MyBuilder vs Checkatrade 2026: Which Costs Less?

MyBuilder vs Checkatrade: Which Costs a Trade Less in 2026?

Checkatrade and MyBuilder cost a trade in two completely different ways, and that difference matters more than the headline price. Checkatrade is a membership: you pay to be listed, whether the phone rings or not. MyBuilder is pay-to-bid: you pay to contact a homeowner about a specific job. The cheaper one for you depends entirely on how many jobs you win from each enquiry.

The two business models, side by side

Checkatrade sells visibility. You join, you are vetted, you appear in local search results, and homeowners contact you directly. The cost is a recurring membership fee, and it is the same in a quiet January as it is in a busy May.

MyBuilder sells access. Homeowners post a job, and trades who want it pay to make contact — historically through a credit or shortlist system. If you do not bid, you do not pay. The cost moves with your activity.

Neither model is inherently better. They fail in different ways. A membership fails when your area goes quiet or your listing sits low in the results. A pay-to-bid model fails when you spend money contacting homeowners who never reply.

What you are actually buying with a Checkatrade membership

You are buying a profile, a badge and a place in a directory that homeowners already know by name. Brand recognition is the genuine strength here — plenty of homeowners search “Checkatrade plumber Reading” rather than “plumber Reading”.

The trade-off is that the fee is fixed and the return is not. Two electricians in the same town, on the same membership, can have wildly different years depending on review volume, response speed and how competitive their category is locally.

Before you sign anything, ask the sales rep three questions and write down the answers:

How many trades in my category are already listed within ten miles?

What is the contract length, and what happens if I want out?

What does the fee do at renewal?

That last one catches people out. Introductory rates are common; renewal rates are the ones you will live with.

What you are actually buying with MyBuilder

You are buying a conversation with a homeowner who has already described a job. That is a warmer starting point than a directory listing, because intent is higher — someone posting a job wants it done.

The catch is competition. Multiple trades typically get the chance to respond to the same job, so you are pitching against others who have also paid to be there. If your quoting is slow, or your written pitch is weak, you can burn through spend without winning work.

MyBuilder also leans heavily on its review system, and reviews are tied to jobs won through the platform. That is good for trust and slow to build from a standing start.

The only number that matters: cost per won job

Ignore the headline prices. Work out what each platform costs you per job you actually win.

For a membership platform, the sum is: annual fee divided by jobs won through it in a year. If you pay a membership and win twenty jobs, the platform cost per job is the fee divided by twenty. Win five, and it is four times worse.

For a pay-to-bid platform, the sum is: total spent on leads divided by jobs won. If you contact ten homeowners and convert two, you have paid for five contacts per won job.

Then compare both against your average job value. A cost per won job of £40 is nothing on a £4,000 bathroom and painful on a £120 call-out. This is why the “which is cheaper” question has no universal answer — a kitchen fitter and an emergency plumber should reach opposite conclusions from the same pricing.

Which model suits which trade

Pay-to-bid tends to suit trades with high average job values, fast quoting habits, and capacity to absorb quiet weeks. If you can turn a job post into a phone call within the hour, you will out-convert most of the people you are bidding against.

Membership tends to suit trades with steady year-round demand, strong review counts and a category where the directory ranks well locally. It also suits anyone who hates variable costs and wants one predictable line in the accounts.

Neither suits a trade with no capacity. Paying for leads or listings while you are booked six weeks out is a fast way to annoy homeowners and collect poor reviews.

The hidden costs on both sides

Vetting and admin time. Both platforms want documents — insurance, qualifications, registrations. Budget an afternoon.

Response time pressure. On any lead platform, the first credible reply usually wins. That has a real cost in evenings spent quoting.

Review dependency. Once your work is coming through a platform, your ranking depends on reviews left there. That is fine until you want to leave, at which point the reputation does not travel with you.

Lead duplication. On open-bid platforms you rarely know how many other trades are looking at the same job. That uncertainty is what makes budgeting difficult.

How to test either one properly

Give it ninety days and track four things in a spreadsheet: enquiries received, quotes sent, jobs won, and total revenue from those jobs. Against that, put every pound the platform cost you.

At the end, you have a real cost per won job and a real return. Most trades who complain about lead platforms have never done this, which means they cannot tell an expensive platform from a conversion problem of their own.

If the return is negative, do not immediately blame the platform. Check your response time first. A lead answered the next morning is usually a lead lost.

A third option worth understanding

Both models put the trade at the mercy of volume they cannot see. You either pay regardless of leads, or you pay for leads shared with an unknown number of competitors.

Trade Pilot works differently. It is free to join, charges only when a real local job lands in your inbox, and sells each lead to no more than three trades in an area. No monthly membership, no bidding against a crowd you cannot count. If you have ever paid for a lead and then found out six other trades had it, that cap is the point.

Frequently asked questions

Is MyBuilder cheaper than Checkatrade?

It can be, but only if you win a decent share of the jobs you pay to contact. Pay-to-bid is cheaper when your conversion is strong and more expensive when it is weak. A membership is the reverse: cheap when you are busy through it, expensive when you are not.

Can I use both at the same time?

Yes, and for a first year it is often sensible. Run both for ninety days, track cost per won job on each, then drop the loser. Just make sure you have the capacity to answer everything quickly, or both will underperform.

Do reviews transfer between platforms?

No. Reviews earned on one platform stay there. This is one of the strongest arguments for also collecting reviews somewhere you own — your Google Business Profile — so your reputation is not locked to a single directory.

What happens if I get a bad review on a lead platform?

Both platforms have a dispute process, but the practical answer is to respond publicly, calmly and factually, and to keep your job records. A measured reply to a poor review reads better to the next homeowner than no reply at all.

How do I stop wasting money on leads that go nowhere?

Reply fast, qualify hard, and be honest about scope on the first call. If a job is outside your area or your trade, do not pay to be involved in it. Discipline about which leads you buy matters more than the price of each one.

Should a brand-new sole trader join either?

Start with the free groundwork first — a complete Google Business Profile, a handful of local reviews, and your insurance in order. Lead platforms work far better on top of that foundation than as a substitute for it.

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