MUNDELEIN, Ill. — 3 October 2026
Lead Smart Inc, a pay-per-call and lead-generation affiliate network for home services founded in 2008, today published the full-quarter Q3 2026 edition of the U.S. Home Services Inbound Call Index, a quarterly benchmark of homeowner phone demand built from the network's own call records. The edition analyses 163,748 connected homeowner calls placed between 1 July and 30 September 2026 across more than twenty home-service trades, alongside the network's public ZIP-code-level payout file. Pest control was the single largest source of demand at 22.4 percent, and 59 percent of calls arrived between 9am and 3pm.
1. The homeowner calling day is narrow
Home-service demand is concentrated into a short working window. Volume is negligible overnight, turns on in the 7am and 8am hours, and peaks in the 10am and 11am hours. It holds close to that level through mid-afternoon before tapering after 4pm. About 59 percent of all calls arrive between 9am and 3pm.
| Hour (US Central) | Calls | Share | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6am | 1,285 | 0.8% | |
| 7am | 4,868 | 3.0% | |
| 8am | 9,695 | 5.9% | |
| 9am | 14,115 | 8.6% | |
| 10am | 17,186 | 10.5% | |
| 11am | 17,508 | 10.7% | |
| 12pm | 16,274 | 9.9% | |
| 1pm | 15,490 | 9.5% | |
| 2pm | 15,846 | 9.7% | |
| 3pm | 15,085 | 9.2% | |
| 4pm | 12,491 | 7.6% | |
| 5pm | 9,686 | 5.9% | |
| 6pm | 5,855 | 3.6% | |
| 7pm | 3,378 | 2.1% | |
| 8pm | 1,875 | 1.1% | |
| 9pm | 1,112 | 0.7% |
Hours below 0.5 percent of volume are omitted (1,999 calls in total). Between midnight and 6am the network recorded 826 connected calls, 0.5 percent of the quarter.
2. Pest control overtook HVAC as summer ended
The five largest trades, pest control, HVAC, plumbing, appliance repair and junk removal, account for 74.3 percent of all connected homeowner calls. The quarter also shows the seasonal handover: HVAC and plumbing narrowly led in July, while pest control's share climbed every month to finish September as the clear leader.
| Trade | Connected calls | Share of demand |
|---|---|---|
| Pest control | 36,746 | 22.4% |
| HVAC | 25,845 | 15.8% |
| Plumbing | 24,729 | 15.1% |
| Appliance repair | 19,795 | 12.1% |
| Junk removal, dumpster & portable toilet | 14,579 | 8.9% |
| Roofing | 11,119 | 6.8% |
| Electrical | 8,948 | 5.5% |
| Tree service | 5,647 | 3.4% |
| Restoration (water, fire, mould, biohazard) | 3,687 | 2.3% |
| Gutters | 3,423 | 2.1% |
| Remodeling (bath, kitchen) | 3,097 | 1.9% |
| Carpet & flooring | 1,411 | 0.9% |
| Garage door | 1,030 | 0.6% |
| Windows | 867 | 0.5% |
| Painting | 770 | 0.5% |
| Fencing | 594 | 0.4% |
| Landscaping & lawn care | 582 | 0.4% |
Trades below 0.3 percent each (including solar, locksmith and decking) together account for 874 calls.
| Month | Pest control share | HVAC share | Plumbing share |
|---|---|---|---|
| July | 17.1% | 17.5% | 17.6% |
| August | 21.9% | 14.5% | 15.3% |
| September | 27.3% | 15.5% | 12.9% |
3. Weekends are not a home-service market
Weekday demand dominates: 85.9 percent of calls arrive Monday to Friday. Monday is the heaviest day and Sunday the lightest by a wide margin.
| Day | Connected calls | Share of demand |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | 29,904 | 18.3% |
| Wednesday | 29,672 | 18.1% |
| Tuesday | 28,775 | 17.6% |
| Thursday | 26,910 | 16.4% |
| Friday | 25,469 | 15.6% |
| Saturday | 13,973 | 8.5% |
| Sunday | 9,045 | 5.5% |
4. Volume and value move in opposite directions
The trades that generate the most calls are not the trades that pay the most per call. Against an all-vertical median publisher payout of $38.50, emergency restoration trades pay around five times more while representing a small share of demand, and several of the highest-volume trades sit at or below the median.
| Trade | Share of call demand | Median payout per qualified call |
|---|---|---|
| Biohazard | part of 2.3% restoration | $224.50 |
| Fire damage | part of 2.3% restoration | $199.00 |
| Water damage | part of 2.3% restoration | $192.50 |
| Mould removal | part of 2.3% restoration | $66.00 |
| Pest control | 22.4% | $42.50 |
| Roofing (pay per call) | 6.8% | $42.63 |
| HVAC | 15.8% | $37.80 |
| Gutters | 2.1% | $32.50 |
| Plumbing (pay per call) | 15.1% | $31.50 |
| Appliance repair | 12.1% | $7.36 |
Payout figures are minimum expected publisher payouts from Lead Smart's public coverage file, extract taken 3 October 2026, covering roughly 41,000 ZIP codes. The highest single published payout is $497.50, for water damage. Payouts reprice continuously by ZIP code and buyer demand.
Everyone in this industry quotes averages, and averages are where the useful information goes to die. A homeowner with a flooded basement and a homeowner with ants in the kitchen are not the same event, they do not call at the same hour, and they are not worth the same money. We see these calls every day, so rather than keep that to ourselves we publish it every quarter and let people argue with the numbers.Matthew Zivkovic, founder, Lead Smart Inc
The practical takeaway for a contractor is staffing. If your phone is not answered live between 9am and 3pm on a weekday, you are missing the majority of the homeowners who will ever call you, and a missed call in those hours is usually a job that goes to the next listing.Seth Pikus, chief executive, Lead Smart Inc
Methodology
Demand figures are drawn from Lead Smart Inc's own call-tracking records for inbound homeowner calls delivered through its publisher network between 1 July and 30 September 2026. Only calls that connected to a home-service business are counted (163,748 calls); unconnected, blocked and duplicate attempts are excluded, as are non-home-service campaigns such as legal, dental, travel and insurance. Calls are grouped into trades by campaign. Hours are expressed in US Central time. This full-quarter edition supersedes the July to August preview published on 9 September 2026 and uses a revised methodology. Payout figures are minimum expected publisher payouts published openly at affiliate-bid-coverage.leadsmartinc.com and exclude buyer-side reconciliations. The Index is published quarterly; the next edition covers Q4 2026.
About Lead Smart Inc
Lead Smart Inc is a pay-per-call and lead-generation affiliate network for home services, founded in 2008 in Illinois by Matthew Zivkovic and led by chief executive Seth Pikus. It connects more than 10,000 registered affiliate publishers with home-service, restoration and legal advertisers nationwide, has paid more than $50 million to publishers across Lead Smart and its predecessor businesses, maintains live payout coverage in all 50 states, Washington DC and Puerto Rico, has been voted a top-three pay-per-call network in OfferVault's Top Networks Survey for seven consecutive years, is ranked #5 among more than 400 pay-per-call networks in mThink's 2026 Blue Book, and was named to the Inc. 5000 in 2023 at No. 2,449. Learn more at leadsmartinc.com.
Media contact
Lead Smart Inc · 75 E Division Street, Suite B, Mundelein, IL 60060 · (855) 466-5542 · info@leadsmartinc.com.