Hiring someone shouldn't be a coin toss.
Most directories sort businesses by who paid the most that month, then hand your phone number to whoever bid on it. We do neither. Top 3 Local names a short list per city, shows you what the work should actually cost before you call anyone, and points you at the official license lookup so you can check the answer yourself.
What's published here
- 885 U.S. cities
- 69 service categories per city
- 1,065 fair price guides across 21 trades and every state
- 51 official license-verification guides, one per state and D.C.
How businesses get listed
Listings are free, permanently. Placement is not for sale and never has a price: no subscriptions, no paid tiers, no pay-per-lead. Businesses appear either because we identified them from public sources or because they claimed a free profile. What moves a business up is the thing a customer would check anyway: a license number that can be verified, current insurance, years in business, and contact details that are actually correct. A profile that can be verified beats one that can't. That is the whole ranking philosophy.
Any business can add or correct its own listing, free, and any business can ask to be removed. We do not charge for either, and we never call to sell anything afterward.
Where the numbers come from
Every price range on this site is computed, not guessed, and the arithmetic is printed on the page next to the answer:
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. Hourly wage percentiles by trade and state.
- A stated billing multiple — 2 to 2.5 times wages, covering payroll taxes, liability insurance, equipment, vehicles, overhead and profit. That is what turns a worker's wage into an honest billed rate.
- Published labor-hour assumptions — every job shows the hours it assumes and what would change them. If your job is harder than the assumption, the page says so.
- State licensing agencies — every license page links to that state's own official lookup. We never assert whether a particular business is licensed; the state's database answers that, and only that database should.
Price ranges here are educational estimates, not quotes. Nobody can quote your job from a web page, and any site that pretends otherwise is selling something.
How this site pays for itself
Display advertising. That's it. We take no commission on any job, charge no business for placement or for leads, and do not sell consumer information. It matters because it's the reason we can tell you a contractor's quote looks high: no advertiser relationship is at risk when we do.
Corrections
If a number here is wrong, or a listing is out of date, tell us and we will fix it: correct or remove a listing. Detailed selection criteria are on the methodology page.
Start here
What things should cost · Verify a license · How to get comparable bids · Track your quotes