The Resistance Against the Home-Services Roll-Up.
Private equity is quietly buying your neighborhood plumber, electrician, and HVAC tech — keeping the sign on the truck, routing the phone to a regional call center, and pricing to meet fund return targets. We built AllBetter to be the direct alternative: real local pros, escrow-protected payments, zero lead fees.
No credit card. No middleman. 60-second post.
One $500 repair. Watch where the money goes.
The System Isn’t Broken. It’s Being Institutionalized.
Two separate industries now extract value from your home-services decisions. Both are publicly documented. Neither shows up on the phone.
Private equity is consolidating local trades
Neighborly Brands — acquired by KKR in 2021 1 — is the world’s largest home-services franchisor. It owns Mr. Rooter, Mr. Electric, Mr. Handyman, Molly Maid, Aire Serv, Precision Door, Window Genie, and more.
Roto-Rooter — wholly owned by Chemed Corporation (NYSE: CHE) — spent $20.6 million acquiring franchise territories in San Francisco and Fort Worth on March 31, 2026 alone. 2
ARS/Rescue Rooter has been owned by Charlesbank Capital Partners since 2020. 3
The playbook: buy local shops, keep the brand on the truck, route the phone to a regional hub, raise pricing to meet fund return targets. Published as standard PE strategy. 4
Lead-selling platforms tax both sides
Angi Inc. — formed in 2017 by IAC’s merger of Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor, publicly traded as part of IAC (NASDAQ: IAC). 5
The business model: sell the same homeowner’s contact info to multiple contractors. Charge each contractor $15–50 per lead regardless of outcome. The homeowner gets 5–15 calls; one pro wins; the other 4–14 paid for nothing.
Contractors call it “rent” — paying to see a job that’s already been sold to four other people.
Direct match, escrow, no middleman
90% of US home services is still independent — real local shops not yet rolled up. We built the operating system for the 90%.
Homeowners post once. Up to 3 verified independent pros respond. Funds are held in escrow — released only when the work is approved.
Zero lead fees. Contractors pay a small service fee only when a project closes. No “rent” to see work. No data resale. No fund returns to extract.
Half-finished projects. Inflated quotes. Disappearing local pros.
We said: there has to be a different way.
One question tells you if your “local” contractor is actually local.
Try it on any call. It takes 10 seconds. It will tell you more than any review score.
“Sure, one sec — that’s Jose, let me get him.”
“We’ll have someone call you back.” / “Let me transfer you to dispatch.”
Cannot produce a local manager name. You’re in a regional hub routing queue.
Share this question. It’s free consumer protection.
Three Apps. One Connected Ecosystem. Zero Middlemen.
Most platforms fragment the industry — one app to find work, another to manage it, another to get paid. We closed the entire loop so independent pros don't have to stitch together five subscriptions to run one job.
AllBetter HomeFix
Homeowners post projects. Independent pros submit bids. Every payment runs through escrow — funds secured the moment the homeowner hires you, released only when the work is approved.
Learn moreAllBetter JobPro
Contractors find real work without paying to see it. No lead fees. No "rent" to enter the auction. You bid your price, the homeowner picks, payment escrows the moment you're hired.
Learn moreAllBetter Field
Manage your entire service business — quotes, scheduling, dispatch, CRM, invoicing, payments. $29/month vs. the $500/month "PE-Enterprise Tax." Built for independent pros who don't want to sell out to a roll-up.
Learn moreContractors win clients. Keep clients. Own the relationship. No one else is invited.
Escrow Isn’t a Feature. It’s a Settlement Mechanism.
Every project on AllBetter runs through escrow. The homeowner’s money is protected before work starts. The contractor’s payment is guaranteed before they pick up a tool. That’s not an add-on — that’s the product.
For Homeowners
Funds are held securely before work starts. Payment is released only when you approve the completed work. If the pro disappears mid-project, your money doesn’t.
For Contractors
Payment is guaranteed before you pick up a single tool. No more chasing invoices. No more “the check is in the mail.” The money is already there, waiting on approval.
This is what “no middleman” actually means.
Not a marketing phrase — a settlement mechanism.
| Lead-Gen Platforms & Roll-Ups | AllBetter |
|---|---|
| $15–50 per lead (paid whether you win or not) | No per-lead charge. Small fee only on closed jobs. |
| $300–500/month “PE-Enterprise Tax” | $29/month |
| Platform owns the customer relationship | You own the customer |
| Training manuals, onboarding calls | Works immediately on the phone you already have |
| Built for enterprise call centers | Built for one-truck operators |
| Pay to access every feature | 5 free AI tools for pros & homeowners |
How We Compare
We’re not here to tax contractors. We’re here to help the 90% that isn’t owned by a fund.
Built for the 90% Who Still Work From Trucks.
90% of contractors don’t have corporate offices. They run the business from the cab of a truck. That’s who we built for — not the 10% acquired by a fund.
A truck between projects
A project site between calls
Home after a 12-hour day
Mobile-first. No training manual. Setup in 5 minutes. If you can use your phone, you can run your business on AllBetter — without giving up your independence to a roll-up.
Compare 3 Verified Independent Pros — In About 60 Seconds.
Post your project free. We’ll match you with real local pros who pay $0 in lead fees, so the savings stay in your pocket. No spam, no call-center routing, no PE pricing model.
Post a Project Free100% escrow-protected. No credit card required. Works on phone, tablet, or desktop.
27,000 Independent Contractors Joined Because the Math Works.
Built by someone who’s seen the systems that extract.
I hold a Master’s in Computer Science and spent two decades across Fortune 100 technology roles and commercial real estate. I’ve watched how systems get engineered — at scale — to extract value from the people inside them.
When I started looking at home services, I saw the exact pattern I’d seen in finance, real estate, and tech rollouts: buy the local unit, keep the brand, centralize operations, price to the fund’s required return. The names on the trucks look local. The settlements don’t.
AllBetter isn’t a pivot from something else. It’s what I’d build if I wanted to make sure the engineering went the other way — designed to keep value local, keep relationships direct, and keep the homeowner and the pro on the same side of the table.
AllBetter has never taken VC or PE money. That means no 20%+ return hurdles to extract from your pricing, no algorithm changes designed to maximize platform revenue at your expense, and no sold-to-the-highest-bidder exit on the horizon. The company you’re building your business on answers to its users — not to an LP chasing a 10× multiple.
Selectively open to aligned capital:Not the PE funds that created the problem. Not VCs with 10× return hurdles. We’re evaluating partners who understand category design — the kind who invest in systemic corrections, not short-term extraction.
Review Our Investor ThesisTrusted by Top Media Outlets
A Category That Shouldn’t Need to Exist: Independent Home Services.
If the industry weren’t being rolled up, we wouldn’t have to name it. But it is — so we did. Independent Home Services is the operating layer for the 90% of trades that aren’t owned by a fund.
Escrow by Default
No trust needed. Math replaces handshakes. Homeowner funds protected; contractor payment guaranteed. Every project. Every time.
The AllBetter Independent Pro Badge
Certification you’re dealing with a real human — not a CRM algorithm or a regional call-center. Displayed on trucks, estimates, and profiles. Earned, not bought.
The Independence Index
Lookup tool: type any home-services brand name, see whether it’s PE-owned, publicly traded, franchise-with-PE-money, or genuinely local. Sourced from SEC filings and press releases. Coming soon.
Bootstrapped. Profitable. Built to stay independent — so the pros on the platform can too.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about AllBetter and the roll-up era.
Three fast checks. One: use the Human Test above — ask to speak to the local shop manager by name, right now. If they can’t produce a name, you’re likely on a regional call-center routing queue. Two: check the parent company. PE ownership is public record — look for SEC filings, BusinessWire press releases, or the PE firm’s portfolio page. Three: use AllBetter’s Independence Index (launching soon) to look up any brand against our verified registry.
Lead-gen platforms sell the same homeowner’s contact info to multiple contractors and charge each one $15–50 per lead — whether the pro wins the job or not. Contractors pay “rent” just to see a job that’s already been sold to 4 other people. On AllBetter, pros browse and bid. Pros pay only a small service fee when a job actually closes. We call it Rent vs. Result. For homeowners, competing binding bids against one written scope make it easy to compare apples to apples. You can see the full picture in our home market on the Chicago home services page — every trade, with real local bid data.
No. AllBetter is 100% bootstrapped. No VC. No PE. No return hurdles to extract from homeowners or contractors. The system doesn’t need 20%+ YoY growth to survive, so we don’t need to engineer it out of your invoice.
It’s a verification that the pro on your job is an independent — not a roll-up franchisee, not a call-center dispatcher, not a regional unit of a national brand. Pros earn the badge through verification and display it on their trucks, estimates, and profiles. It’s a signal that the relationship stays between you and a real human.
Because the American home is being institutionalized. Private equity has consolidated home services into multi-billion-dollar franchise platforms. Roto-Rooter’s parent company spent $20.6 million in a single month (March 31, 2026) acquiring franchise territories. That consolidation is systematic, and it’s designed to extract value from homeowners and contractors for fund returns. AllBetter is the direct alternative. If you’re using it — or building your business on it — you’re the resistance.
AllBetter is a connected home-services platform made up of three purpose-built apps: HomeFix for homeowners, JobPro for contractors finding work, and Field for running a service business. Together, they cover the full lifecycle — finding work, winning projects, and managing operations — without forcing everyone into a single bloated product.
For homeowners using HomeFix, payments are held securely through escrow until work is completed and approved. For contractors using Field, payments are processed through the contractor’s own connected Stripe account — AllBetter provides the infrastructure but never controls contractor funds.
No. AllBetter does not sell leads or charge contractors for bids or inquiries. Contractors choose which projects to bid on and only pay a small service fee after a project is successfully completed. Rent vs. Result.
Escrow-backed payments, verified independent pros, transparent bid comparisons, all communication and records in one place. All pros are identity-verified; every project runs through escrow.
Software subscriptions (Field at $29+/month, JobPro plans) and small service fees charged only when real work is completed. The model is transparent, aligned with real usage, and requires no extractive pricing to satisfy outside investors — because there aren’t any.
Ready to Stop Paying the Roll-Up Tax?
Whether you’re a homeowner who wants fair pricing or a contractor who wants independence — you’re in the right place.
For Homeowners
Stop guessing if you’re being overcharged. Post your project, get 3 verified bids from real independent pros, pay only when the work is done.
Post a Project FreeFor Contractors
Compete with the roll-ups without selling out. Only pay when you win. Payment guaranteed by escrow. Your customers stay yours.
Join as an Independent ProFor Businesses
AllBetter Field — the operating system for contractors who won’t sell to a fund. Quotes, scheduling, CRM, invoicing, payments. $29/month.
Try Field Software References & Sources
- KKR to Acquire Leading Home Services Platform Neighborly, July 8, 2021. Neighborly Brands press release | BusinessWire.
- Roto-Rooter Completes Acquisitions for Two Significant Territories, April 1, 2026 (transaction date March 31, 2026). Chemed Corp. via GlobeNewswire | Nasdaq press release.
- American Residential Services (ARS/Rescue Rooter), Year of Investment 2020. Charlesbank Capital Partners portfolio page.
- Home Services PE Roll-Up Strategy overview. CT Acquisitions industry guide | Profitability Partners.
- Angi Inc. corporate history (formed April 13, 2017 via IAC merger of Angie’s List and HomeAdvisor; part of IAC, NASDAQ:IAC). Angi Investor Relations FAQ | Wikipedia.