Job Hound, by Lead Dog
Lead Dog is the software contractors use to schedule jobs, send quotes and get paid. It works beautifully — once a project comes in. Job Hound is the part that comes before, and we built it so the homeowner gains exactly as much as the pro does: a fair quote with no fee inside it, from someone who wasn't charged to answer the phone.
A marketplace that tilts toward one side eventually loses the other. So we weighed every decision twice — once for the person hiring, once for the person working.
Lead Dog handles the unglamorous half of a contracting business: scheduling, quoting, invoicing, keeping track of who said what. Contractors use it to stop losing jobs to a messy inbox and to take on more work without hiring an office.
A contractor two months into running their own truck doesn't have a scheduling problem. They have an empty week. The best software in the world can't organize work that isn't coming in yet.
Homeowners describe a project and see the local pros who do it. Those pros receive it as a real job, at no charge. One introduction, no toll booth, and both ends of it come out better than they would anywhere else.
What we set out to fix
For the contractor it's a bill for work they probably won't win. For you it's ten phone calls, four days of dodging them, and a quote with somebody else's marketing budget quietly inside it.
On the big lead marketplaces, one homeowner's project is commonly sold to eight or ten contractors at once. Every one of them is charged. One gets hired. The rest paid for a phone call that went nowhere.
Ten contractors bought your number and each needs to reach you first. That isn't choice, it's a race — and the winner is whoever happened to be least busy that afternoon.
Lead fees are a cost of doing business, and costs of doing business live inside the estimate. You end up paying for the nine contractors who never got the job.
On Job Hound
1 project · 1 destination
It reaches the pros you chose, and stops there. Nobody was charged to receive it, so nothing gets added to your quote to make it back.
On a site that sells leads
1 project · 8 invoices
The same request is copied and sold to everyone buying that day. Seven of them pay for nothing, and every one of them has to earn it back on the jobs they do win.
Three people, one deal, and none of them paying for the privilege of meeting.
A short list of local pros who genuinely do that work, estimates with nothing padded into them, and a contractor who has the time to ask what you're actually trying to fix. No account, no fee, no number sold on.
No marketing budget, no website, no reviews yet. They shouldn't have to spend their first month's profit buying leads they'll mostly lose. A Lead Dog profile puts them in front of homeowners nearby for nothing.
Established pros get projects in the same place they already run schedules, quotes and invoices. Nothing new to check, nothing new to learn, no per-lead bill at the end of the month.
A contractor who wins a job they didn't pay for can charge you less and still make a living. That isn't generosity — it's arithmetic that finally points both ways at once.
It goes to the pros you choose. It isn't packaged up and sold on to whoever else is buying that afternoon.
Contractors pay nothing to receive your project. Homeowners pay nothing to send one. There's no fee waiting at any step.
No sponsored slots, no premium tier, no bidding for the top spot. Position is earned on reviews, finished work and how a pro actually operates.
Lead Dog is a subscription contractors pay because it runs their business. That's the model. Your project isn't the product.
The software side of the same company. Contractors use it to run their day: scheduling, quotes, invoices, customer records, payments. It's a subscription they pay because it saves them hours a week. Job Hound is the homeowner-facing front door to the pros who use it.
Because it makes Lead Dog worth more. A contractor who gets projects through the same tool that runs their business has every reason to stay. We'd rather earn that than charge somebody eighty dollars for a phone number — and the homeowner gets a cleaner quote out of the same decision.
Pros with a Lead Dog profile are the ones we can see clearly — we know a request reached them, how fast they replied, and whether the job got finished. That's why they rank first. It isn't payment for placement, and no amount of money buys a higher position.
Sign up for Lead Dog at betheleaddog.com and your Job Hound listing comes with it. There's no separate application and no fee for the projects that reach you.
Homeowners: tell us what needs doing and meet the local pros who do it, free. Contractors: get listed by signing up for Lead Dog, and pay nothing for the projects that come your way.