Contractor Warranty on Your Website: What 18 Sites Promise

A homeowner holding two bids for the same job has one question the price does not answer: what happens if it fails? Your contractor warranty is the answer, but only if the customer can find it, and understand it, before they call.

We opened the websites of the 18 Sacramento-region contractors from our audit of licensed contractors and read every page we could reach for warranty and guarantee wording. Seven of the 18 mention a warranty or guarantee. Two give a length for their own work. None says what the warranty covers, what it leaves out, or how to make a claim, and none has a page about it.

We build websites for trade contractors, so weigh this accordingly. The check was done on 2026-10-29, the method is at the end, and the only firms named are named for something done well.

Contractor warranty: what 18 sites show

The seven use phrases like "We guarantee our work", "backs our work with strong warranties", "provides warranties and guarantees" and "Each job includes a workmanship warranty". One of the eleven uses "guarantee" only as a figure of speech ("we guarantee a seamless process"), so we did not count it.

Where a length is given, it is soft. One plumber's FAQ says "we provide up to a 5 year warranty depending on the service performed. Further details may be discussed", and that answer sits inside a question that is closed until you tap it. One roofer's gutter page says "we stand behind every job with a lifetime warranty", without saying whose lifetime.

In every case the customer still has to call to learn what the warranty actually covers.

Why it matters when two bids look alike

Price is still the first thing homeowners weigh, but a warranty is close behind. Modernize, which sells homeowner leads to contractors, says its 2025 survey of "over 150,000 homeowners" found that "65.78% of homeowners say pricing is "very important." However, beyond price, the most influential factors include warranty and guarantees (15.89%), availability (11.07%), and expertise (10.29%)." The page does not say how or when the survey was run, so treat it as a lead seller's read of its own users.

We found no independent 2025 or 2026 survey on how homeowners weigh a warranty, in the searches we ran.

The practical point stands without the survey. Two bids with the same price and the same reviews are a coin toss for the customer. A plain line that says "2 years on our labor, in writing" breaks the tie, and it costs nothing to put on the page.

What the rules say

We found no California rule that a contractor must offer a warranty, but a written one counts. The Contractors State License Board's 2025 hiring brochure for homeowners does not mention warranties at all. The state's disciplinary rules do: Business and Professions Code 7091(e) says "A disciplinary action regarding an alleged breach of an express, written warranty issued by the contractor shall be filed not later than 18 months from the expiration of the warranty" (leginfo, amended effective January 1, 2019). A five-year written warranty keeps that door open for six and a half years. Promise only what you will honor.

The FTC has guides for advertising a guarantee. Its Guides for the Advertising of Warranties and Guarantees, 16 CFR Part 239, say most of their sections "apply to the advertising of any warranty or guarantee" (eCFR). Three of them fit a contractor's website:

• Lifetime. If an ad uses "lifetime", it "should disclose, with such clarity and prominence as will be noticed and understood by prospective purchasers, the life to which the representation refers" (239.4). The life of the house, of the original owner, or of the product.
• Satisfaction guaranteed. "Satisfaction Guarantee," "Money Back Guarantee" and similar phrases should be used "only if the seller or manufacturer ... refunds the full purchase price" on request, and the ad should disclose "any material limitations or conditions" (239.3). Two sites in the sample promise satisfaction in some form; neither says what happens if you are not satisfied.
• Keep the promise. A business "should advertise that a product is warranted or guaranteed only if the seller or manufacturer ... promptly and fully performs its obligations" (239.5).

These are FTC guides, not a statute, and this is not legal advice. They are a good test of whether a warranty line on your site says enough.

What a good warranty mention looks like

Two sites in the sample each do one part of this well. TeleLink Communications, a Sacramento phone system installer, says exactly what and how long: "TeleLink offers an unprecedented 2-year warranty on all of our equipment", and adds that "The industry standard is usually only one-year." Majestic Construction & Design tells roofing customers their job is "backed by manufacturer and workmanship warranties", so a customer knows there are two separate promises.

Put both together and add the parts nobody had:

1. How long. A number of years for your labor, by kind of job if it differs. "Up to" is a range, not an answer.
2. What it covers. Your workmanship, the materials, or both.
3. What it does not cover. Damage from storms, other trades, or the owner's changes, if those are your exclusions.
4. Whose warranty. Your workmanship warranty, and separately the manufacturer's warranty on the product, which you pass along.
5. How to claim. Who to call or email, and what you need from them (the address and the invoice).
6. Where the full terms are. "Full written terms come with your contract."

The six lines fit on one short page, with one sentence linking to it from each service page and from your quote button.

What to do this week

1. Write down what you actually honor. Your crew already knows what you fix for free and for how long. Put it in one sentence per kind of job.
2. Add one line near your phone number or quote button. "2 years on our labor, in writing. Manufacturer warranties passed on to you."
3. Write a short warranty page with the six points above and the date you last checked it.
4. Fix any "lifetime" or "satisfaction guaranteed" line so it says whose lifetime, or what happens if a customer is not satisfied.
5. Take the length out of a closed FAQ. If the only place your warranty length lives is a question the customer has to open, most will never see it.

The other checks on this same set of sites are whether a customer can call you in one tap, whether you show a price at all, and whether your site mentions financing.

Our own site

We checked flarebuilt.com the same way. We offer two guarantees, and both say what you get: the Love-It-Live Guarantee ("Not thrilled within 14 days? Full refund, no questions asked.") and the On-Time Promise (miss the launch date and "your first month of Flare Care is on us"). They show on our pricing page, the contact page and the homepage. What they do not say is when the 14 days start or how to ask for the refund. Both answers live in the contract, not on the site. Adding one line for each is our version of step 3.

What we would build for a contractor

A site that says your warranty in one line next to the quote button, with a short warranty page that gives the length, what is covered, what is not, and how to claim, linked from every service page. What a site like that costs is in our contractor website cost guide. Get in touch and we will check your site the way we checked these 18.

How we did this, so you can check it

• The contractors. The same 18 websites as our financing check, drawn from the 42 licensed contractors in the original audit. Plumbing, HVAC, electrical, roofing, solar, low voltage and general building, in Sacramento, Placer, El Dorado and Yolo counties.
• The look. On 2026-10-29, up to 10 pages per site from its sitemap, in a desktop Chrome browser at 1366 by 900 pixels. Four sites are single pages. One site's inner pages load blank when the address is typed in, so we clicked through 15 of its pages by hand. One site's homepage loaded in a browser but its inner pages timed out all day, so for that site we read the homepage only. We searched all page text, including text hidden in sliders, closed questions and animated blocks, for warranty, guarantee, lifetime and years of labor or workmanship, then read each match and removed false ones (a code licence, a slogan, "the lifetime of your system"). Nothing was submitted and no login was used.
• The outside sources. 16 CFR Part 239 from the eCFR (version of 2026-10-27), California Business and Professions Code 7091 from leginfo, the Contractors State License Board's hiring brochure (2025 edition) and the Modernize page (updated August 12, 2026), all read on 2026-10-29. Modernize sells homeowner leads to contractors.
• Limits. Eighteen sites in one region, on one day. A page beyond the first 10 may mention a warranty, and a contractor who says nothing online may well give a written warranty with every contract. We did not read any contract.