Are Checkatrade and Trade Directories Worth It? An Honest Look

Every trade gets the same sales call sooner or later: sign up to Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Bark or Rated People and the leads will come flooding in. Some tradespeople swear by them. Others reckon they're a waste of money. The honest answer is: it depends — on the directory, your trade, and what you do with the leads once you've paid for them. Here's a straight look at whether they're worth it.

How trade directories actually work

There are two main ways these sites charge you, and it's worth knowing which is which before you sign anything.

• Monthly membership. Checkatrade is the big one here. You pay a set fee every month — usually somewhere from around £60 to well over £120 depending on your trade and area — often on a 12-month contract. Some trades also get charged per lead on top of that.
• Pay per lead. MyBuilder, Bark and Rated People lean this way. There's little or no monthly fee, but you buy each lead or job you want to chase — anywhere from about £5 for a small job to £30, £40 or more for a big one like a rewire or a bathroom.

Neither model is a scam. But both mean you're paying for the chance to win work, not the work itself. That's the bit trades often forget.

The honest case for directories

Directories aren't a con, and plenty of trades do well out of them. Here's what they genuinely give you:

• Visibility you'd struggle to build alone. These sites spend a fortune getting to the top of Google. Piggybacking on that can put you in front of customers who'd never have found you otherwise.
• A trust badge. A vetted profile with real reviews reassures a nervous homeowner who's never met you. For newer trades without much of a reputation yet, that matters.
• Work when you need it. Quiet week? Buy a few leads and fill the diary. That flexibility is genuinely useful, especially when you're starting out or moving to a new area.

If you're new, or you've just moved patch, a directory can be a decent leg-up while you build your own name.

The catch nobody mentions

Here's where trades get burned. On most of these platforms, you're not the only one who gets the lead. The customer's enquiry is fired out to three, four, five trades at once, and you're all racing to reply. It turns into a price war before you've even spoken to anyone.

And the maths adds up quietly. Pay £120 a month for a membership, or £25 a lead five times a week, and you're spending real money every month — money you only get back if enough of those leads turn into paid jobs. Miss a few, lose a few on price, and the sums stop working fast.

Which brings us to the most expensive mistake of all.

You paid for the lead — then missed the call

Think about what actually happens. You pay for a lead. The customer's details land on your phone. You're up a ladder, under a sink, or driving between jobs — so you don't answer. By the time you ring back an hour later, they've already spoken to one of the other trades the directory sent them to, and booked someone who picked up first.

That's the worst outcome there is. With your own word-of-mouth work, a missed call is a lost customer. With a paid lead, a missed call is a lost customer you already paid for. You're throwing money in the bin twice over. If you want to see the real number, here's how much missed calls are costing your business.

The whole point of buying a lead is speed — getting to the customer before the competition does. Miss the call and you hand that advantage straight to the trade who didn't.

How to actually get your money's worth

If you're going to pay for leads, treat every one like the money it cost you:

• Reply faster than everyone else. On a shared lead, first to respond usually wins. Even a quick "Got your enquiry, I'll call you in ten minutes" puts you ahead of the pack.
• Never let a paid lead ring out. If you can't answer, make sure the customer still hears back instantly — a text straight away beats a callback in an hour every time.
• Build your own free channels too. A proper Google Business Profile and a steady flow of 5-star reviews bring in work that costs you nothing per lead. Directories should top up your own pipeline, not be the whole thing.
• Track what each one actually returns. Add up what a directory costs you in a month and what it earned you. If the numbers don't work after a fair trial, drop it — there are plenty of ways to get more customers that don't send the same lead to five rivals.

So, are they worth it?

For some trades, yes — especially newer ones building a reputation, or anyone who needs to fill a quiet diary quickly. For others, the fees eat the profit and the shared-lead scramble isn't worth the hassle. There's no single right answer.

But one thing is true whichever way you go: paying for a lead only works if you actually catch it. The fastest, cheapest win isn't switching directories — it's making sure not one of those leads you've paid for ever slips through.

ReplyBack texts every missed caller back automatically the second you can't pick up, so a paid lead never goes cold while you're on the tools. Start a free 14-day trial and stop paying for leads you let ring out.