How this directory compares

There are five ordinary ways to find someone to fix a house: look the trade up in the state register, describe the job to a marketplace, click whatever a search result puts at the top, read an aggregator, or ask a neighbor. Each one answers a different question well and other questions badly. These pages set out the differences honestly, including the places where this site is the wrong tool.

Two rules hold across every page here. We compare mechanisms, not companies - the only pages that name a company quote that company's own published words or a regulator's filing, linked inline. And every claim about how we work is checkable on the methodology page.

• The state license lookup vs this directory

  The register is the authority and it is free. So what is a directory for? An honest answer, including the cases where you should skip us and use the state's search.

• A directory vs a shared-lead marketplace

  What a shared lead is, what the public record says about the marketplaces built on them, and why there is no form on this site.

• Paid placement vs published ranking criteria

  What ordering by payment does to a list, what our order is computed from instead, and exactly what would have to change for money to move a listing here.

• What 'verified' can mean on a directory

  Self-reported, scraped, badge-based or register-matched are four different claims wearing one word. How to tell which one you are reading.

• A neighbor's recommendation vs a license check

  They answer different questions, and the state agencies that tell you to ask around also tell you to check the record. Do both, in this order.

• Does Angi verify contractor licenses?

  The answer in their own published words, quoted from their FAQ, plus what a state regulator said about the marketing.

How we make money, plainly: We earn a fee when you call businesses through numbers on this site. This never affects who is listed or how they rank. The rules behind every listing, register by register, are on the methodology page, and the how-to versions of the checks described here are in the guides.