Most advice about contractor websites is opinion. We wanted a count. So we took every plumber, HVAC company, electrician, roofer, landscaper, painter, carpenter and general contractor with a website listed in OpenStreetMap across 21 states, loaded each homepage the way a customer's phone would, and recorded what a visitor can actually do there.
Why we counted instead of guessing
Search for contractor website statistics and you get the same recycled lines about how many customers search on a phone, usually traced back to a vendor survey with no stated sample. Nobody publishes what is actually on contractor websites. So we checked, site by site, and wrote down what a customer on a phone can do on each homepage: tap to call, book a time, send a text or chat, or fill in a form.
Method
Sample: every business tagged as a plumber, HVAC company, electrician, roofer, gardener or landscaper, painter, carpenter or builder with a website in OpenStreetMap, across 21 US states, pulled October 27, 2026. Duplicate domains and social or directory links were removed, leaving 3,170 sites. Each homepage was loaded in headless Chrome with an iPhone user agent at a 390 by 844 screen, with about eight seconds for scripts to run, on October 27 and 28, 2026. 763 sites did not load (dead domains, certificate errors, blocked requests or pages that never rendered) and are excluded. Another 270 loaded something other than the business's working site: a security check (such as 'Just a moment...'), a parked or for-sale domain, an expired or suspended hosting account, an error page, a pay-per-call page on a lapsed domain, or a hacked page selling online gambling. They are excluded too, leaving 2,137. No company is named.
The 21 states: California, Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Colorado, New York, Ohio, Washington, North Carolina, Arizona, Virginia, Minnesota, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Massachusetts, Alabama, Arkansas, Utah and Alaska. California, Texas and Florida contributed the most sites. OpenStreetMap is volunteer-mapped, so this is a large real sample, not a statistically weighted census of every contractor in the country.
Corrected October 29, 2026
The first version of this study, published October 28, used two detection patterns that also matched unrelated text: one counted domains ending in 'local.com/' as the Cal.com booking tool, and one counted the word 'intercom' (as in door intercoms) as the Intercom chat widget. We re-loaded every site those patterns flagged with stricter checks, and stopped counting review widgets as chat. Booking fell from 13% to 12%, chat or text from 21% to 15%, and sites with neither rose from 71% to 77%.
Second correction, October 29, 2026
Checking the pages behind a later study, we found 270 of the 2,407 homepages we had counted were not the contractor's working site: security checks, parked or for-sale domains, expired or suspended accounts, error pages, pay-per-call pages on lapsed domains and hacked pages. Counting them as sites with no call link and no booking understated the figures. We dropped them, leaving 2,137. Tap-to-call links rose from 76% to 84%, contact forms from 49% to 53%, booking from 12% to 13%, and sites with neither booking nor chat or text fell from 77% to 75%. We also removed the row counting mobile viewport tags: the check missed tags written with their attributes in a different order and the fixed-width tag Wix uses on phones, so it undercounted. Every figure on this page is the corrected one.
What a phone visitor finds
| What the homepage has | Share of sites |
|---|---|
| HTTPS | 94% |
| A tap-to-call link coded in | 84% |
| A phone number shown but no call link coded in | 9% |
| No phone number on the homepage at all | 6% |
| A contact form | 53% |
| A chat widget or a text option | 17% |
| A text-message link | 6% |
| An online booking tool | 13% |
| A button or link worded as booking or scheduling | 20% |
| No booking tool and no chat or text | 75% |
| No booking, no chat or text and no form | 36% |
| No call link, no chat or text and no booking | 15% |
Share of 2,137 contractor homepages with each feature, loaded as an iPhone, October 27 to 28, 2026
The basics are mostly in place. 94% of sites run on HTTPS, and more than four in five put a call link on the homepage. The gap is everything after the phone call. Only about one site in six lets a customer start a conversation in writing, and about one in eight lets them book a time without talking to anyone. Which tools those sites use is in which booking and chat tools contractor websites use.
About the 9% with no call link
A phone number written as plain text is not useless on a phone. iPhone Safari and many Android browsers detect numbers and make them tappable on their own. What these sites lack is a call link coded into the page, which is what makes the number a button everywhere and lets call tracking work.
After hours, most sites only offer a phone call
A customer whose water heater fails at 9pm or who finally gets around to a roof quote on Sunday is on a phone, outside business hours. On 75% of the homepages we loaded, that customer could not book a time and could not send a text or chat. Their options were to call a business that is probably closed or fill in a form and wait. On 36% of homepages there was no form either, so the phone was the only way in.
That is not a website design problem as much as a coverage problem. A booking tool or chat widget needs someone or something on the other end. The cheaper fix is making sure the calls that do come in after hours get an answer: a text back to every missed call, or a receptionist that picks up.
By trade: HVAC leads, finish trades lag
| Trade | Sites | Tap-to-call link | Booking tool | Chat or text | Neither booking nor chat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HVAC | 563 | 88% | 25% | 23% | 60% |
| Roofing | 446 | 91% | 4% | 17% | 80% |
| Plumbing | 406 | 89% | 19% | 16% | 71% |
| Landscaping | 211 | 75% | 3% | 18% | 80% |
| Electrical | 194 | 81% | 11% | 9% | 82% |
| General contractor | 111 | 71% | 3% | 9% | 89% |
| Carpentry | 105 | 60% | 2% | 9% | 90% |
| Painting | 101 | 82% | 1% | 12% | 88% |
By trade, of the 2,137 homepages counted
HVAC is the only trade where nearly a quarter of sites take online bookings, which tracks with how many HVAC companies already run field-service software that includes a booking page. Plumbing is close behind. Roofing sites almost always have a call link but almost never a booking tool, which makes sense for a trade that sells inspections and quotes rather than time slots. Carpentry and general contractors trail on every measure: about nine in ten of their homepages offer neither booking nor chat or text, and only 71% of general contractor sites and 60% of carpentry sites have a call link. Painting sites mostly have a call link but almost never a booking tool.
What this study does not show
- Only homepages were checked. A company may have booking or chat on an inner page, so the booking and chat figures are a floor, not a ceiling.
- Detection reads the rendered page for known booking tools (such as Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Calendly, Acuity and Setmore) and known chat and texting widgets (such as Podium, LeadConnector, Tawk, LiveChat, Intercom and HubSpot chat), plus plain wording like 'text us' or 'live chat' and text-message links. Review widgets such as Birdeye and NiceJob are not counted as chat. A widget that only loads after a click or a long delay can be missed.
- It measures what is on the site, not whether anyone answers. A site with a chat widget can still leave messages unread overnight.
- OpenStreetMap lists businesses volunteers have mapped. Businesses that are not on the map, and states we could not pull (Michigan, Tennessee and Oregon failed on the day), are not in the sample.
What to check on your own site
- Open your homepage on your phone and tap your number. If nothing happens, the number needs a call link coded in.
- Visit at 9pm and ask what a customer could do right now. If the answer is call and hope, decide what happens to that call.
Every figure from this study and the others in the series is on one page, with a CSV: contractor website statistics.
Questions this post answers
How many contractor websites have online booking?
13% of the 2,137 contractor homepages we loaded in October 2026 had an online booking tool such as Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, Calendly or Acuity. HVAC was highest at 25% and plumbing next at 19%. Landscaping, carpentry, painting and general contractors were at 1% to 3%.
How many contractor websites have a click-to-call button?
84% had a tap-to-call link coded into the homepage. Another 9% showed a phone number with no call link, which many phones still detect and make tappable. 6% showed no phone number on the homepage at all.
Can customers reach a contractor's website after hours?
On most of them, only by calling or filling in a form. 75% of the homepages we loaded had no online booking tool and no chat or text option, and 36% had no form either, which leaves a phone call as the only way in.
How was the contractor website study done?
We pulled every plumber, HVAC, electrical, roofing, landscaping, painting, carpentry and building business with a website listed in OpenStreetMap across 21 states, removed duplicates and directory links, and loaded each homepage in headless Chrome as an iPhone between October 27 and 28, 2026. 2,407 of 3,170 sites loaded; 270 of those turned out not to be the business's working site (security checks, parked or for-sale domains, expired or suspended accounts, error pages and hacked pages), leaving 2,137 counted. Only homepages were checked, so booking and chat counts are a floor.
Originally published at www.advai.cloud/blog/contractor-website-study-2026.
