Which trades do people ask for most in Facebook groups? We counted 30,515 requests.
Oct 21, 2026 5 min read
Ninety days of posts from 388 Facebook groups: how often people ask for a contractor, painter, plumber, roofer or cleaner, which days they ask, and what it means for getting leads without buying them.
Short answer
Across 248,777 posts in 388 Facebook groups over 90 days, 30,515 asked for a recommendation. General contractors were requested most (4,151 times, about 46 a day), then painters (1,327), plumbers (1,270), roofers (1,111) and landscapers (1,027). Requests peak Monday and Tuesday between noon and 2pm Eastern.
Lead marketplaces charge contractors $20 to $180 for a single roofing lead. Meanwhile the same homeowners are asking their neighbours for a name, in public, every day. This is how often that happens, measured across the groups HuddleWatch customers watch, aggregated so no group or person can be identified.
The dataset
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Posts read | 248,777 |
| Facebook groups | 388 |
| Posts asking for a recommendation | 30,515 (12.3%) |
| Window | 90 days to 21 Oct 2026 |
Contractors are asked for three times as often as anyone else
A post that names two trades counts for both, so the bars do not sum to the total.
Every trade, with where and when it is asked for
| Trade | Requests (90 days) | Groups | Peak |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contractor | 4,151 | 187 | Tue, noon |
| Painter | 1,327 | 170 | Mon, 2pm |
| Plumber | 1,270 | 155 | Tue, noon |
| Roofer | 1,111 | 141 | Mon, 1pm |
| Landscaping and lawn | 1,027 | 173 | Mon, 2pm |
| Electrician | 900 | 142 | Mon, noon |
| Cleaner | 862 | 177 | Mon, 10am |
| Real estate agent | 715 | 120 | Tue, noon |
| Junk removal | 703 | 112 | Mon, 11am |
| Handyman | 610 | 134 | Mon, 10am |
| HVAC | 586 | 128 | Tue, noon |
| Pressure washing | 292 | 88 | Mon, 2pm |
There is more demand in the groups than in Google
"Roofing leads" is searched about 1,000 times a month in the US. In 90 days, 141 groups alone produced 1,111 posts asking for a roofer: about 370 a month, each one from a homeowner who has already decided to hire. The difference is that a search for leads is a roofer looking to buy them, and a post in a group is a homeowner looking for a roofer. Only one of those is a customer.
Monday and Tuesday at lunch
Every trade peaked on a Monday or Tuesday, and every peak fell between 10am and 2pm Eastern. That matches what we found in our earlier study of 141,811 posts: requests cluster early in the week and thin out at the weekend. If you can only watch groups for part of the week, watch the first half.
What to do with this
- Before paying for shared leads, count the free requests in your own area's groups for two weeks. In most trades above there are several a day.
- Answer within minutes on Monday and Tuesday around lunch. That is where the volume is and where the first reply wins.
- Join the groups where your trade is asked for, not the groups about your trade. Homeowners post in neighbourhood groups; other contractors post in trade groups.
- Reply with a price range and a start date rather than "DM me". The poster is choosing between the first few names.
How we counted
A post counted as a request when it used recommendation phrasing ("recommend", "looking for", "anyone know", "can anyone", "need a", "who do you use", "suggestions for", "referral") and named the trade (for example "roofer", "roof repair" or "roof leak" for roofing). It is a keyword count, not a model judgement, so it includes some noise, such as a contractor asking for a subcontractor. The groups are the ones HuddleWatch customers chose to watch, which skews the sample towards local US community groups. We publish aggregates only: no post text, group names or customer names. To run the same count on your own groups, see Facebook group monitoring.
Frequently asked questions
Which trade is requested most in Facebook groups?
General contractors and remodelers: 4,151 requests in 90 days across 187 groups, about 46 a day. Painters (1,327) and plumbers (1,270) were next.
How can contractors get free leads?
By answering recommendation requests in local Facebook groups. Across 388 groups we saw 30,515 such requests in 90 days, and each trade we measured had between 3 and 46 requests a day.
When do people ask for recommendations in Facebook groups?
Mostly on Mondays and Tuesdays between 10am and 2pm Eastern. Every trade we measured peaked inside that window.
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