If you’re a tradesperson weighing up whether to join Checkatrade, you’ve probably seen plenty about the benefits. What’s harder to work out is what it’s actually likely to cost, and whether that spend makes sense for your business.
I work with trade businesses across Shropshire on their marketing, and Checkatrade comes up a lot, usually from business owners trying to work out if it’s worth the monthly spend, or whether that money would go further somewhere else. So I’ve pulled together what it actually costs, what you get in return, and where the real alternatives sit.
What Checkatrade Actually Costs
One of the difficulties when comparing Checkatrade with other forms of marketing is that there isn’t one simple membership price that applies to every trade.
Costs can vary depending on your trade, location and the package you’re offered, so the figure another tradesperson pays won’t necessarily be the figure you’re quoted.
That’s worth bearing in mind when you’re deciding whether it’s good value. Don’t just look at the monthly membership cost. Look at what you’re spending over a full year, whether there are any additional costs involved, how many genuine enquiries you’re receiving and, most importantly, how many of those enquiries turn into profitable work.
If you want to see how these costs compare against a paid search budget for your own trade, you can run the numbers through my PPC budget estimator.
What You Get for the Checkatrade Cost
To be fair to Checkatrade, the membership isn’t nothing. You get:
- A verified badge, Checkatrade checks identity, insurance, and qualifications, and that badge can genuinely help build trust with a homeowner who’s never heard of you
- A review system, and reviews matter more in trades than almost any other type of business, since customers are trusting someone to work in their home
- Visibility to people already searching, the intent on Checkatrade is high, people using it are actively looking to hire, not just browsing
For a brand new business with no reviews and no online presence yet, that can genuinely be worth paying for in the short term. It’s the businesses that are already established, or trying to build something long term, where the maths starts to look different.
Checkatrade Alternatives Worth Considering
The main difference is that visibility through Checkatrade depends on you continuing to use the platform. Investment in your own website, Google Business Profile and reputation can continue to support the business independently.
A few alternatives worth weighing up instead, or alongside it:
Your own website and local SEO. Improving your own search visibility can help you build something that isn’t dependent on a third-party directory. It takes time and there are no guarantees, but a strong website can become a long-term source of enquiries rather than disappearing if you stop paying for a directory listing.
Google reviews and your Google Business Profile. For a local trade business, these can play an important part in helping potential customers find you and decide whether they trust you enough to get in touch.
Social media visibility. Photos of finished jobs, quick before and after posts, local group engagement. It’s slower to build than paying for a directory listing, but it costs nothing beyond your time, and it builds trust in a way that’s hard to fake.
Word of mouth. The oldest form of trade marketing still works. A simple habit of asking happy customers to leave a Google review or recommend you in a local Facebook group can do more for long term visibility than a paid listing.
So, Is Checkatrade Worth It for Tradesmen?
Genuinely, it depends on where your business is right now.
It’s probably worth it if:
- You’re brand new and have no reviews or online presence to draw on yet
- You work in a high value trade where a single job comfortably covers a few months of membership
- You’re happy to treat it as one channel among several, not your only source of work
It’s probably not worth it if:
- You’re already established with a decent flow of word of mouth or repeat work
- Your jobs are lower value, where the per-lead cost eats too far into your margin
- You’d rather build something you own long term than keep paying rent on someone else’s platform
Checkatrade Membership Cost vs Building Your Own Visibility
Here’s a simple way to think about it. Checkatrade membership, even at the lower end, costs somewhere between £600 and £1,800 a year, sometimes considerably more once leads and renewals are factored in. That’s a meaningful budget, and it’s money that either builds something you own, or rents you a spot on someone else’s platform for as long as you keep paying.
If you’re weighing up Checkatrade against SEO, Google Ads or another way of generating enquiries, you don’t necessarily need to guess which one is the better investment.
That’s something we can look at in a free 30-minute Seed Session. I’ll look at what you’re currently doing, what a customer is worth to you and where I think your marketing budget is best spent.
If Checkatrade still looks like the sensible option, I’ll tell you that too.
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