Angie's List

A word-of-mouth network for consumers, Angie's List is a growing collection of homeowners' real-life experiences with local service companies. The people who join Angie's List are like you — looking for a way to find trustworthy companies that perform high-quality work.

• Get the real scoop:

Angie's List members submit more than 15,000 reports each month about the companies they've hired. They describe their project (including the cost), and grade the company's response time, prices and quality of work — good or bad. In reading the reviews, you'll know if a crew was conscious of children and pets, cleaned up after themselves, or just totally botched the job.

• Keeping it honest:

Because Angie's List relies on its members' experiences, reviews aren't submitted anonymously. Of course members' information is kept confidential on the List, but reports are made available to the companies who have been reviewed. Since there are always two sides to every story, companies can respond to reviews, helping make sure that members get all the information they need to make a hiring decision. Additionally, members can only report on a specific company once every six months, ensuring no one can "stack the deck" in favor of or against a company. Finally, all reviews submitted by members go through a team of Angie's List staff who look for any irregularities or red flags. Occasionally, we can catch service companies reporting on their own businesses. Those companies are reprimanded and the reports are promptly and permanently removed from the List.

• Consumers support Angie's List:

Companies don't pay to be on Angie's List. Angie's List is a consumer-driven service and is supported by our members. Members pay a monthly or annual membership fee to access the ratings on the List