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MyBuilder vs Checkatrade: Which Is Better for Trades?
MyBuilder and Checkatrade are not the same type of lead channel. One is shortlist-led; the other is membership-led. Judge both by booked work.
13 June 2026GMTO Team
MyBuilder and Checkatrade are not the same type of lead channel. One is shortlist-led; the other is membership-led. Judge both by booked work.
Checkatrade is primarily a membership and profile visibility channel. MyBuilder is built around posted jobs, trade responses, and shortlist fees when you get the customer's contact details. That difference matters because the risk sits in different places.
With Checkatrade, the question is whether the membership produces enough profitable enquiries. With MyBuilder, the question is whether the shortlists you pay for turn into jobs often enough.
Checkatrade has brand recognition with homeowners and can help a trade look credible quickly. Its own material talks about profile visibility, reputation, and packages that vary by trade, area, competition, and lead volume.
The weakness is dependency. If the profile becomes your main source of work, you are renting attention in a competitive environment. You still need a site that explains your services, towns, proof, pricing expectations, and direct call route.
MyBuilder can be useful when you want to pick from posted jobs rather than wait for profile enquiries. Its own tradesperson page says joining is free and a fee is charged if you are shortlisted and get the customer's details.
The weakness is selectivity. A shortlist is not a booked job. If customers shortlist several trades, response speed, quote fit, and job quality decide whether that fee becomes profit.
If you need profile visibility and have strong reviews, Checkatrade may be easier to test. If you are good at qualifying jobs quickly and only paying for work that fits your area and job value, MyBuilder may suit you better.
Either way, run the same measurement: spend, enquiries, quotes, booked jobs, profit, and repeat customers. If you cannot measure the path, you cannot compare the platforms.
Your own website is not a directory substitute in the first week. It is the channel that lets you stop depending on directories over time. It should target the real searches: service pages, town pages, service-town pages, reviews, schema, and call tracking.
For example, a gas engineer should have pages for boiler repairs and towns such as Birmingham, while the commercial pages explain pricing and invite the visitor to request a free preview.
MyBuilder is usually better for selective job picking. Checkatrade is usually better for profile-led visibility. Neither should be your only plan.
Use whichever one produces booked work at an acceptable cost, then build the owned search channel so your best future leads come directly to you.
Checkatrade can be useful when you need visibility quickly, but it should not be the only place your enquiries come from. Here's the trade-off.
Read guidebusinessThe best alternative to Checkatrade is not another rented profile by itself. It is a lead system you own, with directories used only where the numbers work.
Read guidebusinessDirectories take a cut of every lead. A proper website gets you the same leads for free. Here's the math.
Read guideWhat's one job worth to you — a hundred quid? Two? If it brings you one extra job a month, it's paid for itself twice over. And you don't risk a penny finding out.
Let us build you a free preview — your actual site, for your trade, in your town. See it before you decide a thing.
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