Rated People Review 2026: Worth It for Trades?

Rated People Review 2026: Is It Still Worth Buying Leads?

Rated People is a pay-for-leads platform, not a directory, and that single fact decides whether it works for you. You buy credits, spend them to see and contact homeowners who have posted a job, and win or lose against the other trades who bought the same lead. If your average job value is high and you reply within minutes, it can pay. If either of those is missing, it usually does not.

How the platform works

A homeowner posts a job with a description, a postcode and a rough timescale. Trades who cover that area and trade see the job in their feed. Buying the lead — spending credits — gives you the homeowner’s contact details and the right to pitch.

A limited number of trades can buy each lead, so it is a race rather than an open auction. When the slots are gone, the job closes to new responses.

Credits are bought in advance, in packs, and different job types cost different numbers of credits. A full bathroom refit is worth more credits than a tap replacement, on the reasonable logic that it is worth more to you.

You then contact the homeowner, quote, and win or lose. The platform takes nothing further out of the job value.

What that model means in practice

Three consequences follow from paying per lead rather than per month.

Your cost is variable. In a quiet month you spend nothing. That is a real advantage over a subscription directory, and it is why plenty of trades keep an account ticking over without using it.

You pay before you know anything. The job description is written by a homeowner, often briefly, sometimes inaccurately. You are buying on limited information, and some of what you buy will be unusable.

Speed decides the outcome. Homeowners typically hear from several trades. The first credible person to make contact, sound competent and offer a visit has a large advantage. Trades who buy leads and respond the following evening are effectively donating credits.

The lead quality question

This is where most complaints land, and it deserves an honest answer rather than a defence or a hatchet job.

Some leads will be excellent — a homeowner with a defined job, a budget and a timescale. Some will be tyre-kickers gathering three quotes to check a price they have already been given. Some will be duplicates of jobs posted elsewhere. Some will never answer the phone.

That mix is not unique to Rated People; it is the nature of open lead generation on the internet. What varies between platforms is the proportion, and how many trades are chasing each enquiry.

The practical response is not to hope for better leads. It is to buy fewer, better-matched ones. Trades who filter hard — right postcode, right trade, job description detailed enough to suggest a real intention — get considerably better returns than trades who buy everything that appears.

How many trades are you up against

On most open lead platforms, several trades get the same enquiry. That is how the platform makes the economics work: one homeowner enquiry is sold multiple times.

The honest way to think about it is conversion. If four trades buy a lead and one wins, the average trade wins one in four. Your credit cost per won job is therefore roughly four times the cost of a single lead, before you account for the leads that go nowhere at all.

Run that maths against your average job value before you decide anything. A kitchen fitter working on £8,000 jobs and a handyman working on £150 jobs will reach completely different conclusions from identical pricing.

Who it still suits

Trades with high average job values. Bathroom and kitchen fitters, extensions, full rewires, roofing. The cost per won job is a small percentage of a large invoice.

Trades who quote fast. If you can respond within the hour, from the van, and get a survey booked the same week, you will out-convert most of the field.

Trades filling gaps. Because there is no monthly commitment, it works as a tap you turn on when the diary looks thin in three weeks’ time.

Newer businesses in a new area. When you have no local reputation, paying for access to homeowners is a reasonable way to get the first jobs and the first reviews.

Who it does not suit

Low-value, high-volume trades. If your typical job is a couple of hundred pounds, the arithmetic rarely works.

Anyone who cannot reply quickly. If you are on the tools all day and only look at your phone at six, you are buying leads that someone else has already converted.

Trades already at capacity. Buying leads you cannot service damages your reviews and wastes the credits.

Anyone hoping it replaces a marketing plan. Lead platforms are a supplement to a Google Business Profile, local reputation and repeat customers, not a substitute for them.

How to test it properly

Give it a fixed budget and ninety days, and track four numbers: leads bought, quotes given, jobs won, and revenue from those jobs. Divide the credit spend by jobs won and you have your true cost per won job.

Compare that against the same figure for every other source you use — Google, word of mouth, other platforms. The comparison is the point. A cost per won job that looks high in isolation may still be your cheapest source of work.

If it does not pay, check your response time before you blame the platform. That is the variable you control, and it is the one that moves conversion most.

Practical habits that improve the return

Set up notifications so leads reach you the moment they post, and treat them like an emergency call-out rather than an email.

Phone first, then follow up by text. A voicemail plus a text saying who you are and when you can visit gets a far better response than a voicemail alone.

Have a short, written pitch ready that you can adapt — who you are, what you have done nearby, when you can look at it, and when you could start.

Ask for the review every single time you win a job. Reviews on the platform compound and make the next lead cheaper to convert.

And keep the numbers. Trades who guess at whether a platform works are usually wrong in both directions.

The structural problem with open lead platforms

Every model where one enquiry is resold has the same tension: the platform’s revenue rises with the number of trades sold each lead, and the trade’s return falls. There is nothing dishonest about that, but the interests do not point the same way.

Trade Pilot caps it. 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. You know the size of the field before you spend anything, and there is no monthly membership to carry through a quiet month.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Rated People cost?

There is no monthly membership in the traditional sense — you buy credits and spend them on individual leads, with more expensive job types costing more credits. Check the current credit pack pricing on their site, as it changes.

Do you get a refund if a lead is bad?

Platforms generally operate a credit-return process for leads that are clearly invalid — wrong trade, unreachable homeowner, duplicate. Read the current terms and, more importantly, actually claim. Trades routinely leave refundable credits on the table because it is a five-minute job they never get round to.

How many trades get the same lead?

Several. The exact number varies by job type and area, and the slots fill quickly. Assume you are one of a handful and price your effort accordingly.

Is Rated People better than Checkatrade?

They are different models — pay-per-lead against paid membership — so the answer depends on your conversion rate and job values. Pay-per-lead is cheaper when you convert well and more expensive when you do not.

Can I use it alongside other lead sources?

Yes, and you should. Track cost per won job for each source separately so you can see which one is actually earning its keep.

What is the single biggest thing that improves results?

Response time. Not the pitch, not the price, not the profile. The trade who phones back first wins a disproportionate share of the work.

Related reading: MyBuilder vs Checkatrade · Bark for tradespeople · Checkatrade alternatives · how many leads fill a diary