What a lead site does
Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People, Bark and TrustATrader all work the same way underneath: a homeowner posts a job or searches a trade, and the site sends that enquiry to several members at once. You pay to be one of them — a membership, a price per lead, or both — and you win the job if you're quickest, cheapest, or best reviewed.
The cost is real. Checkatrade's own accounts put the average member's spend at about £2,000 a year — roughly £174 a month. Bark and MyBuilder charge per lead, and the figure trades quote on forums is £25 or so a time, shared with up to four others. Rated People's prices were reported to have roughly doubled in 2025.
What a lead site can't do
- It can't give you the customer. The enquiry goes to five of you; the relationship belongs to the site. Stop paying and the listing, the reviews and the traffic stay with them.
- It can't catch your name. When a mate recommends you, or someone sees your van, or someone sees you on Checkatrade and then Googles you to check, they search your name — and a lead site listing isn't what they want to find.
- It can't take a job for you alone. A quote form on your own site sends the enquiry to you and nobody else. On a lead site, the same job goes to the next four names.
- It can't be yours. The reviews you earn there, the ranking you climb — none of it comes with you if you leave.
What your own website does
Your own site is the second step. Someone already has your name — from a referral, your van, a Facebook group, or your Checkatrade listing — and they Google it. If they land on a page that's yours, with your Gas Safe or NICEIC badge, your reviews, your recent jobs and a form that sends you the job with a photo, they ring you. If they land on nothing, some of them ring the next name on the list they came from.
That's the whole case. A website doesn't replace a lead site's volume. It stops the leads you've already half-won from leaking back to the list.
Side by side
What we'd do in your boots
- New, no reviews yet: lead site first, and our £40 one-page site so the people who check you out find something that's yours. Move the reviews you earn onto your Google profile as you go.
- Established, mostly word of mouth: our £80 plan, with your Google reviews on the site and a quote form that sends the job to you alone, and the lead site only if it still pays for itself when you add up what each job actually cost you.
- Paying a lead site and winning one in five: the £80 plan with the quote form, and compare the two after three months — not by feel, by jobs won.
- Whichever it is: you see the finished site before you pay anything, there's no contract, and the web address is in your name. A lead site can't offer any of the three.