Territory lock
The radius an agency agrees not to sell inside while it works for you.
What it means
A clause promising the agency will not take a competing client within some boundary: a radius, a metro, a county list. It is the thing most owners assume they have and almost nobody actually has in writing.
It cuts both ways, which is why it is rarer than you would think. A genuine lock costs the agency every other contractor in your market, so the ones that offer it usually price it in, and the ones that do not offer it are being straightforward about a real commercial limit.
Why it matters in HVAC
It matters more in heating and cooling than in most trades because the map pack is a zero-sum fight over the same few positions. An agency running two shops in one metro is optimising both against each other, and only one of you can hold the top of the local results.
It also interacts badly with service areas. Two clients thirty miles apart look like separate markets on a map and compete for the same eleven towns in the middle.
How to check it
Ask for the boundary in writing and ask what happens if they are already working with someone inside it. Then ask the harder question: what the remedy is if they take one later. A promise with no consequence attached is a preference.
Nobody on this list publishes one
Across twenty-four companies read on 12 September 2026, not one publishes a territory or exclusivity position anywhere on its website. Every row in the territory column of our contract comparison is a dash.
That is not evidence that none of them offer it. Several almost certainly negotiate it. It means the answer arrives after you are far enough into a sales conversation to ask, which is the general shape of this whole category.
For an owner in a contested metro it is worth putting in the first email rather than the fourth call, because the answer can eliminate an agency in one line.