Home services quotes

Getting three quotes for a new water heater or a roof repair means three sets of phone calls, three site visits and three estimates that describe the job differently. A homeowner’s agent can send one precise job description to several contractors’ agents at once and get answers in a comparable form. The site visit, the contract and the money stay with people, and consumer protection rules decide what an estimate has to say.

How it works today

Homeowners call contractors directly or submit a request through a lead marketplace, which passes it to several businesses who then call back. The marketplaces’ interfaces show how far this has gone:

• Thumbtack runs a partner platform, with access by request. It offers a request-flow widget for getting quotes from multiple businesses, a homeowner-side API for search and messaging, and a pro-side API for leads and messages.
• Angi documents a one-way lead feed: new leads go to a pro’s CRM by JSON webhook, set up through partner integrations. We found no public quote-request API.

The job then moves to a site visit, a written estimate and a contract.

Estimates and cancellation rules.

• FTC Cooling-Off Rule (16 CFR Part 429). For sales where the seller solicits and the buyer agrees away from the seller’s place of business, at $25 or more at the buyer’s home or $130 or more elsewhere, the buyer can cancel until midnight of the third business day. Exclusions include repairs or maintenance the buyer asked for at home (though extra goods or services sold on that visit are covered), a buyer-initiated emergency where the buyer signs a separate handwritten waiver, and sales made entirely by mail or telephone.
• Ontario Consumer Protection Act, 2002. A supplier may not charge more than 10 per cent above an estimate included in a consumer agreement (s. 10). A direct agreement, negotiated in person away from the supplier’s place of business, can be cancelled for any reason within 10 days of receiving the written copy (s. 43). The Consumer Protection Act, 2023 received Royal Assent in December 2023 but awaits proclamation; it carries both rules forward.
• US interstate movers (49 CFR Part 375). Estimates must follow a physical survey, which may be on-site or by live or recorded video, unless the shipper waives it in writing before loading. A non-binding estimate must state that the shipper will not pay more than 110 per cent of it at delivery.

Licensing. States license contractors. In California, a licence is required for work of $1,000 or more in labour and materials since 1 January 2025, when the threshold rose from $500, and the Contractors State License Board offers a public licence lookup.

Reviews. The FTC’s rule on consumer reviews and testimonials (16 CFR Part 465, in effect since October 2024) bans fake reviews, buying reviews and suppressing negative ones, which matters when an agent weighs contractors by their ratings.

The agent-to-agent version

Illustrative. A homeowner’s agent sends the same request to three plumbing companies’ agents:

{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 5,
  "method": "SendMessage",
  "params": {
    "message": {
      "role": "ROLE_USER",
      "messageId": "msg-hs-7740",
      "parts": [
        {"text": "Estimate request: replace a leaking 50-gallon gas tank water heater, same location, basement."},
        {
          "data": {
            "trade": "plumbing",
            "job": "water_heater_replacement",
            "existing": {"type": "gas_tank", "capacityGallons": 50, "ageYears": 13, "venting": "atmospheric"},
            "area": {"postalCode": "94110"},
            "accessWindows": [{"start": "2026-09-29T15:00:00Z", "end": "2026-09-29T23:00:00Z"}],
            "wants": ["priceRange", "licenseNumber", "permitIncluded", "earliestInstall", "estimateValidUntil"]
          },
          "mediaType": "application/json"
        },
        {"url": "https://files.owner-agent.example/h/wh-label.jpg", "filename": "rating-plate.jpg", "mediaType": "image/jpeg"}
      ]
    }
  }
}

1. Each contractor’s agent returns a price range, its licence number, whether the permit is included, the earliest install date and how long the estimate holds. One returns TASK_STATE_INPUT_REQUIRED asking for a photo of the gas line.
2. The homeowner’s agent checks each licence on the state board’s public lookup and lays the answers side by side for the homeowner.
3. The homeowner picks two for site visits. Their agents book the visits in the access windows.
4. The written estimate after the visit is the one that counts. The homeowner signs it.

What has to be true

Identity. The homeowner’s agent needs to know a quote comes from the licensed business it claims to be. A licence number is only useful if it belongs to the company whose agent answered, so the agent’s identity and the business’s registration have to be linked.

Authority. Requesting quotes and booking site visits are easy to delegate. Signing a contract, paying a deposit or waiving a cancellation right are not. The Cooling-Off Rule’s emergency exception requires the buyer’s own handwritten, signed statement, which an agent cannot supply.

Record. The estimate is the record that matters. Ontario’s 10 per cent rule and the movers’ 110 per cent rule are both measured against it, so it has to identify the job, the price and its validity precisely. The agent exchange should keep each quote as received.

Where Emissar fits

• Front Door (open to design partners) lets a service company answer homeowners’ agents in front of its existing scheduling and estimating tools.
• Resolve (in development) maps the phone number on a truck or a yard sign to the company’s agent endpoint, so the homeowner’s agent does not have to call.
• Verify (in development) tells each side which provider runs the other agent. It does not replace a licensing board’s lookup.
• Ledger (spec in progress) would give both sides a signed copy of each quote as sent.

Open questions

• Comparable scope. There is no common schema for describing a home repair job, so each agent pair invents fields.
• Leads and fees. Contractors often pay per lead on marketplaces. Does a direct agent request count as one, and who pays for it?
• Cancellation rules. The Cooling-Off Rule excludes sales made entirely by mail or telephone. How an agent-negotiated sale fits these categories has not been tested.
• Emergencies. A burst pipe needs someone on the phone now. Agents help most with planned work.