reading.
We also recommend independent structural engineers over free contractor inspections throughout the site. We earn nothing from engineers.
Current partner status
In the interest of not overstating anything, here is exactly where our commercial relationships stand today:
- Pay-per-call referrals — not yet active. No tracked call line is live, and no calls are currently monetized.
- Get-matched estimate requests — not yet active. Our estimate request service has not launched.
- Groundworks affiliate — not active. We have no live affiliate link to this partner.
This page is updated whenever that changes. If a monetized CTA appears anywhere on this site, its status is reflected here.
Questions
If anything on this site reads as commercially influenced, tell us and point at the page. That kind of correction is worth more to us than the revenue on any single placement. Also see our editorial policy and cost methodology.