Is a Houzz profile enough for my business, or do I need a website?

Keep the Houzz profile if you're a remodeler, painter, landscaper, or designer - it puts your project photos in front of homeowners who are actively planning, and ideabooks are a genuinely good way to get discovered mid-research. But it is not neutral ground. Every competitor in your category shows up in the same search results and the same ideabooks, the page format is Houzz's, not yours, and Houzz Pro's software and advertising tiers are a recurring cost you don't control. A website on your own domain is the one page online where nobody else's project photos can appear next to yours. Use both: Houzz for discovery, your site to close.

Why do I see other contractors' work next to mine on Houzz?

Because that's how Houzz is built to work. Ideabooks and category pages exist to show a homeowner lots of options in one place, so a photo of your finished kitchen sits in the same scroll as ten other remodelers' kitchens - sometimes pros you're bidding against on the same job. Houzz also sells advertising and lead placements on top of the free listing, which is how it makes money from the traffic your project photos bring in. On your own website, there is no version of the page where a competitor's work appears next to yours, because you built the page and nobody else gets to add to it.

Do I own my Houzz reviews and project photos?

No. The reviews live in Houzz's database, tied to your Houzz profile, and awards like "Best of Houzz" are decided and can be revoked by Houzz based on its own criteria, not yours. Your project photos are uploaded to Houzz's platform and formatted the way Houzz displays them, not the way you'd choose to show them. You can request your own photos back, but you can't move the reviews or the badge. That's a good reason to also collect reviews on Google, where they sit next to your business in the map results, and to build a photo gallery on a website where you control the order, the captions, and which project leads.

Should I pay for Houzz Pro advertising or build a website first?

Build the site first. Houzz Pro's software and lead-generation tiers are a recurring subscription, and the advertising add-ons are rented placement that stops producing anything the day you stop paying - and every click still lands on a Houzz page, not yours. A website is ground you own, and it's the page every other click is supposed to land on too - Houzz, Google, a referral text, a truck magnet. Get the site live, link it from your Houzz profile, and then decide if paid Houzz placement earns its keep on top of that.

How much does a RunCabin website cost?

$39.99 per month, flat. That includes the website built for you, your own domain, professional email, a free AI logo, hosting, and unlimited changes made by asking the AI in plain English. No setup fee, no contract, cancel anytime, and your domain stays yours.

RunCabin Blog · For working contractors

Do I need a website if I'm on Houzz?

August 30, 2026 · 8 min read

Short answer: keep the Houzz profile if you're a remodeler, painter, landscaper, or designer, but don't let it be your only home online. Houzz is genuinely good at one thing most other platforms aren't built for - it puts your finished projects in front of a homeowner who is mid-research on an actual renovation, not just browsing. What it is not is neutral ground. Every competitor bidding the same kind of job shows up in the same ideabooks and category pages, Houzz Pro is a paid subscription with its own tiers, and none of the profile - the reviews, the photos, the badges - belongs to you. A website on your own domain is the one piece of your online presence no platform gets to place a competitor's work on. You want both, doing different jobs.

What a Houzz profile does well

Give Houzz its due. If you do kitchen and bath remodels, additions, landscape design, or whole-house painting, Houzz reaches a specific kind of customer that Yelp or Facebook mostly doesn't: someone in the actual planning phase of a project, saving photos to an ideabook, comparing styles, building a shortlist before they ever request a quote. That's a warmer, more design-literate visitor than most local-search traffic, and a claimed profile with real project photos is worth having. It handles two things well:

Discovery during the research phase - a homeowner planning a kitchen remodel browses ideabooks and category pages months before they're ready to hire, and a strong photo set can land you on their shortlist early.
Portfolio presentation - Houzz's photo-first layout is built for showing finished work, which suits remodelers and designers better than a generic directory listing does.

If you don't have a claimed Houzz profile yet and your work is the kind homeowners plan for in advance, claim it - it's free at the base tier, and the same hygiene rules apply as any other listing: real photos of your own completed jobs, accurate service categories, and details kept current.

The trouble starts the moment the profile becomes the whole plan.

The part that stings: your competitors are one scroll away

Here's what a lot of pros only notice after they've been on the platform a while. Ideabooks and category search results exist specifically to show a homeowner a wide set of options in one place - that's the product. A photo of your finished kitchen sits in the same scroll as a dozen other remodelers' kitchens, sometimes pros you are actively bidding the same job against. There's no version of a Houzz category page that shows only you.

Houzz Pro layers a paid subscription and advertising tiers on top of the free listing - software for estimates and project management on one side, lead and placement products on the other. That's the business model: your project photos bring homeowners into the ecosystem, and Houzz sells placement inside that same ecosystem, including placement your competitors can buy on the pages your work appears on.

Compare that to a website on your own domain. There is no version of your site where a competing remodeler's before-and-after gets placed next to yours, because you built the page and nobody else gets to add to it. That's the difference between "I'm on Houzz" and "I have a website" - they are not the same sentence.

You don't control the reviews, the photos, or the badge

The reviews and the "Best of Houzz" badge are a big part of why pros lean on the platform, so it's worth being clear about who actually holds them. Your reviews live in Houzz's database, attached to your Houzz profile - not something you can export and drop onto another platform. Awards like Best of Houzz are decided using Houzz's own criteria and can be granted or pulled year to year based on rules you don't set. Your project photos live on Houzz's servers, displayed in Houzz's layout, cropped and ordered the way Houzz's template handles them, not the way you'd choose to present your own portfolio.

None of that is unusual for a platform - it's just worth naming plainly. You cannot move the reviews, and you cannot make the badge follow you if you ever change platforms or your account lapses. That's the practical reason to also collect reviews on Google, where they sit right next to your business in the map results, and to keep a photo gallery on a website you control, in the order and with the captions you'd actually choose.

The bigger issue: you don't own any of it

Step back and it's the same pattern behind a Yelp page and Angi or Thumbtack leads. You manage your Houzz profile. You do not own it. Houzz controls the layout, the categories you're filed under, which ads run near your photos, what the badge program looks like this year, and whether any of those features still exist next year. It can change all of that without asking you, because it's Houzz's platform, not yours.

None of that is a reason to drop Houzz if it's bringing you real project inquiries. It's a reason not to build the whole business on rented ground. The profile is a well-decorated room in someone else's building. A website on your own domain is the building - your domain, your layout, no platform selling ad space over your shoulder while a homeowner is looking at your work.

What the website is actually for

Think of it as the difference between being found and being chosen. Houzz can get a design-minded homeowner to notice you during their research phase. But once they've narrowed it down to three or four names and are comparing seriously, the deciding usually happens off-platform - a Google search of your business name, a look at your own site, a check of your reviews outside the Houzz bubble. If there's nothing there, you've done the hard part of getting noticed and lost the easy part of getting picked.

A remodeler or painter's website doesn't need to be huge. It needs to answer what a homeowner is checking in that comparing moment:

What you do and where - your specialties (kitchens, additions, exteriors, hardscape) and service area, stated plainly.
Your own project photos, full-size and yours to caption - not compressed into someone else's ideabook grid.
A quote form that reaches you instantly - inquiries landing in your inbox, not a lead queue you're competing inside.
Your reviews, shown on your terms - the proof you've earned, not filtered by someone else's algorithm.
License number and insurance, in plain text - the details a homeowner researching a real renovation checks before signing anything.

Then connect the two halves: put your website link on your Houzz profile, and pull your best Houzz project photos onto your own site too. The profile attracts people mid-research; the site is where they decide.

The order of operations

If you're weighing where your time goes first, here's the sequence that wastes the least:

Claim your free listings - Google Business Profile first, then Houzz if your work fits its ideabook-and-remodel audience. Fill both out with real photos and accurate details.
Get a simple website live on your own domain - your specialties, your best project photos, a quote form to your inbox.
Link the site from your Houzz profile and your Google listing, and ask every finished client for a review on both.
Only after that, decide whether Houzz Pro's paid software or advertising tiers are worth it on top - and if you buy in, you're at least sending every other click toward a page you own.

Notice the website comes before any paid Houzz tier. Paying for placement inside someone else's ecosystem, and sending those clicks to a profile you don't control, is how a remodeler's marketing budget quietly leaks - especially in a trade where the average job is worth enough that losing one bid over a thin online presence actually stings.

Where RunCabin sits

RunCabin builds the website part for you - your specialties, your project photos, your service area, with a quote form that goes straight to your inbox - for $39.99/mo, flat. Your own domain, professional email, and a free AI logo are included, there's no setup fee and no contract, and there are no lead fees on the inquiries that come through. Most owners are live the same day.

The part that's genuinely hard to find elsewhere at this price: you change the site by asking. "Add a gallery section for my last three kitchen remodels." "Pull in my Houzz and Google reviews under the contact form." Plain English, done in moments - no page builder, no support ticket, no waiting on a designer between jobs. And if you ever cancel, the domain is yours to keep. It's the one corner of your online presence where nobody else's project photos ever show up next to yours.

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