Contractor Standards — Frequently Asked Questions

What is the ANA Registered Provider Program?

A directory of contractors across the United States who have signed the published Pledge committing to follow twelve specific standards of business conduct, listed adjacent to the building codes, statutes, and licensing rules of their jurisdiction on the Authority Network America network of authority sites.

It is honor-system. Contractors voluntarily commit to the standards in exchange for a $10/month listing. Customers see what the contractor pledged. ANA enforces the pledge by removing contractors from the directory and posting their name on the revoked-pledges page if a customer complaint is substantiated.

Is the ANA Registered badge a license, certification, or guarantee?

No. It is none of those.

It is not a license — only state licensing boards issue licenses, and contractors must hold every license their jurisdiction requires before lawfully taking a job. The Pledge does not substitute for any license.

It is not a certification — the program does not test, examine, or qualify any contractor's technical competence.

It is not a guarantee of work outcomes — pledges can be broken, and customers should perform ordinary due diligence (license verification, insurance proof, references, written contract) before hiring any contractor including a ANA Registered one. See for customers for the recommended due-diligence steps.

Does ANA verify the contractor's license, insurance, or background?

No. ANA does not verify any of those things. We do not pull state license records, do not request or validate insurance certificates, do not run background checks, do not call references. Verification at the depth and currency required to be honest is not work we are equipped to do across 50 states, thousands of jurisdictions, and dozens of trades.

The contractor's claims about credentials are taken on the contractor's word — that is what the Pledge formalizes. If the contractor misrepresents credentials and a customer documents that misrepresentation, the customer can file a complaint and the pledge can be revoked.

How is this different from the Better Business Bureau?

The BBB rates accredited businesses A+ to F based on a proprietary scoring algorithm that incorporates complaint history, time in business, transparency, and other factors. The BBB also processes complaints and mediates disputes between consumers and businesses. Accreditation costs $599 to $11,500 per year tiered by company size.

We do not rate. We do not score. We do not mediate. We do not run a complaint-handling industry — we run a single specific complaint mechanism for one specific allegation: that a ANA Registered contractor failed to honor a specific pledge they signed. Our complaint review takes 30 days and produces one of three outcomes: substantiated (revoke the pledge), unsubstantiated (no action), or referred (out of our scope).

The BBB and ANA are two different products. They can coexist on a contractor's listing.

How is this different from Angi or HomeAdvisor?

Angi (formerly Angie's List) and HomeAdvisor are lead-generation marketplaces. They charge contractors per lead they receive, take commission on jobs won, and run an auction system for visibility. They are not a standards-publication or pledge-program — they are commercial intermediaries between the customer and the contractor.

We sell no leads, take no commission, run no auction. The directory listing is a directory listing. Whatever happens between a customer and a contractor stays between the customer and the contractor; ANA receives nothing from the transaction.

How does the customer file a complaint?

By writing to [email protected] or via the form on /complaints. The complaint should include the contractor's business name, jurisdiction, a factual narrative of what happened, copies of the relevant documents, and the customer's contact information. ANA reviews the complaint, gives the contractor 14 days to respond, and issues a determination within 30 days of receiving a complete complaint package. Substantiated complaints result in revocation. See the complaints page for the full process.

What does ANA do with a substantiated complaint?

ANA removes the contractor from the ANA Registered Provider directory across the network and posts the contractor's name, the date of revocation, and the reason on the revoked-pledges page. The badge associated with the listing stops resolving — wherever the contractor displays it, scanning the QR or following the link lands on a "Listing Revoked" page rather than the active listing.

ANA does not award damages, suspend licenses, assess fines, order remediation, or refer to law enforcement (except in cases of suspected criminal conduct). Those remedies live with state licensing boards, civil court, surety bond carriers, and law enforcement.

How long do revoked pledges stay public?

Permanently. A contractor's name on the revoked-pledges page does not come down even if the contractor is later reinstated. Reinstatement annotations note the reinstated date but do not remove the original revocation entry. Customers searching that contractor in any future year will find the revocation. This permanence is intentional — it is the public record cost of breaking the pledge.

Can a revoked contractor be reinstated?

Yes, after a waiting period appropriate to the violation (typically 12 to 24 months for a single substantiated violation, longer or never for repeat or severe violations). Reinstatement requires resigning the current Pledge text, a written statement from the contractor describing what changed in their practice, and resumption of the monthly subscription.

What if a contractor displays the badge but is not actually pledged?

Misrepresentation of badge status is itself a substantiable violation of Pledge #12. A customer who encounters a contractor displaying the ANA Registered badge while the contractor's listing is inactive should report it to [email protected] with as much documentation as possible (photos of the badge in use, location, contractor name).

Why is the directory free for customers but paid for contractors?

The customer-facing experience — reading the directory, reading the standards, filing a complaint — is supposed to have zero financial friction. We do not want a customer to encounter a paywall when checking whether a contractor is pledged or filing a complaint when something goes wrong.

The contractor pays $10/month for a listing they chose to take. That payment is the funding mechanism for the program. It also creates the right incentive: a contractor who pays each month for a listing they could lose has skin in the game.

Why $10/month and not $5 or $50?

Low enough to be a non-decision for any contractor running a legitimate business. High enough to be a real cost to a contractor whose pledge is revoked ($120/year exposure plus the public record). The price was set to make the contractor's continuing-to-pay decision a continuing endorsement of the standards, not a budget question.

Is the Pledge legally binding?

The Pledge is a contract between the contractor and Authority Network America for the provision of a directory listing. It is enforceable to the extent ANA can enforce it — which is by removing the listing and publishing the revocation. ANA does not seek monetary damages from contractors who break the pledge, and the Pledge does not substitute for any binding contract a contractor enters with a customer for actual work.

For the customer-contractor relationship, the legally binding document is the written contract for the work itself, governed by the contractor's jurisdiction's contract and consumer-protection law. The Pledge is not a substitute for that contract — Pledge #2 is in fact a commitment to using a written contract.

Where do the standards come from?

The published twelve-pledge standards are a synthesis of common-sense contractor conduct expectations that already appear in state licensing-board codes of conduct, established trade-association codes (AGC, NAHB, NARI, ABC), federal and state consumer-protection statutes, and the published guidance of state attorney-general consumer divisions. They are not novel. They are the conduct any honest, competent contractor would already be following — written down, in plain English, in one place, signed in writing.

How do I cancel?

Reply to the welcome email, sign into the account dashboard, or send a note to [email protected]. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; the listing stays live through that period, then comes down. No fee, no contract, no penalty.

Who runs Authority Network America?

Authority Network America is a US-based publisher operating a network of authority sites covering federal, state, county, and town-level laws and regulations across the United States. Editorial corrections, complaints, and inquiries can be directed to [email protected] or via the contact page.

The law belongs to the people. Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 590 U.S. (2020)