In this article
Good contractor leads for France are trade-specific lists of building businesses with a phone number, an email where one exists, an address and an online rating. Prospya currently holds 6,859 plumbers and 2,958 electricians across France and Belgium, filterable by city and by contact channel. Here are the volumes per trade, who buys a tradesman email list, and how to turn one into booked calls.
Who buys lists of tradespeople?
Tradespeople buy all year round (materials, vans, tools, software, insurance) and usually decide on their own, which makes them attractive customers. The main buyers of contractor data in France:
- Building merchants and manufacturers: plumbing, electrical, insulation, heating equipment, tools.
- Software vendors: quoting and invoicing apps, job scheduling, site management.
- Web and marketing agencies: simple websites, local SEO, review management, local ads.
- Insurers and accountants: liability cover, van fleets, bookkeeping for small building firms.
- Main contractors and platforms looking for subcontractors in a given area.
- Van and equipment rental companies.
They all target one or two trades in a specific area. A boiler distributor only wants heating engineers; a local web agency wants tradespeople in its own city who have no website.
Contractor leads in France by trade
Current number of businesses per trade in France and Belgium:
| Trade | Businesses | With phone | With email | No website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbers | 6,859 | 6,735 | 3,924 | 1,179 |
| Electricians | 2,958 | 2,950 | 1,737 | 143 |
| Heating and air conditioning | 3,805 | 3,793 | 2,428 | 189 |
| Builders and masons | 10,538 | 10,492 | 7,785 | 678 |
| Roofers | 1,714 | 1,700 | 1,256 | 89 |
| Carpenters and joiners | 7,546 | 7,532 | 5,365 | 306 |
| Locksmiths | 1,537 | 1,533 | 1,110 | 116 |
The phone is the main channel for tradespeople: it is how their jobs come in. Only part of them publish an email, usually a generic one checked in the evening. A large share also has no website at all, which is exactly what web agencies look for (see our study of businesses without a website).
Tradesman email list by city
The two most requested trades, plumbers and electricians, in major cities:
| City | Plumbers | Email share | Electricians | Email share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paris | 186 | 51% | 118 | 37% |
| Lyon | 136 | 45% | 32 | 44% |
| Marseille | 83 | 46% | 19 | 32% |
| Bordeaux | 48 | 50% | 6 | 50% |
| Lille | 67 | 46% | 6 | 67% |
| Nantes | 53 | 45% | 11 | 55% |
Figures are computed live and follow every database update. Each number links to a page you can browse for free.
Filtering contractor data properly
The building trades range from a one-person outfit with a van to a firm with twenty staff, and their needs and budgets differ accordingly. Filters that help:
- Review count: above 50 reviews, a business has steady work and often several crews, e.g. Toulouse electricians with 50+ reviews.
- Minimum rating: a roofer rated 4.8 cares about reputation and will listen to anything that protects it.
- No website: the natural target for web agencies, such as Marseille plumbers without a website.
- Has email: if you plan an email sequence, only unlock records that have one.
Tradespeople are on site all day. Call early (7:30-8:30) or at the end of the day (17:30-19:00), when they pick up and have two minutes to talk.
How to approach French tradespeople
A plumber will not read a three-page brochure. He wants to know in one sentence what you save him: time, jobs or money.
- Brief call early or late, with a sharp question: "Do you still write your quotes on paper, or do you use software?"
- Same-day text or email follow-up, very short, with a link or a price.
- Follow up on day 3, then on day 10 with a new angle (a testimonial from someone in the same trade, a free trial).
Use their reality. "Thermique Ravelin in Nantes has 4.9 stars from 120 reviews but no website, so when someone searches for a heating engineer in Nantes, they don't find you" is an argument any heating engineer gets immediately. If you do not speak French, partner with someone who does for the calls; written follow-ups in simple French also work far better than English. Our guide on how to prospect local businesses covers the full campaign setup, and the cold calling script gives you opening lines.
Pricing, compliance and follow-up
Searching is free; each tradesperson you unlock costs 1 credit if the record has a phone or an email. Packs start at €19 for 1,000 credits and go up to €129 for 10,000 (about €0.013 per contact), with no subscription and no expiry (see pricing). The built-in CRM then tracks every contractor through stages (to contact, contacted, quote sent, client), with an automatic call-back scheduled for the next working day when nobody answers.
Calling a business phone number for a professional offer is allowed in France: Bloctel, the national do-not-call register, protects consumers, not businesses. Honour any request not to be contacted again. For email, standard French B2B rules apply: an offer relevant to the trade, a clearly identified sender and a simple unsubscribe link. Our GDPR guide for B2B outreach in France has the details.
FAQ
How much do contractor leads in France cost?
You only pay for the businesses you unlock: 1 credit per tradesperson with a phone or an email, about €0.013 each with the 10,000-credit pack. Search, filters and a sample CSV are free, and 25 free credits come with sign-up, no card needed. There is no subscription and credits never expire, so you can buy for one campaign at a time.
Can I target one trade in one city only?
Yes. Each trade has its own category: plumber, electrician, heating and air conditioning, builder, roofer, carpenter and locksmith. Combine it with a city or region, a minimum rating, a review count or the presence of an email, then export only the selected contractors as a CSV for Excel, Google Sheets, HubSpot or Pipedrive.
Why do so few tradespeople have an email address?
Many tradespeople run their business by phone and word of mouth. They often do not publish an email at all, or only a generic address they check after work. That is why the phone remains the first channel to reach them, with email mostly used to send details and a quote after the first call.
Is it legal to cold call tradespeople in France?
Yes. Calling a company's business number to offer something related to its activity is allowed. Bloctel only covers private individuals, not businesses. Introduce yourself clearly, respect any objection straight away and keep a do-not-call list so that businesses who said no are never called again by you or your team.