Where each one fits
Checkatrade
Established trades with enough steady volume that a fixed monthly cost works out cheaper per job than paying per lead.
Watch out for: The cost is fixed and the work is not. A quiet January costs the same as a busy June. See the full comparison with Checkatrade.
MyBuilder
Trades who would rather pay nothing in a quiet month and who win a high share of the jobs they are shortlisted for.
Watch out for: The fee scales with the job, so the jobs worth winning are the ones that cost most to chase, and you pay it before you know whether the work is yours. See the full comparison with MyBuilder.
Bark
Trades who can respond within minutes, and anyone working outside home trades, which Bark also covers.
Watch out for: You are buying the right to contact somebody who did not ask for your call, alongside several others who bought the same right. See the full comparison with Bark.
Rated People
Trades wanting a long-established national platform and steady lead flow in areas where the newer platforms are thin.
Watch out for: You pay twice, once to be on the platform and again for each job you want to quote on, and both are payable whether or not you win. See the full comparison with Rated People.
TrustATrader
Trades who want a directory listing and review history without a separate charge every time they quote.
Watch out for: There is no public price list, so you cannot compare the cost against anything else until you have been quoted for your trade and area.
The last row of the table is not a platform and gets a section of its own below, because it is the one every trade on this page already has access to and most are not using properly.
Subscription or pay per lead: which costs you less
The headline price tells you nothing on its own. The number that matters is what you spent to win one job, and there are only two sums involved.
- On a membership: what you pay in a month, divided by the jobs that membership won you in that month. A £130 membership that brought two jobs cost £65 a job. The same membership in a month with one job cost £130.
- On a pay per lead platform: the fee for one lead, divided by your win rate. A £20 lead at one win in four is £80 a job won. At one in ten it is £200 a job won, and that is before the time spent quoting the nine you lost.
A membership is a bet on your volume. A fee per lead is a bet on your win rate. If you do not know your win rate, the membership is the more expensive way to find it out, because you pay the same while you learn. Work out both sums with your own figures from the last three months before you move, not with the figures from your best month.
The free routes, which most trades under-use
None of these cost money and all of them cost time. They are slower than buying a lead and they compound, which is the opposite way round to a platform: the platform works from day one and stops the day you cancel, while these take months and then keep working.
- A Google Business Profile. Free, and the single listing you own rather than rent. It is what shows up when somebody searches for your trade and their town, and the reviews on it stay yours whatever platform you leave.
- Local community groups. Village and town groups on Facebook and Nextdoor produce work for trades who answer questions in them rather than post adverts at them.
- The customers you already have. The cheapest job you will ever win is the second one from somebody you have already worked for. Ask for the Google review at the end of the job, while you are still standing in front of them, not by text a week later.
- A page of your own. One page with your trade, your area, your number and a dozen photographs of finished work outranks nothing at all, and it is the link you put on the van.
Choosing by the work you actually do
- Emergency work, such as plumbing, electrics and locks. Speed decides who wins, so pay per lead suits you if you can respond within minutes. If you cannot answer the phone on a roof, you will pay for leads you never had a chance at.
- Large jobs, few of them: extensions, roofs, kitchens. One won job pays for a year of any membership here, so lead quality matters far more than lead price. The risk is the opposite one: fees that scale with the job mean the work worth winning costs the most to chase.
- Small jobs, many of them: handyman work, gardening, small repairs. This is where fixed fees do the most damage. A £20 lead fee against a £90 job is a fifth of the work gone before you have picked up a tool, which is why small jobs get skipped on platforms that charge to quote.
- Starting out, with no reviews yet. Directories reward review history, and you have none, so you are paying the same monthly fee as somebody with ten years of it. Keep your fixed costs at zero until the reviews exist.
The one thing none of them change
Every paid platform above takes its money before the customer has decided. A membership is paid in advance, a lead fee is paid to make contact and a shortlist fee is paid to be considered. On a job that four trades quote for, the platform is paid four times and three of those payments bought nothing. That is not a complaint about any one of them, it is the business model they share.
Ace Services is a UK home services marketplace built the other way round. Quoting costs £0 always and there is no subscription: none. A success fee of 2% of the accepted quote, minimum £2 and maximum £10, is charged only when a customer accepts your quote. A job is capped at three tradespeople, and the customer's details go to the one they accept rather than to everybody who quoted.
Two honest limits, because you would find them out in week one anyway. The platform is younger than the names above, so there is less work flowing through it today than through a long-established national one, and there is no directory profile with years of reviews to inherit. It costs nothing to quote, so it is something to add alongside what you use now and judge on the jobs it wins you, not a reason to cancel anything on day one.
See what Ace Services costs a tradesperson, or read the full comparison with Checkatrade.
Common questions
What is the cheapest alternative to Checkatrade?
It depends on how much work you win, not on the headline price. A membership is cheapest per job when you are busy and most expensive when you are not, because the fee does not move. A pay per lead platform is cheapest when you win a high share of what you quote for. The only fee that cannot cost more than the job is one charged on the job you won: Ace Services charges 2% of the accepted quote, minimum £2 and maximum £10, and nothing at all to quote. The genuinely cheapest route is free: a Google Business Profile, local community groups and the customers you have already worked for.
Is there a Checkatrade alternative with no monthly fee?
Yes. MyBuilder and Bark have no required subscription, and Ace Services has no subscription either. The difference is when the money leaves your account. MyBuilder charges a fee when a customer shortlists you and Bark charges for each lead you respond to, both payable whether or not you win the job. Ace Services charges nothing until a customer accepts your quote.
Can I take my Checkatrade reviews with me if I leave?
No. Reviews belong to the profile on the platform that collected them, so they stop being visible to customers when the membership stops. The reviews that follow you are the ones on your Google Business Profile, which you own and which no platform can switch off. That is the argument for asking every customer for a Google review first, whatever platform found you the job.
Do I have to pay to quote on Ace Services?
No. Quoting is free and there is no subscription. A success fee of 2% of the accepted quote, minimum £2 and maximum £10, is charged only when a customer accepts your quote. On a £500 job that is £10. On a £5,000 job it is still £10.
How many other tradespeople am I quoting against?
On Ace Services a job is capped at three tradespeople. Rated People sends a job to up to three, each of whom has paid for the customer's details. Bark states a maximum of five professionals per lead, and real-world reports indicate this is sometimes exceeded. Checkatrade and TrustATrader are directories, so the number depends on how many members the customer chooses to contact.
Which alternative is best if I am just starting out?
Avoid fixed costs until you know your win rate. With no review history you will lose more quotes than an established member will, so a subscription is the most expensive way to find that out. Start with a Google Business Profile, which is free, and add a platform that charges you only when you win, so your costs cannot run ahead of your income in the first few months.
Is it worth being on more than one platform?
Most working trades are on two or three. The thing to watch is the total fixed cost: two subscriptions are payable in a quiet month whether or not either one produces a job. Adding a platform that charges only on the work you win does not raise that fixed cost, so it can be tested alongside whatever you use now rather than instead of it.
