The cost of not offering financing, for a typical contractor running 40 in-home appointments a month at an $18,000 average ticket, works out to roughly $475,000 to $950,000 a year in unclosed revenue. That estimate is not a guess: it comes from applying the close-rate gap measured in a 2025 survey of more than 1,000 contractors to a worked example you can rerun with your own numbers. This article shows every step of that math.
Key takeaways
- The 2025 ACCA Contractor of the Future Study (1,000+ contractors, with Farmington Consulting Group) found average close rates rise from 38% without financing to 49% with it, an 11-point lift.
- In our illustrative model (40 appointments, $18,000 ticket), that lift is worth about $79,200 a month; even half the lift is worth $475,200 a year.
- Bankrate's 2026 Emergency Savings Report found just 30% of Americans would pay a $1,000 surprise expense from savings, which is why five-figure cash bids stall.
- A financing platform subscription runs $1,499 to $4,999 a year as of 2026; one recovered $18,000 job pays for it several times over.
- Financing does not change your price or your margin. It changes the number the homeowner evaluates, from $18,000 down to roughly $299 a month.
The model: a typical bath remodel operation
The model below uses illustrative round numbers for a single-truck, two-crew remodeling business. These are not survey data; they are a worked example chosen to sit near the middle of what small remodelers report. Swap in your own figures and the structure holds.
| Model input | Value | Note |
|---|---|---|
| In-home appointments per month | 40 | Illustrative |
| Close rate without financing | 30% | Illustrative; sits below the 38% industry average ACCA measured for non-financing contractors |
| Average ticket | $18,000 | Illustrative; midrange bath remodels run roughly $16,000 to $28,000 in 2026 per Angi and Journal of Light Construction cost data |
| Closed deals per month | 12 | 40 x 30% |
| Closed revenue per month | $216,000 | 12 x $18,000 |
So the baseline business books $216,000 a month, about $2.59 million a year. The question is what happens to the 28 appointments that did not close, and how many of them stalled on money rather than fit.
What the close-rate data actually says
The close-rate evidence comes from the 2025 Contractor of the Future Study, run by ACCA (the Air Conditioning Contractors of America) with Farmington Consulting Group across more than 1,000 contractors. Average close rates were 38% for contractors who do not offer financing and 49% for those who do, as reported by ACHR News. The same study found only 37% of contractors offer financing on every job, while 32% never offer it at all.
An 11-point close-rate gap is the most defensible number in this whole conversation, because it is measured across a large sample rather than claimed by a financing vendor. Individual results spread widely around it: ACHR News also profiled Welsch Heating and Cooling, whose close rate climbed from 77% in 2024 to 83% in 2025 after leaning into financing, without discounting a job. Your lift depends on your ticket size, your market, and how consistently your salespeople present the payment option.
The worked math: with and without financing
Apply the ACCA gap to the model. If financing moves our illustrative contractor's close rate up 11 points, from 30% to 41%, here is the before and after. We also show a half-lift scenario, because a conservative case is more useful than a best case.
| Scenario | Close rate | Deals/month | Revenue/month | Extra revenue/year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| No financing (baseline) | 30% | 12.0 | $216,000 | 0 |
| Half the ACCA lift (+5.5 pts) | 35.5% | 14.2 | $255,600 | $475,200 |
| Full ACCA lift (+11 pts) | 41% | 16.4 | $295,200 | $950,400 |
Every figure in that table is arithmetic on the illustrative model, anchored to the measured 11-point gap. Nothing else about the business changed: same leads, same bids, same crews. The half-lift case alone is $475,200 a year, which is why "we'll add financing eventually" is an expensive sentence.
There is a second effect the table leaves out on purpose: job size. Financing vendors and trade coverage regularly report that financed projects come in 40% or more above comparable cash projects, because homeowners approve the full scope instead of trimming it. Those figures come from parties with something to sell, so treat them as directional. If you want the mechanics, we broke down how bath remodelers use financing to grow average ticket size separately.
Why homeowners stall: the savings data
Homeowners stall on five-figure bids because most of them do not hold five figures in accessible cash. Bankrate's 2026 Emergency Savings Report found that just 30% of Americans would pay a $1,000 or larger emergency expense from savings, and 24% have no emergency savings at all. Even affluent homeowners often keep their wealth in retirement accounts and home equity rather than checking.
That is what "I need to think about it" usually means at the kitchen table. It is rarely a verdict on your work; it is a liquidity problem the homeowner is embarrassed to say out loud. We covered the script side of that moment in why "I need to think about it" means you lost the sale and in our list of 10 homeowner financing objections and what to say.
One more implication worth sitting with: you are not actually deciding whether financing enters the deal. A homeowner who wants the project will find money somewhere, often a credit card or a personal loan with worse terms, or a competitor who brought payments to the table first. Per the ACCA study, roughly two thirds of contractors now offer financing at least situationally, so the competitor scenario is the likely one.
The shift from price to payment
The price-to-payment shift is the mechanism behind the close-rate lift. A $22,000 bathroom is an abstract, frightening number. The same project at roughly $365 a month (illustrative: 84 months at 9.99% APR) is a number a household can weigh against a car payment. Our model's $18,000 ticket works out to about $299 a month on the same illustrative terms. Actual offers vary by lender, credit profile, and term; Hearth's pricing page, for example, lists loan options from $1,000 to $250,000 with terms of 2 to 12 years across an 18-lender network.
Note what did not happen in that reframe: no discount, no margin cut, no scope reduction. Promotional 0% APR structures exist too and behave differently for both sides; see how 0% APR contractor financing actually works before leading with one.
What financing costs versus what it recovers
The cost side of the ledger is small and knowable. As of 2026, Hearth lists annual subscriptions at $1,499 (Essentials), $1,799 (Pro), and $4,999 (Elite), each with a one-time $99 setup fee and no per-loan dealer fees, per its published pricing. Other platforms charge differently: some are free to the contractor but take a merchant fee per transaction. We compared the major programs in Hearth vs Wisetack vs GreenSky vs Improvifi and unpacked dealer fees and what they really cost you.
Set the two sides next to each other using the model. A $1,799 Pro subscription plus setup is $1,898 in year one. A single recovered $18,000 job returns that cost about nine times over, before you count the second recovered job, or the third. Even if your true lift is a quarter of what ACCA measured, the subscription is a rounding error against it. The full fee math lives in how much Hearth costs contractors.
How to roll it out in 30 days
A financing rollout is a four-week project, not a quarter-long initiative. Here is the sequence we recommend.
- Week 1: sign up and get your link. Pick a platform, complete enrollment, and get the pre-qualification link into every salesperson's phone. Enrollment on the major platforms takes under an hour.
- Week 2: train the presentation. Financing is presented as a normal payment method alongside check and card, on every bid, not as a rescue move when a deal wobbles. Our kitchen table guide to pitching financing has the exact talk track.
- Week 3: pre-qualify before the price reveal. Run the soft-credit pre-qualification during the in-home visit so the homeowner sees an approved monthly number before they hear the project total. Step-by-step in how to use financing during an in-home estimate.
- Week 4: measure the stall rate. Compare your "need to think about it" percentage against the prior month, and track close rate monthly from then on. The model above tells you what each recovered point is worth.
How we put this together
The business model in this article is illustrative and labeled as such; the anchoring statistics are not. Close-rate figures come from the 2025 ACCA and Farmington Consulting Group Contractor of the Future Study as reported by ACHR News, savings data from Bankrate's 2026 Emergency Savings Report, program pricing from Hearth's published 2026 pricing page, and remodel cost ranges from Angi and Journal of Light Construction 2026 data. Monthly payment examples are our own amortization math at stated illustrative terms. Figures verified July 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What is the real cost of not offering financing?
For a contractor running 40 appointments a month at an $18,000 average ticket, the cost of not offering financing is roughly $475,000 to $950,000 a year in unclosed revenue, based on applying half to all of the 11-point close-rate gap ACCA measured in 2025. Your number scales with appointment volume and ticket size, so rerun the model with your own inputs.
How much does it cost to start offering financing?
Between $0 and about $5,000 a year depending on the platform model. Hearth charges a flat subscription ($1,499 to $4,999 a year as of 2026, plus a $99 setup fee) with no per-loan dealer fees, while other programs are free upfront but charge a merchant fee on each financed job.
Do homeowners actually use contractor financing?
Yes, because most households cannot write large checks: Bankrate's 2026 report found only 30% of Americans would cover even a $1,000 emergency from savings. ACCA's 2025 study also found contractors who present financing on every job see meaningfully more of their sales financed than those who mention it selectively.
Does offering financing mean discounting my work?
No. Financing leaves your price and margin untouched and changes only how the homeowner pays, converting a lump sum into a monthly payment. Discounting cuts your margin on every job; financing costs a known subscription or fee and applies only when it wins you a job.
What close-rate lift should I expect from financing?
Plan around the measured industry gap of 11 points (38% to 49% per the 2025 ACCA study), and treat anything above that as upside. Contractors who pre-qualify homeowners before the price reveal and present payments on every bid tend to land closer to the top of the range.
