Is Checkatrade worth it? The cost, the maths and the alternatives

Is Checkatrade worth it? For some trades in some patches it is, for others it is a poor deal, and the deciding factor is how many jobs you need each month to cover the fee. This post is for the trade rather than the homeowner, and it gives you the maths to answer "is Checkatrade worth it" for your own business.

You know the situation. The sales call was friendly, the plan was "built around your business", and the contract runs for twelve months. Now you are in the group chat asking whether anyone has made it pay, and the answers range from "best money I spend" to "cancelled after a year of tyre-kickers". Both are true, for different people.

What Checkatrade costs, and why you cannot find the price

Checkatrade publishes a starting price and nothing else. Its own join site pricing page, dated January 2026 and live on 22 September 2026, lists a free profile, an Approved plan at thirty pounds a month, and a Growth tier "from" fifty-nine pounds a month. The Growth tier is the one built around a flow of enquiries, and what you pay depends on your trade, your postcodes, and the number of leads you choose for the year. That figure appears during sign-up or on the phone, and the same page states that fixed plan memberships run for 12 months.

Checkatrade's own "Is Checkatrade worth it?" page, updated May 2026, gives basic plans from around thirty pounds plus VAT a month, with larger memberships costing more with lead volume, coverage, and competition, and says the basic package does not put you in the search results.

Because the real figure is quoted one trade at a time, third parties have filled the gap, and they disagree. Digital Tradies, in April 2026, reported monthly fees of two hundred and fifty to three hundred and ninety-nine pounds for plumbers, electricians, and gas engineers, two hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty for builders and roofers, and one hundred and ninety-nine to two hundred and eighty for painters, decorators, and tilers, with London and the South East at the top end. Express Website, in June 2026, reported around eight hundred to twelve hundred pounds a year, roughly seventy to a hundred a month. They cannot both be right, and Google's AI answer quotes both without noticing. Local Ladder, updated September 2026, sits between them with member-reported fees of eighty, three hundred and six, and four hundred and forty-two pounds a month.

Treat all of these as reported figures, and get your own quote in writing before you read on.

How it works for the trade: what you are buying

You are buying a vetted listing on a platform homeowners already trust, plus the enquiries it produces. The pricing page lists up to 12 checks before your profile goes live, including identity, address, qualifications, county court judgments, company history, and financial checks, with public liability insurance marked optional. Pass them and you get a profile with the Checkatrade tick, photos, and reviews, which homeowners reach by searching the site or by landing on your Checkatrade page from Google.

Enquiries arrive three ways: a homeowner calls you, requests a quote through the site, or books a priced service from your profile. On a fixed plan you choose the postcode areas and the number of leads you want for the year, and the fee follows from that. The app handles the admin.

Are people on Checkatrade vetted? Yes, though note what the checks cover. Rip Off Britain in January 2025 pointed out that they mostly confirm a business is registered and has no serious legal history rather than that the work is good, and Checkatrade replied that out of three million jobs a year only 0.03 per cent lead to a guarantee claim. The tick reassures homeowners who do not know you, and that reassurance is much of what the fee buys.

The break-even maths

The fee is worth paying when the profit from Checkatrade jobs beats the fee with room to spare, and the way to check is to count jobs rather than enquiries. The table is a worked example with made-up round job values and the fee ranges Digital Tradies reported in April 2026. Put your own quote and average job in.

Trade (example)	Example job value (made up)	Reported fee in pounds a month (Digital Tradies, April 2026)	Jobs to cover the fee at turnover
Plumber	two hundred pounds	two hundred and fifty to three hundred and ninety-nine	2 a month
Electrician	three hundred and fifty pounds	two hundred and fifty to three hundred and ninety-nine	1 to 2 a month
Roofer	one thousand five hundred pounds	two hundred and twenty to three hundred and fifty	1 every 4 to 6 months
Painter and decorator	six hundred pounds	one hundred and ninety-nine to two hundred and eighty	1 every 2 to 3 months
Gardener	one hundred and fifty pounds	one hundred and ninety-nine to two hundred and fifty	2 a month

Two things push the real number up. First, the fee comes out of profit. If materials, fuel, and your own wage take two thirds of a job's value, you need three times as many jobs as the table shows, so the example plumber needs 6 jobs a month from Checkatrade before the membership has paid for itself. Second, enquiries are not jobs. Checkatrade's own page says some enquiries do not turn into paid work, and homeowners compare: Rated People's job form promises up to 3 quotes, and a Checkatrade search shows a list of profiles, so the same enquiry is often on three trades' phones at once. Win one quote in three and the example plumber needs around 18 enquiries a month.

When Checkatrade is worth it

Checkatrade earns its fee when you need a lot of jobs quickly and your own presence cannot yet supply them. Five situations fit.

• A new business with no reviews. The tick and the platform's reviews stand in for a reputation you have not built yet, and Checkatrade's own page says membership can help newer businesses establish credibility faster.
• High-volume small jobs. If you do six or eight jobs a week at a few hundred pounds each, one platform enquiry a day can cover the fee even after conversion.
• A dense urban patch. Digital Tradies put London and the South East at the higher end for fees, and the flip side is that far more homeowners search there, so the enquiries exist to be won.
• No website, or a poor one. If a homeowner who hears your name finds nothing convincing online, a Checkatrade profile beats nothing, and it can be live within days.
• A trade where the name reassures. Homeowners letting a stranger work on gas, electrics, or the roof want a third party to have checked them.

If two or more of these describe you, membership is a reasonable bet, provided the table works at your quote. Checkatrade is a legitimate business that works for a lot of trades, and members quoted on its join site who say one call pays for the month are describing exactly this.

When it is not

Checkatrade is a poor deal when your jobs are large and infrequent, or when you already have more work than you can do. The fee is the same whether you win two jobs a month or none, and a twelve-month term means a slow spring costs the same as a busy one.

• Low volume, high value. A builder who takes on two or three big projects a quarter needs one Checkatrade job a year to cover a reported fee, but that means eleven months of paying for enquiries that go elsewhere.
• A rural patch. Fewer homeowners search in a market town than in a borough, so the enquiry volume the fee is priced on may not exist where you are.
• Established reviews elsewhere. If you have fifty Google reviews and steady referrals, the tick adds little a homeowner cannot already see on your Google Business Profile.
• Price-shopping enquiries. A homeowner who has requested three quotes is often choosing on price. If you would rather set expectations before the phone rings, read whether trades should show prices online, because a price on your own site filters those enquiries before they cost you a visit.
• Already busy from referrals. If the diary is full, extra enquiries are a cost, and quoting jobs you cannot start for three months is unpaid time.

The fee is fixed and the enquiries are variable. When the enquiries are thin, the fee still lands.

The ownership problem: what you keep when you leave

When you leave Checkatrade you keep nothing that lives on the platform. The reviews sit on a page Checkatrade owns, that page comes down when the membership ends, and a homeowner who searches your name and lands on it finds a trade who has, as far as they can tell, disappeared. Local Ladder, updated September 2026, puts it plainly: leave, and the profile that holds your review history comes down with you.

Checkatrade agrees, in its own words. When it bought the Rated People brand on 17 September 2026, its announcement told trades their Rated People reviews could come with them to Checkatrade, and that on any alternative platform "you'll need to start from scratch on building your reputation". Reviews earned on a directory travel only where the directory chooses to let them.

Contrast that with your Google Business Profile and your own website. Reviews on your profile stay attached to your business name whether or not you pay anyone next year, and they show in Google Maps, where a homeowner who types "plumber near me" ends up. If you do join Checkatrade, ask each happy customer for a Google review as well, so the platform review is a bonus rather than your only record. Our guide to getting more Google reviews covers how to ask.

Rent the enquiries if the maths works, and build the reputation somewhere you own. For a second opinion on your numbers before you sign or renew, book a free twenty-minute call with Richard and bring the quote.

Checkatrade vs MyBuilder vs Rated People vs Bark vs Trustatrader

The main difference between the platforms is whether you pay a fixed fee whatever happens or pay per enquiry. Sources and dates are beneath the table.

Platform	How you pay	Who gets the enquiry	Reviews portable?
Checkatrade	Subscription. Approved thirty pounds a month, Growth from fifty-nine, real quote by trade and postcode, fixed plans run 12 months	The trade the homeowner calls, or trades matched to a quote request	From Rated People into Checkatrade only; nothing says you can take them out
MyBuilder	Per shortlist. Free to join; a fee from seven pounds when the homeowner shortlists you, shown before you respond, payable win or lose	Any trade who expresses interest; the homeowner picks the shortlist	Its pages do not say
Rated People	No longer sold. Memberships ended before the brand was sold on 17 September 2026; jobs posted there go to Checkatrade members	Checkatrade members	Into Checkatrade only
Bark	Credits. Buy a pack and spend credits to contact a customer; price set by service, job value, and local demand; credits expire after 3 months	All matching professionals are sent the lead; you pay to respond	Its pages do not say
Trustatrader	Subscription, price on application, no per-lead charge, membership capped per area	The trade directly	Its pages do not say

Sources: Checkatrade's join site pricing page, January 2026, and the Rated People announcement, 17 September 2026; MyBuilder's support centre, October 2024, and fee calculation page, December 2024; Bark's pricing page and Trustatrader's join page, both fetched 22 September 2026. Trustatrader publishes no price; Digital Tradies reported around thirty to fifty pounds a month in April 2026.

Which is better, MyBuilder or Checkatrade? Choose by cash flow. MyBuilder costs nothing in a dead month and something on each shortlist, which suits a diary with gaps. Checkatrade costs the same in a dead month as in a full one, which suits a trade that can carry a fixed cost.

Which is best, Checkatrade or Trusted Trader? "Trusted Trader" in a search usually means Trustatrader, though it sometimes means the Which? scheme or a council scheme. Trustatrader is the closest like-for-like: a subscription, a listing, enquiries straight to you, and no published price. If the figure Digital Tradies reported is accurate, the break-even is a fraction of Checkatrade's, with a smaller audience to match.

The alternative: being the one they find

The alternative to renting enquiries is owning the place homeowners find you: a website with a page for each service in each area, a Google Business Profile with your reviews on it, and a name that appears when someone in your patch searches for what you do. Our pillar on how trade businesses win work online explains where trade customers come from now, and why a directory listing covers only part of it.

The mechanics are unglamorous. A page for boiler repair in Bromley and another for boiler repair in Beckenham each answer a search a homeowner types, and each is yours for as long as the site exists. Our guide to local service pages for trades covers how many pages that means and how to write them. One trades site of our own, South London Trades, was shown 75,000 times in Google in the 90 days to 17 July 2026, with no directory fee behind it.

Fairness requires a caveat. This takes months to build. If you are new, or your site is a single page with a phone number on it, Checkatrade can bridge the gap while the owned presence grows. The mistake is treating the bridge as the destination and paying the fee year after year while the reviews pile up somewhere you cannot take them. The full comparison of buying enquiries against being found covers the cases where directories make sense.

A fair way to decide

Answer these five questions with numbers and the decision usually makes itself.

1. What is the fee on your written quote for the year, including VAT?
2. What profit do you keep on a typical job after materials, fuel, and your own time?
3. Divide the first by the second. How many jobs a year is that, and can one platform in your patch supply them?
4. Of the last ten enquiries you quoted, how many did you win? Apply that rate to question 3.
5. If you cancelled everything tomorrow, what would a homeowner searching your name still find?

If questions 1 to 4 come out in your favour, join, and answer question 5 by pointing each happy customer at Google as well. If not, spend the money on something you keep.

Is Checkatrade worth it? For a new plumber in a dense patch doing small jobs all week, the reported fees look covered by the second or third job of the month. For an established roofer in a market town, the same fee buys enquiries that arrive rarely, and the reviews stay behind when you go.

Whatever you decide about the directory, build the part you own alongside it. See how we get trade businesses found on Google, Google Maps, and AI assistants, with pages and reviews that stay yours whether or not you renew anything.