Buying leads from a marketplace is the fastest way to fill a slow month, but it's also the most expensive way to build a business long-term, because you never stop paying for the same homeowners you've already won once. Owning your pipeline - organic search, reviews, referrals, and a system that never drops an inquiry - is slower to start and dramatically cheaper to run once it's built.
The three things that matter most for a marketplace-free pipeline: a Google Business Profile and website that show up when homeowners search directly (not through a marketplace), a steady flow of recent reviews that make you the obvious choice once found, and a follow-up system that captures every inquiry instead of losing the ones that come in after hours.
Most remodelers who make this switch don't do it overnight - they run both in parallel for a few months while the owned pipeline builds, then quietly stop renewing the marketplace subscription once the numbers cross over.