This isn’t really “website or Checkatrade” — plenty of good trades use both. But if you only understand one of them, you’ll spend money on the wrong one. So let’s be clear about what each actually gives you, and do the sums properly.
Key takeaway
Lead sites rent you customers who stay theirs. A website earns you customers who become yours. Use lead sites to fill gaps, but build the website — because it’s the only channel where a happy customer comes back to you, not to a platform.
Two very different things
Checkatrade, MyBuilder and Bark are marketplaces. You pay to appear in front of their audience, and you compete with other trades for each job. Your website is an asset you own. It brings people to you directly, and nobody else appears alongside your quote. One is rent; the other is property.
How lead sites actually work
The models vary, but the shape is similar. Some charge a monthly or annual membership to be listed and vetted. Others sell leads individually — you pay to receive an enquiry, sometimes whether or not you win the job. And most enquiries are sent to several trades at once, so the customer is comparing three or four quotes before they’ve spoken to anyone. That’s great for the customer and fine for the platform; it’s tougher for you.
The per-lead maths
Here’s a realistic worked example for a lead-buying model. Say each lead costs £15, and it’s shared with three other trades, so you win roughly one in four:
- 4 leads to win 1 job = £60 in lead fees per job won.
- Win 5 jobs in a month and that’s £300 in fees — before any membership.
- And you’re quoting against three others each time, which pushes prices down.
None of that means it’s a bad deal — if those 5 jobs are worth £400 each, £300 to win £2,000 is fine. The point is that the fees are ongoing and rise with your success, and you never stop paying to reach the same customers.
The ownership problem
Here’s the bit that really matters. When you win a job through a lead site and do brilliant work, where does that customer go next time? Back to the platform. Their next-door neighbour asks for a recommendation, and they say “oh, I found my guy on Checkatrade”. The platform captured the relationship you earned. With your own website, that same customer bookmarks your site, saves your number, and searches your name — and comes straight back to you, for free, forever.
Where your own website wins
- No per-lead fee. Once you rank, the enquiries are free. The cost doesn’t climb as you get busier.
- No sharing. An enquiry from your site comes to you alone — no bidding war.
- You own the customer. Repeat work and referrals come back to you, not a marketplace.
- You control the story. Your brand, your photos, your reviews, your prices — not a row in a directory.
- It compounds. Rankings and reviews build over time, so it gets cheaper per job the longer you run it.
That’s the case for your own website built for tradespeople: it turns the reputation you’re already earning into a pipeline you actually own.
Where lead sites still help
To be fair, they earn their place in a couple of situations. When you’re brand new and have no rankings or reviews yet, a lead site can bring in work from day one while your website builds authority. And they’re handy for filling a quiet patch fast. The trap is treating them as your only channel for years, paying rising fees while never building anything of your own.
The smart setup: own your pipeline
The trades who do best don’t pick a side — they get the order right:
- Build a proper website and get it ranking locally (this is the long game that pays forever).
- Set up and optimise your Google Business Profile so you show on Maps.
- Use lead sites to top up while that’s building, and to fill occasional gaps.
- Funnel every happy customer — however they found you — into a review on your Google profile, which feeds your own rankings.
Over time the free enquiries from your site and Maps grow, the paid leads shrink, and your cost per job falls. Our guide to what a tradesman’s website should cost shows how affordable owning that pipeline actually is.
The maths over a year
Rough but honest. A lead-buying trade winning 5 jobs a month at £60 in fees per job pays around £3,600 a year in lead fees alone — every year, rising as they grow. A managed website at, say, £45 a month is £540 a year, flat, and the enquiries it brings are free and yours to keep. Even if the website only replaces half your paid leads, it pays for itself several times over — and keeps paying long after you’d have stopped renting.
Want to see what your own pipeline could look like? Book a free demo and we’ll build you a real preview of a website designed to bring work straight to you.
Common questions
For long-term, lower-cost, repeatable work, yes — a website brings you enquiries that are free and yours to keep, with no bidding war. Lead sites are useful when you’re new or filling a quiet patch, but the fees never stop and the customer stays theirs. The best approach is to build the website and use lead sites to top up.
Lead sites typically combine a membership with per-lead fees that rise as you win more work — easily a few thousand pounds a year for a busy trade. A managed website is a flat monthly fee, often around £45, and the enquiries it generates carry no per-lead cost.
Not straight away. Keep it running while your website and Google Business Profile build up rankings and reviews, then scale it back as your own free enquiries grow. Cutting it too early can leave a gap before the site is established.
They trust proof, wherever it lives. A website with genuine reviews, real job photos, clear accreditations and the towns you cover builds just as much confidence — and it does it without sending the customer to compare you against three competitors.