We are not contractors. We are not designers. We are not influencers.
We are people who own homes that constantly need something — and we are tired of calling three contractors and getting three completely different numbers. Tired of Googling “how much does a water heater cost” and landing on a plumber’s blog that won’t give you a number until you fill out a contact form. Tired of Reddit threads that all end with the same four words:
“It depends on your area.”
Yeah. We know. Everything depends.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t tell me what you actually paid.
That’s the whole point of this place. No estimates. No “starting at” numbers. No fluff. Just real people posting what they actually handed over — cash, card, or check — for a real project on a real house.
Why this site exists
This site exists because one guy — a guy who owns a 1980s house in the Midwest with a roof that leaks and a water heater that’s older than his teenager — got a quote for something and thought:
“There’s no way this is right. But I have no idea what is right.”
He spent a week searching. Found contractor sites, design blogs, YouTube videos with affiliate links, and a lot of people saying “get three quotes.” What he didn’t find was a pile of recent, specific, real-world numbers from regular homeowners like him.
So he built this.
Not because he’s a web developer. Not because he wants to sell you anything. Just because somebody needed to start a place where the answer to “how much did that cost” is the first thing you read, not the last.
Who this is for
You, if you:
Own a house built between 1970 and 2005 that wasn’t flipped — it was just… lived in
Have received a repair quote that made you laugh, cry, or both
Have ever said “I could probably do that myself” and then spent twice as long as you expected
Have ever said “I should probably hire someone” and then winced at the price
Check Facebook Marketplace for tools before you check Home Depot
Know what a French drain is, but you’re not exactly sure if you installed yours right
Are not a contractor, but you have a neighbor who is, and you’ve definitely asked him for advice over the fence
Who this is NOT for
Luxury renovators installing marble countertops that cost more than some cars
People who post “before and after” photos with perfect lighting and a tripod
Contractors looking for leads (please don’t post your business here)
Anyone who wants to sell you something
Anyone who writes 3,000-word blog posts and buries the price somewhere in paragraph 12
How this works
Three boards. That’s it.
Completion Log — Finished a job? Post what you did and what it cost. Doesn’t matter if it was a $14 sink drain or a $1,400 fence. Just log it. Think of it as an electronic warranty card for your own memory.
Trap Log — Got burned? Warn the next guy. Bad product, bad contractor, bad decision, permit fine, neighbor drama — get it off your chest and maybe save someone else the headache.
Deal Log — Scored something cheap? Clearance rack, Facebook Marketplace, Habitat ReStore, or just noticed that Lowe’s has the same LVP for $0.30 less than HD? Post it. We love a good deal almost as much as we hate overpaying.
The only rules
We keep this loose. No pre-approval, no identity verification, no “community guidelines” that take 10 minutes to read.
Just three things:
No affiliate links or self-promotion. This isn’t your side hustle.
Don’t edit your post to remove the price later. The number is the whole point. If you change your mind about sharing it, fine — but don’t leave a ghost thread with no number. That’s the one thing that actually annoys us.
Don’t post “I’m a pro, ask me anything” threads. Pros are welcome to chime in on specific threads with helpful context — that’s great. But this isn’t an AMA platform and it isn’t your lead gen funnel.
Everything else is fair game. Typos? Fine. Swearing? Fine. Bad photos? Fine. Incomplete sentences? Fine. We’re not editors. We’re homeowners.
A word on the posts you’ll see here
Most of these threads are written by people who are not writers. Some are written by people who are not even good at spelling. The grammar ranges from “passable” to “I’m pretty sure English isn’t this person’s first language.”
That’s a feature, not a bug.
You know what the most trustworthy review of a product on Amazon is? The one with the typos. The one that says “this thing broke after tree months” instead of “this product failed to meet my durability expectations.” That person isn’t getting paid. That person isn’t trying to sound smart. That person is just telling you what happened.
We want that energy here.
Why we ask for your ZIP code
The price of everything in home repair varies by location. A water heater install in rural Ohio is not the same price as one in suburban Chicago. A roofer in Texas charges different rates than a roofer in Oregon.
We don’t ask for your exact address. We don’t care who you are. But when you include your ZIP code (or just the first three digits), it makes your number useful to the next person who searches “roof replacement cost near me” and finds your thread.
That’s the whole point — your number helps someone else.
About the name
What I Paid.
Not “how much it should cost.” Not “average cost.” Not “fair market value.”
Because those words are all opinions. “What I paid” is just a fact. You can argue with an average. You can’t argue with a receipt.
That’s the foundation of everything here. We’re not telling you what to pay. We’re just telling you what someone else did pay. What you do with that information is up to you.
One last thing
This site is not run by a company. It’s not funded by venture capital. It’s not going to get bought by a billion-dollar home services platform and turned into a lead generation machine.
It’s run by one guy who owns a house that always needs something, has a day job that isn’t this, and decided that if nobody else was going to build a place for real numbers, he’d do it himself.
It’s imperfect. It’s not fancy. It probably has a few bugs.
But the numbers are real. And that’s what matters.
Welcome to What I Paid.
Scroll down. Search a project. See what someone actually spent.
Then next time you fix something, post what you paid.
That’s all we ask.
— The guy who built this
(and the other homeowners who post here)