We just crossed a milestone at Priceguide: 100,000 pricing estimates generated through our platform.
That’s 100,000 times a homeowner landed on a contractor’s website, engaged with an AI-powered pricing estimator, answered questions about their project, and got a transparent price range — before ever picking up the phone.
But the number itself isn’t the story. The story is what those 100,000 estimates tell us about how homeowners actually behave when they’re planning a project — including the fact that 70% of them are researching pricing when your office is closed. For home service contractors, it changes everything about how you should think about your marketing.
Here’s what the data says.
7 Out of 10 Estimates Happen When Your Office Is Closed
This is the single most important finding in our data.
When we looked at when homeowners actually use pricing estimators, we expected a normal distribution around the workday. What we found was the opposite: roughly 70% of all pricing estimates are generated outside of traditional Monday-to-Friday, 9am-to-5pm business hours.
Let that land for a second. Seven out of ten potential customers are trying to find out how much their project costs at a time when — if you don’t have an estimator on your website — there is literally no way for them to get an answer from you.
They can’t call. Your chat widget is offline. Your contact form will sit in an inbox until tomorrow morning. And by then, they’ve already visited three other websites.
Here’s how the breakdown looks:
The peak hour is 8pm. Not 10am. Not lunchtime. Eight o’clock at night — when your office is closed, your phones are off, and your competitors’ websites are sitting there doing nothing.
39% of all estimates happen between 6pm and midnight. That’s the after-dinner window. Kids are in bed, laptop is open, and the homeowner is finally doing the research they’ve been thinking about all day.
18% happen between midnight and 5am. That’s nearly one in five potential customers who literally cannot sleep because they’re thinking about their kitchen remodel, their new roof, or their backyard pool.
22.6% of all estimates happen on weekends. Saturday and Sunday — when most contractor offices are completely closed.
Now here’s the thing every contractor needs to hear: you can’t afford a receptionist 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But you can have a pricing estimator that works 24/7 — answering the number one question every homeowner has, on their schedule, not yours.
That’s not a nice-to-have. When 70% of your potential leads are researching outside business hours, it’s the difference between capturing demand and losing it to whoever answers first.
$130 Million in Decisions — Powered by Transparency
Across those 100,000+ estimates, homeowners have priced out more than $130 million in home improvement projects through Priceguide.
Let that sink in. That’s $130 million in real project planning — kitchens, roofs, pools, additions, HVAC systems — where a homeowner got a transparent price range from a contractor’s own website, on their own terms, on their own schedule.
And these aren’t small projects. Here’s what the typical estimate ranges look like across the highest-value categories:
- Custom home builds: $250,000 – $500,000+
- New home construction: $100,000 – $250,000+
- Home additions and ADUs: $30,000 – $150,000+
- Pool installation (fiberglass, vinyl, inground): $40,000 – $100,000+
- Kitchen remodel: $25,000 – $75,000+
- Basement finish: $15,000 – $50,000+
- Bathroom remodel: $15,000 – $40,000+
These are the kinds of projects where homeowners don’t just pick the first name on Google. They do weeks — sometimes months — of research before they ever call anyone. They compare. They read. They educate themselves. And the contractor who helps them understand pricing during that research phase earns their trust long before anyone else earns a phone call.
Homeowners Don’t Just Price One Thing
Here’s a pattern we didn’t expect: 12.5% of users who engage with a pricing estimator go on to explore multiple services in the same session.
Think about what that means. Someone comes to your site to price a roof replacement, and then they check what a gutter install would cost too. A homeowner pricing a kitchen remodel also explores bathroom costs. A pool estimate leads to an outdoor kitchen estimate.
Once you open the door to transparent pricing, homeowners want more of it. They start bundling in their heads. They start thinking about the full scope of work — and your company is the one helping them do it.
In short: Priceguide is helping your customers upsell themselves into more of your services — without your sales team lifting a finger.
If you’re only offering a contact form, you’re only capturing one intent. An estimator captures the full picture of what that homeowner is actually planning.
The Seasonal Playbook: When Demand Actually Starts
One of the most powerful things in this dataset is the seasonal pattern for each industry. And the key insight is this: demand doesn’t start when you think it does.
Pools: Research Starts in February
Pool installations peak in June — but the research starts ramping up hard in February, a full four months earlier. By the time summer hits, most homeowners have already narrowed their shortlist. If your estimator isn’t live by January, you’re showing up late to your own season.
Kitchen and Bathroom Remodeling: The New Year’s Resolution Effect
The biggest spike in remodeling estimates? January and February. There’s a clear “new year, new kitchen” effect in the data. Homeowners spend the holidays in their outdated kitchens and bathrooms, and by January they’re online figuring out what it would cost to change them. This is your golden window — and most remodelers miss it because they’re not thinking about lead gen until March.
Outdoor and Landscaping: March Through May Is Everything
Landscape design, pergolas, outdoor kitchens, artificial turf, fire pits — the research window is March to May. That’s three months where a huge percentage of your annual leads are being decided. If your website doesn’t have a way to answer “how much does this cost?” during those months, your prospects are going to the contractor who does.
Christmas Light Installation: Your Entire Year in Two Months
No surprises here — 82% of all Christmas light installation estimates happen in October and November. But that’s exactly the point. When your entire sales cycle compresses into a two-month window, every day matters. You don’t have the luxury of slow follow-ups or “call us for a quote” forms. Transparent pricing on your website means homeowners can self-qualify and book faster — and in a two-month sprint, speed is everything.
HVAC: January Leads the Pack
HVAC pricing estimates peak in January, when heating failures drive urgent research. There’s a secondary spike in June for cooling. For HVAC contractors, this means your pricing estimator needs to be working hardest in the months where homeowners are most uncomfortable — and most motivated to act quickly.
11,000+ Locations and Growing
Priceguide estimates have been generated from over 11,000 unique locations across the United States — from small towns to major metros, across virtually every state.
That kind of geographic spread tells you something important: pricing transparency isn’t a big-city strategy or a coastal trend. Homeowners in suburban Ohio want the same thing as homeowners in Austin, Texas. They want to understand what their project costs before they commit to a conversation. And the contractors meeting that expectation — wherever they are — are the ones building trust fastest.
829 Service Types and Counting
Across 100,000+ estimates, Priceguide has been used to price 829 different service types across 102 distinct industries.
That’s everything from roof replacements to pet grooming, from septic systems to plastic surgery, from Christmas lights to custom home builds. The breadth is a reminder that pricing transparency isn’t a niche strategy for one type of contractor — it’s a fundamental shift in what consumers expect from every service business.
Some of the most active categories by volume:
- Outdoor living and landscape design
- Kitchen and bathroom remodeling
- Pool installation and maintenance
- HVAC installation and repair
- Moving services
- Roofing
- Painting
- Electrical and solar
Each of these industries has its own seasonal curve, its own average project value, and its own customer research behaviour. But they all share one thing: the homeowners who engage with a transparent pricing estimator are further down the buying journey than any other type of website visitor.
What This Means for Your Marketing
If there’s one takeaway from 100,000 estimates, it’s this:
The way homeowners buy home services has permanently changed.
They research at night. They compare on their own terms. They expect pricing transparency before they’ll even consider giving you their phone number. And when they find a contractor who respects that — who puts a pricing tool on their website and says “here’s what this costs, no strings attached” — that contractor wins the trust, the lead, and ultimately the job.
Here’s what the data says you should do about it:
Accept that your business hours and your customer’s research hours are completely different things. 70% of pricing research happens when your office is closed. You have two choices: lose those leads to silence, or put a pricing estimator on your site that works around the clock. You can’t hire a receptionist for 2am on a Sunday. But an estimator never clocks out, never calls in sick, and never puts a customer on hold. It’s your best salesperson — and it works for free at 8pm on a Tuesday when your next customer can’t sleep.
Get your estimator live before your peak season starts. If you’re a pool contractor, that means January — not May. If you’re a remodeler, it means now. If you’re in Christmas lights, you have until September. The research window opens months before the buying window, and the contractors who are present during research are the ones who close during buying.
Let your estimator do the upselling. The data shows that 12.5% of visitors explore multiple services once they engage with transparent pricing. Your estimator isn’t just a lead form — it’s a trust-building, scope-expanding, objection-removing machine that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
Use your data to tell your own story. Every estimate generated on your site is a data point about your market. What services are most in demand? What’s the average project size? When do homeowners start researching? This isn’t just marketing — it’s market intelligence that helps you make better decisions about your business.
The Bottom Line
100,000 pricing estimates. $130 million in project decisions. 11,000+ locations. 829 service types. 70% generated outside business hours. And one consistent pattern across all of it:
Homeowners want to know the price before they pick up the phone. And they’re looking for that answer right now — at 8pm, at midnight, on a Sunday morning — whether you’re open or not.
The contractors who give them that answer, win. The ones still asking people to “call for a free quote” are losing leads every single evening to the competitor whose website never sleeps.
Ready to fix mistake #1 today?
Start your free 14-day trial at priceguide.ai — no credit card required.
