Is Checkatrade worth it for a trade business in 2026?

Every few weeks someone asks me the same thing. "Should I stay on Checkatrade?" Usually they've just had the renewal call, or a quiet month, or both.

Search the question and you'll mostly find forum threads. Half the replies say it's the best money they spend. The other half say it's a scam. Neither is much use when you're trying to decide what to do with a few thousand pounds a year.

So here's my honest answer, with the numbers where they can be checked, and a straight "it depends" where they can't.

What Checkatrade actually costs

Checkatrade now publishes starting prices. At the time of writing (September 2026), its own pricing page lists three tiers:

Free: £0 a month. A profile page and the ability to collect reviews.
Approved: £30 a month. The Checkatrade tick, review requests, and a listing in the directory.
Growth: "from £59" a month. Adds lead options, direct bookings and some paid search visibility credit.

The same page says memberships are for 12 months, and that eligibility criteria and terms apply.

That word "from" is doing a lot of work. What you actually pay on Growth depends on your trade, your area and how much work you want sent your way. Checkatrade quotes that per business, so I can't give you a single honest number for a roofer in Cardiff or a kitchen fitter in Bristol. Ask them for it in writing, and ask what it goes up to at renewal.

There are other costs that don't show on the price list:

Card fees. If you take payment through Checkatrade Pay, the pricing page lists fees of 1.29% to 1.79%.
Your time. Quoting jobs you don't win costs you evenings, fuel and site visits.
The contract. Twelve months is a long time to be locked into something that isn't working.

What you get for the money

This is the bit the "it's a scam" crowd skip over. Checkatrade gives you real things.

The tick

Plenty of homeowners are nervous about letting a stranger into their house. A recognised badge helps. If you're new and nobody knows your name yet, that trust is worth something, and it's hard to build on your own quickly.

Reviews in one place

Reviews on a platform that homeowners already use carry weight. For a business with no track record, a page of verified reviews can be the difference between a call and no call.

Work turning up

On the higher tiers you're paying for enquiries to come to you. For a new business, or someone who has just gone out on their own, that can fill gaps while you build something of your own.

Where it stops adding up

The trouble starts once you're established. Here's what I hear from trade owners doing £20K a month and up.

You're one of several quotes

A homeowner on a directory is shopping. They're comparing you against other members, often on price. If your pitch is quality, finish and turning up when you say you will, you're competing on the one thing you don't want to compete on. That's how you end up losing to the cheaper quote.

You don't control the volume

When it's quiet, you can't turn the platform up. When it's busy, you're still paying. It's the same problem as word of mouth. Word of mouth is brilliant. It's just not something you can turn up when you need it.

You're building their brand, not yours

Every review you collect lives on their site. Every homeowner who finds you there learns to go back to the platform next time, not to you. If you leave, the profile stays behind.

And the landscape moves under your feet. In September 2026 Checkatrade Group bought the Rated People brand and website. Rated People memberships ended before the sale, and members who wanted to keep getting jobs from the platform were told to sign up with Checkatrade. If your pipeline ran through Rated People, that was a change you had no say in. That's the risk with any platform you don't own.

How to work out if it's worth it for you

Don't go on gut feel. Pull your last 12 months and fill in this table.

What to count	Where to find it
Total paid to Checkatrade, including fees	Bank statements
Enquiries that came from it	Your inbox, texts, call log
Quotes you actually sent	Your quoting software or notebook
Jobs won	Invoices
Revenue and margin on those jobs	Your accounts

Then do two sums:

Cost per job won = total paid ÷ jobs won.
Return = profit on those jobs ÷ total paid.

If you're paying a few hundred pounds a year and winning a couple of decent jobs from it, that's a fine deal. Keep it. If you're paying a lot, quoting a lot and winning mostly the small, fiddly, price-shopped jobs, the numbers will show it.

One thing to watch: be honest about which jobs would have come anyway. A repeat customer who searched your name on Checkatrade to find your number isn't a Checkatrade lead. They're yours.

Who it genuinely suits

I'm not going to tell everyone to leave. It suits:

New businesses with no reviews and no name yet.
Sole traders who want a steady trickle of smaller jobs and have no time for marketing.
Trades where the badge matters to nervous homeowners, like anyone working inside the house.

It suits less well:

Businesses selling bigger tickets. Loft conversions, extensions, full kitchens. These customers research hard, and you want them ringing you, not comparing you.
Anyone who wants to choose their work. You can't pick the jobs you're best at and ask for more of those.
Anyone who wants to grow on purpose. A platform gives you what it gives you.

If you're weighing up the other directories too, I've gone through them in Checkatrade alternatives that don't cost you every job.

What owning your leads looks like instead

The alternative isn't "do nothing and hope". It's putting your own adverts in front of homeowners in your area, sending the enquiries to you and only you, and calling them back fast.

That's how we work. We run Meta ads (Facebook and Instagram) for trades and construction businesses, get every enquiry answered in minutes, and build the brand around it. You can see the full process on how it works.

The difference is who the customer meets first. On a directory they meet a list. On your own ad they meet you, your work and your finished jobs, before they've spoken to anyone else.

Here's a real one. Paradigm Lofts, a loft conversion firm in South Wales, spent £3,048 on ads in about 4 to 5 months. That turned into £257,000 in closed work, an 84x return, and Gavin, the owner, is booked up 6 months ahead. You can read the Paradigm Lofts case study for how it was done.

That's one client, one trade, one period. I'm not promising you the same number. But it shows what's possible when the leads are yours.

If you want to know what ads would cost in your trade before you decide anything, I've written up how much Facebook ads cost in the UK for a trade business. And if you want to see the exact ads, targeting and numbers behind Paradigm, grab the Paradigm breakdown. It's free and it's all in there.

So, is Checkatrade worth it?

For a new business that needs trust and a few jobs: often, yes. Do the sums above and keep an eye on the renewal price.

For an established business doing serious numbers: probably not as your main source of work. It's fine as one channel. It's risky as the only one.

We turn trades businesses into the go-to premium brand in their area.

If you're doing £20K a month or more and you'd rather own your leads than rent them, you can apply here. I only take on a handful of businesses, so I'll tell you straight if I think it's not a fit.