The short version
You cannot buy your way up this list. Neither can anyone else.
Businesses appear in the order of how much about them has been checked. Every signal that moves a business up is free to earn. A contractor who pays us nothing and fills in their page properly sits above a contractor who pays us and doesn't.
What actually moves a business up
The default view is called Most verified. It counts:
- The owner has claimed the listing. They confirmed their own licence number and business details, so we know a real person stands behind the page.
- How much of the page is filled in — what they take on, where they travel, the smallest job worth their time.
- Whether they've added photos of their work.
- Whether they answer the phone, once enough calls have gone through us to mean anything. A single answered call proves nothing, so we don't count it.
- Public reviews, where they exist.
That's the whole list. Every one of those is free.
What does not move a business up
- Paying us. Any amount, any plan.
- Buying an ad.
- Being on the site longer, or being bigger, or knowing us.
Right now, a lot of these lists are alphabetical
We'd rather tell you than have you work it out. This site is young. On most pages, nobody has claimed their listing yet, so every business scores the same and the tie is broken by name. That's why you'll see a lot of pages starting with "A".
It'll change as contractors claim their pages. It won't change because someone paid.
You can sort it yourself
The default is one view, not the truth. Use the sort menu for:
- Longest licensed — who's been at it the longest
- Answers the phone — measured, not claimed
- Promises the fastest callback
- Takes smaller jobs — useful if your job is small
- Name, A-Z
None of these are affected by money either.
One thing worth knowing: when a business hasn't told us something, it sorts last, not first. A contractor who never gave us a minimum job size doesn't get to look like the cheapest. Blank means blank.
About the ads
Ad space isn't running yet — this is how it will work when it starts.
Some pages carry ads for local contractors. Here's exactly how they work:
- They sit beside the list, never inside it. An ad never pushes a free listing down.
- They're labelled as ads.
- Which advertiser appears is a random draw every time the page loads. Nobody can pay to be the first ad — there's no such thing as the first ad.
- Advertisers only appear in towns they've told us they serve. If they haven't told us, they don't appear anywhere.
- There are at most six advertisers per town and trade.
An ad tells you a business paid to be seen. It tells you nothing about whether they're good, and we don't pretend otherwise.
What being on this site means, and what it doesn't
Being listed means a state agency has issued a licence and we copied the record. That's all it means.
We have not inspected anyone's work, met them, or checked their insurance. We don't rate them, and we don't recommend anyone. If you see a business here, check the current licence with the state before you hire, and make your own call about the rest.
If you're a contractor reading this
The way to move up is to claim your listing and fill it in. It costs nothing and it takes about five minutes. Paying us gets you photos, a fuller page, and — if you want it — an ad beside the list. It will not move you up a single place, and if a competitor tells you they bought their way to the top of License List, they're having you on.