PatchLead sends plumbing contractors in Canada live transferred calls instead of shared form leads: we run the advertising, answer the homeowner, confirm what has failed and the postal code on that call, then transfer them straight to your phone. Calls cost $60 to $150 each in Canadian dollars and become billable only after 60 seconds of conversation, so short calls cost nothing. Each call goes to one plumber, not four.
A burst pipe does not fill in a form. The homeowner picks up the phone, and whoever answers first gets the work — which is why a plumbing lead that arrives as an email an hour later converts so much worse than a plumbing lead that arrives as a ringing phone.
This page sets out exactly what that costs, what makes a call free, what you can switch off, and where we currently run. If a figure here is not clear enough to do the arithmetic with, that is a failure of the page.
What a plumbing call from PatchLead actually is
A homeowner with a leak, a blocked drain or no hot water calls the number on our advertising. An AI-assisted assistant answers, states that the call is recorded, and establishes what has failed, how urgent it is and the postal code. Then it transfers the caller to a plumber.
Your phone rings with someone already on the line who needs a plumber now. The qualification happens before that, and the time spent on it is never billed to you — you are charged for the conversation you have, not for the work of getting the homeowner to it.
That is the entire mechanism, and it is worth being clear about what it is not. It is not a form, not a callback list, and not a subscription to a directory. There is nothing to log into to work a queue, because by the time you are involved the homeowner is already speaking to you.
- Burst pipes and leaks, blocked and slow drains, water heater failures, toilet and faucet work.
- The problem and the postal code are confirmed before the transfer.
- Caller details appear as your phone rings, so you can decide before answering.
- The homeowner pays nothing. You are not selling PatchLead to them.
The plumbing jobs these calls are actually for
Plumbing leads are routed in two groups, and a plumbing business usually treats them as different work: repair and installation. You can take either on its own. The split matters because a flooded basement at six in the morning and a planned water heater replacement are not the same job, do not close the same way, and are not worth the same amount.
What the assistant establishes before transferring is which of the two it is, what has failed, how urgent it is, and the postal code. That is the work you are paying for, and it is why the plumbing leads reaching you arrive described rather than merely collected.
Emergency plumbing and repair calls
Repair calls are the reactive half, and in plumbing they are the urgent one. A burst pipe, a drain backing up into a shower, no hot water on a winter morning, a leaking supply line under a sink, a running toilet that has become a water bill, or a sewer line backing up into the lowest fixture in the house.
This is where the emergency plumber searches land, and they convert faster than anything else on this page — the homeowner has already decided to pay someone, and the only remaining question is who can get there. Water heater repair and drain cleaning sit here too, slightly less urgent but on the same day.
Installation and replacement enquiries
Installation calls are the planned half. Water heater replacement after a repair stops being economic, fixture and faucet installation during a renovation, repiping an older house, or sewer line replacement once a camera inspection has settled the argument.
These callers ask about options, timelines and warranty rather than how fast you can arrive, and they take longer to close. They are also worth considerably more per job — which is why judging them on the same conversion window as an emergency call will make a good channel look like a poor one.
What plumbing leads cost
Plumbing leads from PatchLead cost $60 to $150 per connected call, in Canadian dollars, with the position in that band set by the job type. An emergency water heater replacement is worth more to you than a dripping tap, and is priced accordingly.
The call becomes billable once you and the homeowner have been talking for 60 seconds — the shortest threshold of any trade we run, because plumbing calls get to the point quickly. Anything below that is free automatically, with nothing to claim and no form to file.
No setup fee, no monthly subscription, no minimum spend, no contract. You fund a prepaid balance and billable calls are deducted from it, so there is no card charge every time the phone rings.
| What you pay | When it applies |
|---|---|
| $60–$150 | Per connected call, by job type |
| Nothing | Calls under 60 seconds, wrong numbers, dropped transfers |
| Nothing | The same homeowner reaching you again within 30 days |
| Nothing | Setup, monthly subscription, minimum spend |
Rates are set per job type and confirmed with you before your first call. Last updated 2026-09-07.
What plumbing leads cost per booked job
Price per lead is the comparison most plumbing companies are invited to make, and it is the wrong one. What decides whether a channel pays is cost per booked job — what you spent to put one paying job on the calendar, not what you spent per enquiry.
The sum takes a minute. Take what you pay per lead, divide by the share you actually book, and compare. Pay per lead at $30 looks cheap until one in twelve books — that is $360 a booked job. A $90 connected call that books one time in four is $360 too. The same number, with the difference sitting somewhere the invoice never shows: four conversations instead of twelve chases, and no voicemails.
That is the honest case for buying plumbing leads as calls. Not that the unit price is lower — it is not — but that the booking rate is attached to somebody already on the phone, and your van hours are the input you cannot buy more of.
Run it on your own figures before believing ours. If you have bought shared plumbing leads you already know your booking rate on them; if you have run your own ad spend you know your cost per call. Those two numbers settle the question better than any vendor's table, including this one. Count booked jobs over a month rather than a week, though — plumbing volume moves with the weather, and a cold snap will flatter any channel you happen to be testing that week.
What makes plumbing leads high or low quality
The limit of the claim, said plainly: qualification covers the job, the urgency and the location. It does not cover whether the homeowner will accept your price, or whether the repair turns out to be bigger than described once you have the panel off. No plumbing lead generation company can promise that, and one that does is quoting a number it cannot produce.
What low quality plumbing leads have in common
Lead quality is a phrase every vendor uses and few define. Low quality plumbing leads share three traits: the homeowner did not really know they were generating a lead, the same enquiry went to several plumbing companies at once, and nothing about the job was established beyond a postal code and a number to ring. You pay for the attempt — and with plumbing, where the first plumber to answer usually wins, most attempts are already lost by the time you dial.
What high quality plumbing leads look like instead
Qualified leads, used precisely, means somebody said out loud what had failed and stayed on the line. That is the design here: homeowners searching for plumbing services call our advertising, describe the problem, and are transferred while still holding the phone. The quality is not a grade we award — it is a consequence of the enquiry never having been flattened into a form. It also means far fewer missed calls, because the call comes to you live rather than as something to return later.
Buying plumbing leads vs generating your own
Most plumbing businesses end up doing both, and they are worth separating rather than ranking. Generating your own means ad spend, a landing page, call tracking, somebody to answer, and the months before the numbers settle. What you get is an asset: your own cost per call, your own data, and organic leads that keep arriving after you stop paying.
Buying plumbing leads means none of that setup and none of that ownership. The advertising risk sits with the vendor, you pay per outcome rather than per click, and you can stop tomorrow. What you give up is the compounding — you are renting demand rather than building it.
The comparison that settles it is never buying versus generating in the abstract. It is your current cost per booked job against the alternative's, measured over enough calls to mean anything. Anyone who answers that without asking your booking rate has not done the sum.
When buying plumbing leads is the right call
The case is strongest in two situations: you have van hours sitting idle this week, or you are testing whether a service area is worth committing advertising to before you commit it. Both are timing problems, and a channel you can switch on and off in an afternoon solves a timing problem better than a campaign does.
When your own advertising is the better investment
The case is weakest when you already have a channel producing jobs below your target cost per booked job. Then the move is to spend more there, not to diversify away from it — buying more plumbing leads alongside it will look like growth on the job board while quietly raising your blended cost per job. Steady work from local customers who already know you is cheaper than any lead, bought or generated.
Exclusive: the call is not split with three other plumbers
Every call is exclusive. It rings one plumber at a time, and the same conversation is never sold to two companies at once. This is the whole difference from a shared lead marketplace, where one homeowner's enquiry is delivered to several plumbing companies who then race each other to the phone.
The honest qualifier: a call you do not answer moves on to another plumber, because the homeowner has a leak and cannot wait. Only the contractor who answers is charged. What never happens is one enquiry being sold to several plumbers to compete over.
What happens to a call you do not pick up
It moves to the next available plumber, and you are not charged — an unanswered call never becomes billable. That is the part worth understanding before comparing this to an exclusive-lead contract: exclusivity here means one plumber at a time on a live conversation, not that a homeowner is left waiting while a single contractor decides.
The distinction matters commercially. A shared lead is sold to several plumbing companies simultaneously and all of them pay. A cascaded call is offered to one plumber at a time and only the one who answers pays. The homeowner gets served either way; the difference is whether you bought a race.
Free plumbing call lead verification, and what it does not cover
Verifying a form lead means confirming a phone number connects. Verifying a live call means the homeowner has already described the problem out loud and is still on the line for you to ask again. There is no separate charge for that: the qualification is part of the call, and calls that fail to reach the billable threshold cost nothing at all.
What we do not verify is the contractor. PatchLead holds no licence information and runs no credential checks, so we make no claim about yours or anyone else's — contractors agree in writing to hold the licences Ontario requires, and that agreement is the extent of it. Anyone telling you otherwise about a lead source is describing something they have not built.
What you control
You cap the spend, not us. Everything below is set from your account and applies to the next call.
- A daily cap on transfers, after which you pause until the next day.
- Which plumbing job types you take — accept water heater work and skip drain cleaning.
- The postal codes you cover, and how far you will travel from each.
- Pause and resume from the portal or your phone, before you go under a house.
- Calls are placed Monday to Saturday, 9am to 7pm, and not on Sundays, and you can narrow that with your own hours.
Where we send plumbing calls today
- Cities
- Almonte, Burlington, Calgary, Concord, Edmonton, Gloucester, Huron, Listowel, Ottawa, Pickering, St. Paul, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry United Counties
- Provinces
- Alberta, Ontario
- Postal areas
- K0A, K0C, K1G, K1J, L1V, L4K, L7L, N0G, N4W, T0A, T2C, T2M, T2W, T2Y, T3N, T5A, T5L, T6E
If you work outside those areas you can still apply — we will hold your details and contact you when we open there, rather than sending you calls we cannot supply.
Applying from outside the live area puts you first in line for when we open, which is a more useful thing to be told than a promise of national coverage we cannot supply. Coverage is opened city by city, as homeowner demand in an area justifies advertising into it — so the list above grows slowly and means something when it does.
Common questions
How much does a plumbing lead cost in Canada?
With PatchLead, $60 to $150 per connected call in Canadian dollars, set by the job type — an emergency water heater replacement sits above a dripping tap. The call becomes billable only after 60 seconds of conversation, so anything shorter is free, and there is no setup fee, subscription or minimum spend to sit underneath it.
What does a live transfer plumbing lead cost versus a shared lead?
More per unit, and it should: the homeowner is on the phone asking for a plumber and only one contractor is charged. Compare cost per booked job rather than sticker price. Divide the call price by the share you convert, then run the same sum on shared leads, remembering those arrive later and reach several plumbers at once.
Are plumbing calls shared with other plumbers?
No. Each call is exclusive: it rings one plumber at a time and the same conversation is never sold to two companies at once, so you are not racing three other shops to the phone. Only the plumber who answers is charged. A call you do not pick up moves on to another contractor rather than going to voicemail.
Do you screen for a burst pipe versus a blocked drain before transferring?
Yes. The assistant establishes what has actually failed, how urgent it is and the postal code before the transfer happens. You can also switch individual job types on and off within plumbing from your account, so you take water heater and leak work without receiving drain cleaning enquiries if that suits your van.
Can I take water heater installation work without emergency call-outs?
Yes — repair and installation are routed separately and you can take either on its own. Plumbing businesses chasing replacement work often switch repair off, and shops filling van hours do the reverse. Judge them differently though: installation enquiries take longer to close and are worth more per job, so cost per booked job is the fair measure, not how fast they convert.
Do you send calls from property managers as well as homeowners?
The assistant confirms the job, the urgency and the postal code — not the caller's relationship to the building — so a tenant or a property manager responsible for a property can reach you the same way an owner does. What you see before answering is the job and the location, and you can decline the transfer on screen at no charge if it is not work you want.
What if the caller turns out to be a tenant rather than the owner?
The assistant confirms the job and the location, not the caller's relationship to the property, so a tenant can reach you. If a billed call was a clear bad fit you can dispute it from the portal within 48 hours and we review the recording. You can also decline the transfer when the details appear on your screen, at no charge.
Do you send plumbing calls after hours?
No. Calls are placed Monday to Saturday, 9am to 7pm, and not on Sundays, in the homeowner's local time, so nothing is dialled overnight. Within that window you set your own calling hours, and you are not in the running for a transfer while you are closed, paused, or already on another call.
Am I charged if the plumbing call is very short?
No. A call becomes billable only after 60 seconds of conversation between you and the homeowner. Below that it is free automatically — a caller who hangs up as you answer, a wrong number, or a transfer that drops all cost nothing, and you do not have to claim anything to make that true.
Can I cap what I spend per day on plumbing calls?
Yes. Set a maximum number of transfers per day from your account and you pause automatically once you reach it. You can pause and resume at any time from the portal or your phone, and the platform will not ring you past the number of simultaneous calls agreed on your account.