Checkatrade vs your own website: where should your leads come from?
I build websites for tradespeople, so you'd expect me to tell you directories are a waste of money. I'm not going to, because it isn't true. Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Bark and TrustATrader all put real jobs in front of real tradespeople every day. The honest question isn't "which is better" — it's what each one actually costs you, and who ends up owning what you've paid for.
What directories do well
Directories solve the hardest problem a new business has: nobody knows you exist. Sign up, fill in a profile, and enquiries can start arriving within days. No marketing skills needed, no waiting for Google to notice you. For a tradesperson in their first year, that speed is genuinely valuable.
The platforms also carry trust you haven't earned yet. A homeowner who's never heard of you will still recognise the Checkatrade badge, and the vetting and review systems do reassure people. There's a reason these platforms are household names.
What they cost you
Here's the other side of it. Depending on the platform, you're paying a membership fee, a fee per lead, or both — and it never stops. Every month you stay is another bill, and the moment you stop paying, the leads stop dead. Ten years of directory fees buys you precisely nothing you can keep.
Then there's the bidding war. When a lead goes out on these platforms, it usually goes to several tradespeople at once. You're one of five quotes, the customer is comparing on price, and the platform's incentive is to keep it that way. Racing to the bottom on price is nobody's idea of a good business.
And the part most people don't think about until it bites: every review you earn lives on the platform's website, under the platform's rules, next to the platform's adverts for your competitors. You're renting your reputation. If your account closes, your prices, your profile and years of five-star reviews stay behind on someone else's site.
What your own website does differently
Your own website is the opposite deal: more effort up front, and everything after that is yours.
- Leads are exclusive. Someone who finds your site and fills in your form is talking to you, not to you and four rivals. No bidding war, no race to the bottom.
- You set the frame. Your site shows your best work, your credentials and your prices the way you want them shown — not squeezed into a template beside a "compare quotes" button.
- Reviews compound. Reviews on your site and Google Business Profile build your reputation, in your name, permanently. They keep working for you year after year at no extra cost.
- Costs are flat. A website costs roughly the same whether it brings you two leads a month or twenty. Directories charge you for every one, forever. I've broken down the real numbers in my guide to what a trade website costs.
The catch? A website takes a few weeks to build momentum, because ranking on Google isn't instant. That's the honest trade-off: directories are fast and rented, your website is slower and owned.
Side by side
| Directories | Your own website | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost model | Membership and/or per-lead fees, ongoing forever | One-off build plus small fixed monthly |
| Lead exclusivity | Shared — often one of several quotes | Exclusive — they contacted you |
| Who owns the reputation | The platform | You |
| Price pressure | High — customers compare quotes side by side | Low — you're judged on your work and reviews |
| Long-term value | Stops the day you stop paying | An asset that compounds year on year |
If you're staying on directories, make them earn it
None of this means cancel your membership tomorrow. While the directories are part of your lead flow, squeeze proper value out of them:
- Respond first. Shared leads mostly go to whoever replies quickest. Minutes matter far more than a polished pitch.
- Complete the profile properly. Real job photos, accreditations, a description a homeowner would actually read. A half-filled profile pays full-price fees for half-price results.
- Track cost per job, not cost per lead. Tot up what the platform cost you last quarter and divide it by jobs actually won. That number — not the membership fee — tells you whether it's working.
- Point every won customer somewhere you own. Ask for the Google review, hand over a card with your website on it. The platform got you the first job; make sure you get the repeat and the referral.
The verdict: use both, then change the mix
If you're starting out and the diary is empty, use the directories. Filling the van this month beats philosophy. But treat them as scaffolding, not the building.
From day one, build the thing you own alongside them: a proper website, a Google Business Profile, and a habit of pointing every happy customer at your Google reviews. As your own presence grows — helped along by the basics in my local SEO guide for tradesmen — the exclusive leads increase, and you can dial the directory spend down instead of being stuck with it as a permanent tax on every job.
The tradespeople in the strongest position aren't the ones who picked a side. They're the ones whose own website got good enough that the directories became optional. That's the goal, whether I build your site — like the ones on my trades pages — or someone else does. And if you want to see what yours could look like first, ask for a free mockup and judge it with your own eyes.