Common questions, honest answers.
Everything we hear most often. How the matching works, who pays for what, how we vet installers, what happens if a quote doesn’t fit. If your question isn’t here, email [email protected].
As featured in
- Elle Decor
- House Beautiful
- Apartment Therapy
- Country Living
About Barbara Cosgrove Lamps.
Aren’t you a lamp company? Why are you matching installers now?
Barbara Cosgrove Lamps designed and sold lamps from 1998 to 2024. In 2024 we pivoted from making lamps to connecting design-conscious homeowners with vetted lighting installers. Same mission (great lighting in American homes) expressed differently. The full story is on our About page.
Are you a marketplace, a directory, or an agency?
None of those, exactly. We maintain a small, curated network of licensed installers. About 30-50 across our priority markets. Vetted for design quality plus technical credentials. We match homeowners to installers (no directory listing, no marketplace bid wars), but we don’t take a project fee from homeowners (no agency markup).
Who owns Barbara Cosgrove Lamps today?
The brand is independently held by its founding team. We’re not part of a national lead-gen platform, a private equity rollup, or an installer chain.
The matching process.
How long does it take to get a quote after submitting?
Most homeowners hear from at least one installer within 4-12 hours, and from all matched installers within 24 hours. Written, itemized quotes typically arrive within 48 hours of the initial outreach (faster for interior work, slightly longer for outdoor projects requiring a dusk site visit).
How many installers will contact me?
Two or three. Never more. Lead-gen platforms that send your information to 10+ contractors generate quote fatigue and lower-quality follow-up. Our cap is three; in lower-volume markets it’s sometimes two.
Can I request a specific installer?
Yes. If you’ve worked with someone in our network before or have a name in mind, you can mention it in your submission and we’ll route the project to them (or another network member if they’re at capacity).
What if I don’t like any of the quotes?
Walk away. You owe nothing. No us, no the installers. Most homeowners receive at least one quote that fits; if none do, we can route to additional installers or refund you the time you spent (which is to say: there’s no refund needed because there was nothing to pay).
Pricing and payment.
How much do you charge homeowners?
$0. We never charge homeowners for matching, quotes, or anything else. The complete cost of using this service is the time it takes you to fill out a five-field form.
Then how do you make money?
Installers in our network pay a small referral fee when they win a project they were matched for. It’s roughly equivalent to what they’d otherwise spend acquiring the same homeowner through Google Ads or Angi leads. But they only pay on actual close, not per lead.
Is that fee added to my project cost?
No. The installer absorbs it as a cost of acquisition. The quote you receive is the quote you pay. We make this contractually explicit in our installer agreements. No markup, no surcharge, no “BCL fee” line item allowed.
Do installer quotes vary a lot from each other?
Three quotes for the same project from the same network usually come in within 10-15% of each other. When they don’t, the variation is almost always explainable. Different fixture material, different installation timeline, different inclusion of design fees. We can help you compare like-for-like.
Quality and accountability.
How are installers vetted?
Six requirements, verified annually: current state license, active general liability and workers’ compensation insurance, five recent installs reviewed by our team for design quality, three homeowner references from the last 18 months, track record of itemized written quotes, and minimum two-year local operating history. Roughly 7 of every 10 applicants are declined.
What if an installer does bad work?
Email us. We investigate every legitimate complaint and remove installers from the network when warranted. Independent of that, the installer carries general liability insurance and (in most states) is bonded. So direct remediation is also an option.
Do you cover the installation work itself?
No. We don’t perform installations and aren’t liable for the work installers do. Our role is to match you with vetted professionals who carry their own licensing, insurance, and warranties.
Service areas and availability.
What states do you serve?
100 cities across 28 states. See the full list on our locations page. New cities added monthly. If your project is outside our active coverage, submit anyway. We may have a partner installer who covers your area.
Do you serve commercial as well as residential?
Yes. See our Commercial Lighting service page. Office fit-outs, retail, restaurants, warehouses, and parking lot LED conversions are all served by the network.
Can installers travel outside their primary service area?
Sometimes. Especially for larger estate-scale projects. We’ll ask the installer; for most jobs the local installer is both better-fit and cheaper.
Privacy and data.
Who sees my contact information?
Only the 2-3 matched installers, and only after you submit. We don’t sell, share, or syndicate your contact information to anyone outside the network.
Can I opt out of installer follow-up after I receive quotes?
Yes. Either email us or tell the installer directly. They’re required by their network agreement to honor opt-outs.
Do you track what I do on the site?
We use standard analytics (page views, anonymous traffic sources) to understand which pages help and which need work. We don’t use cross-site retargeting or sell session data to ad networks.
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