How AskBaily contractors manage their crews

What the sub-trade graph actually is

When a general contractor opens an AskBaily account, one of the things we ask them to do is declare their sub bench — the specialty firms they work with, by trade, with the relationship length. This is not a marketing field. The data goes into a typed graph: each declared relationship becomes an edge from the GC to the sub, tagged with the trade (tile, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, framing, drywall, painting, flooring, cabinetry, roofing, masonry, or landscape) and the 1099/W-2 classification. Edges are append-only. A GC who declares a relationship and then ends it writes a new edge — the original is never removed.

When a homeowner starts scoping a project, the matching engine walks this graph. If the project needs a plumber, an electrician, and a tile setter, the engine looks for GCs whose declared graph covers all three, not just GCs who list those trades in their bio. If the project is a Miami roof replacement, the engine filters for GCs whose roofing sub holds current HVHZ certification — because in Miami-Dade and Broward, that certification is not a marketing claim, it is a building-code requirement. The graph makes this filter possible.

Why Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz cannot show this

Lead-generation platforms have a structural reason not to surface sub data: their revenue model is per-lead, so their unit of record is the homeowner's contact information, not the contractor's crew. Angi sells the same lead to three-to-five contractors who compete to call the homeowner first. HomeAdvisor (which is Angi) uses the same model. Thumbtack's unit is the solo pro — the platform does not even have the concept of a GC hiring subs. Houzz Pro is a photo directory with internal tooling; the sub graph, where it exists inside a GC's Houzz account, is private to that GC.

The net effect is that a homeowner evaluating a contractor on any of those platforms has no way to answer the question that actually predicts remodel quality: who is doing the work?They see the GC's business name and a star rating averaged across projects where the GC may have used a different sub every single time. Two projects from the same company with completely different underlying crews look identical to the homeowner. The rating becomes noise.

Twelve categories, one graph

We group the public graph into twelve trade categories. Each has its own regulatory footprint — some states license them separately from the GC (California CSLB issues C-10 for electrical, C-36 for plumbing, C-20 for HVAC, and so on), some bundle them under a single HIC license (New York City DCWP), some leave them to local registration (Florida's non-GC specialties). The page for each category explains the regulatory landscape in that trade, what a homeowner should look for in the declared sub, and which cross-trades it touches.

• Tile
  Wet-area substrate, grout schedules, and tile layout are where bathrooms either age well or leak in year two.
• Plumbing
  Rough-in sets the plumbing geometry for the life of the house. A good plumbing sub is a GC's most important relationship.
• Electrical
  Load calculations, panel capacity, and code-cycle awareness are what separate a journeyman from a handyman.
• HVAC
  Duct design and equipment sizing decide whether a house is quiet and comfortable or loud and uneven.
• Framing
  Framing sets every dimension that follows. Mistakes here compound for the rest of the project.
• Drywall
  Level-5 finish, taping discipline, and schedule reliability — drywall subs are the crew GCs fight hardest to keep.
• Painting
  The finish everyone sees. Prep discipline and product selection separate a 2-year finish from an 8-year finish.
• Flooring
  Hardwood, LVP, tile transitions, and moisture mitigation — flooring subs decide whether finishes hold for a decade.
• Cabinetry & Finish Carpentry
  Tolerance stacks up here. A half-millimeter out of square gets visible across a 12-foot run.
• Roofing
  HVHZ certification, flashing detail, and warranty registration — a roof failure shows up 5 years later, long after the homeowner review.
• Masonry & Concrete
  Concrete cures once. Foundations, slab pours, and retaining walls do not forgive mistakes.
• Landscape
  Grading, drainage, and irrigation are infrastructure — softscape is the visible part of a system that has to work.

The crew is the contractor

After enough remodels the same pattern appears: the GCs who produce consistent work have stable sub benches, and the GCs whose work varies wildly are the ones rotating through whichever plumber or tile setter happened to be available that week. Trade-specific skill is the thing that actually gets transferred from project to project; the GC's contribution is the coordination, the sequencing, the schedule discipline, and the homeowner relationship. A good GC with a stable crew is worth more than a famous GC with an ad-hoc one.

This is why we expose the graph. If a GC's strongest asset is a six-person bench they have worked with for five years, the homeowner deserves to see it. And if the GC's bench is thin, the homeowner deserves to see that too. In either case the data is more useful than a star rating averaged over unknown inputs.

How we verify it

Every declared sub is cross-checked against the relevant state or regional license board. Six jurisdictions are fully automated in-line today — California CSLB, Oregon CCB, Washington L&I, NYC DCWP Home Improvement Contractor, Indiana PLA, and Quebec RBQ. Everywhere else we run a 72-hour manual ops review. Once a sub is verified, the record is re-checked on a rolling schedule, not a one-time signup check. Expired or revoked licenses cause the sub record to flip to an inactive state; the edge itself is preserved (edges are append-only) but the matching engine stops surfacing it.

See the full methodology for how we handle disputes, how payment evidence ties back to declared sub work, and how the Trust Ledger keeps the whole thing honest.

For contractors

If you are a general contractor reading this and thinking "I already have my crew, I just don't want to lose them to a platform" — that is exactly the point. A declared sub graph on AskBaily becomes your lock-in, not ours. The longer you work here, the deeper the graph you build, and the more accumulated trust signal attaches to your crew. Competitors with a per-lead model cannot match this because they have no way to store the relationship. Bring your subs.

Frequently asked questions

What is a sub-trade graph?

A sub-trade graph is a declared map of the specialty firms a general contractor works with — the tile setter, plumber, electrician, HVAC company, roofer, and so on. On AskBaily, every GC declares this graph and the names are visible to homeowners before hiring.

Why does the sub-trade graph matter to a homeowner?

Because 90% of remodel quality is determined by the sub-trade work, not the GC's sales pitch. A GC who has the same tile setter and same plumber on every job for three years produces dramatically more consistent results than a GC who rotates through whoever is available.

Do Angi or Thumbtack show the sub-trade graph?

No. Angi, Thumbtack, HomeAdvisor, and Houzz all treat every contractor as a black box. The homeowner sees the business name and reviews; the actual crew is invisible. This is a deliberate product choice — those platforms optimize for selling the lead, not for surfacing crew quality.

How does AskBaily verify the declared sub relationships?

Every declared sub is cross-checked against the relevant state or regional license board. In six jurisdictions that verification is automated in-line (California CSLB, Oregon CCB, Washington L&I, NYC DCWP Home Improvement Contractor, Indiana PLA, Quebec RBQ). Everywhere else we run a 72-hour manual review. Sub records are re-verified on a rolling window, not just once at signup.

Can a sub appear on multiple GCs' graphs?

Yes — and this is useful signal. A plumbing firm that appears across three different GCs' declared networks is a different quality tier than one that only appears once. The graph makes these patterns visible rather than hiding them.

What trades are covered?

Twelve public categories: tile, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, framing, drywall, painting, flooring, cabinetry, roofing, masonry, and landscape. Internally the graph tracks finer specialties (rough vs finish plumbing, tile setting vs general tile, finish carpentry vs cabinet install).

Is this the same as a GC's company profile?

No. A company profile is marketing. The sub-trade graph is declarative data: a GC commits to who their subs are, and that commitment is tied to the project ledger. Edges are append-only, so a GC cannot retroactively remove a sub from the record.