MyBuilder vs Checkatrade: what each costs a UK tradesperson
MyBuilder is free to join and charges a fee each time a homeowner's contact details are shared with you, win or lose (from £7, per its help page). Checkatrade charges £30 (Approved) or from £59 (Growth, the plan with leads) a month on a 12-month contract. MyBuilder costs nothing in a quiet month; Checkatrade costs the same every month.
MyBuilder and Checkatrade both put your name in front of homeowners, but they charge in opposite ways. MyBuilder charges you when a homeowner's details are shared with you. Checkatrade charges you every month for 12 months, whether or not an enquiry arrives. That one difference decides which is cheaper for your business, and it can swing either way depending on how many jobs you chase and how many you win. This guide sets the two side by side using what each company says on its own pages, checked on 1 October 2026, and marks anything we could not verify.
A disclosure before you read on: Scalepoint sells the alternative. We run Google Ads and local SEO for trades. The break-even sum below is on the page in full so you can check it without trusting us.
How each one gets you work
- MyBuilder is a job-posting marketplace. A homeowner posts a job, MyBuilder alerts relevant tradespeople, and you express interest. Contact details are shared straight away on some leads and once the homeowner confirms on others, and that is the moment you are charged.
- Checkatrade is a directory. A homeowner searches for a trade in their area, then books through your profile, calls you or requests a quote. You pay for your place in the directory, and on a lead plan you pick your trade, your postcode areas and a yearly lead volume.
So on MyBuilder you chase jobs that are already posted. On Checkatrade you wait to be found, with a lead plan to top up how often that happens. Neither company publishes how many other tradespeople see the same enquiry. A third-party tracker (Local Ladder) reports roughly 3 to 5 trades per MyBuilder job, but MyBuilder does not publish that and we could not verify it.
What each one costs
| MyBuilder | Checkatrade | |
|---|---|---|
| Joining | Free. Its support page says "no joining fees, membership fees or any other costs", though its terms also offer sponsored placement for an extra monthly fee (price not published) | Free profile at £0. Approved £30 a month. Growth from £59 a month |
| What you pay for | Each time a homeowner's contact details are shared with you | A fixed monthly fee, with a set yearly lead volume on a lead plan |
| Size of the fee | Shown before you respond. MyBuilder says it "can start from £7" and is set by the size, value and location of the job | £30, or from £59. The lead plan is priced by your trade, postcodes and lead volume, so your quote may be higher |
| Contract | No membership term. You can stop at any time: pay outstanding invoices, then tell MyBuilder (terms, clause 17.8) | 12 months, renews automatically. To cancel you phone Checkatrade in your renewal window |
| If you win nothing | The fee is still payable. The terms say it is "not necessary for you to be awarded the Job" | The monthly fee is still due |
| If work dries up | You pay nothing in a month you pay for no contacts | You pay to the end of the 12 months |
| When you pay | Invoiced weekly, payment taken the next day | Monthly, fixed |
| VAT | Fees are shown excluding VAT | The pricing page does not say whether VAT applies |
MyBuilder only publishes a floor, not a price list. Third-party write-ups put everyday fees anywhere from a few pounds to about £35 and big projects far higher, and some members report fees in the hundreds on large jobs, but none of that comes from MyBuilder and we have not verified it. The number that matters is the one on the screen before you respond, because MyBuilder says the fee never changes afterwards.
Refunds work differently on each
MyBuilder's terms call the Shortlist Fee non-refundable. Any refund is at MyBuilder's discretion and is given only as Account Credit, which can be used only against future fees and, if no date is set, expires 12 months after it is issued. Its support centre lists when you can ask for a credit: wrong or dead contact details, the wrong type of work, being shortlisted for the same job twice, or a customer who is looking for work rather than posting a job. For an unreachable customer you must have contacted them within 48 hours, sent at least one message through MyBuilder, and ask between 7 and 20 days after being shortlisted. Checkatrade's renewals page describes no refund for unused leads, and says cancelling your Direct Debit does not cancel the membership or your obligation to pay for the 12-month term. Ask Checkatrade what happens if the lead volume falls short.
Trust, reviews and how you get seen
| MyBuilder | Checkatrade | |
|---|---|---|
| Vetting | ID checked and skills evaluated when you apply, with ongoing feedback from customers | Up to 12 checks before you get the tick, including identity, qualifications and a CCJ check |
| Reviews | Left by homeowners who hired you through MyBuilder, once work has started or money has changed hands. Up to five outside customers can also review you if you supply the paid invoice | Customers verify reviews by SMS, email or phone (Checkatrade says 90% are verified). You can request reviews with one click on Approved |
| How you rank | Relevance, distance, customer feedback and how quickly you reply. Sponsored placement, for an extra monthly fee, is shown above the organic ranking | Profile quality, reviews, local supply and demand. The Growth plan includes £100 to £200 of credit to appear higher in search |
| If you leave | We found no statement on what happens to your feedback. Ask before you build on it | Your profile comes off public listings on the renewal date. If you rejoin, only a limited number of old reviews may reappear |
Both build your reputation on their platform, not yours. Reviews on either site do not add to your Google Business Profile, which is the profile that shows when someone searches your business name or your trade and town.
The break-even sum: when does a monthly fee beat a per-contact fee?
Put the two models on one scale by asking how many MyBuilder contacts a year cost the same as a year of Checkatrade. Divide the annual Checkatrade cost by the fee per contact. If you would pay for fewer contacts than that, MyBuilder costs you less in fees. If more, Checkatrade does, provided it actually sends you that many enquiries.
| Checkatrade plan (12 months) | Same cost as this many MyBuilder contacts a year at £7 | at £15 | at £30 |
|---|---|---|---|
| £59 a month (£708) | 101 | 47 | 23 |
| £150 a month (£1,800) | 257 | 120 | 60 |
| £300 a month (£3,600) | 514 | 240 | 120 |
Read it this way: if an average MyBuilder contact costs you £15 and you would take about 4 a month, that is roughly 48 a year, level with a £59 Checkatrade plan on fees alone. Fewer than that and MyBuilder is cheaper, more and Checkatrade is. The sum then changes again with your win rate, because fees on contacts you do not win are still spent. At £15 a contact and one win in five, each won job costs £75 in MyBuilder fees. At £59 a month and 8 jobs won a year from Checkatrade, each costs about £89. Your own win rate is the number nobody else can supply, which is why the cost calculator takes your fee, your enquiries, your job value and your win rate and shows the working. For MyBuilder, set the membership field to £0 and enter your contact fees as the per-lead cost.
Which one suits you
This is our judgement from the figures above, not a statistic from either company.
| MyBuilder tends to suit you if | Checkatrade tends to suit you if |
|---|---|
| You want to test a platform with no contract and stop in any month | You want a recognised trust mark and homeowners finding you without you chasing |
| You reply to leads within minutes and quote well, because speed counts in its ranking | You are busy on the tools and cannot reply to every posted job |
| Your jobs are large enough that a fee per contact is small against the profit | You can treat 12 months as a fixed cost and your quote is at the low end |
| You want to pick which jobs to pay for, one at a time | You would rather pay a flat monthly sum than a fee on every contact |
Neither is cheaper in the abstract. The same trade can lose money on one and make money on the other, depending on win rate. Track every contact and every won job for 90 days before you decide, whichever you start with.
What neither one promises
- Work. MyBuilder's terms say it does not guarantee you will quote or secure work from a shortlisting. Checkatrade's pricing page describes picking the number of leads you want each year for a fixed monthly cost. It does not promise a number of jobs.
- Exclusivity. Neither page we read says an enquiry is exclusive to you, and homeowners compare several profiles or quotes.
- A return. MyBuilder says the platform is designed so income from jobs covers all lead fees over time, including leads that do not convert. That is its claim, and we found no data for any individual trade.
- Ownership. The profile and the reviews you build live on their platform, not yours.
Beyond both: own the enquiry
You do not have to choose between MyBuilder, Checkatrade and nothing. Most trades build channels they own alongside a directory and taper the directory as those channels grow. Start with a Google Business Profile and local SEO, then add Google Ads for enquiries you do not share. Our Google Ads management is from £495 a month plus a £500 a month minimum ad spend, paid straight to Google at cost, so it costs more per month than either platform's entry price. The test is the same as above: cost per won job. Our MyBuilder alternative and Checkatrade alternative pages compare each model with owning your leads, Checkatrade vs Bark covers the third big directory, and is Checkatrade worth it runs the 12-month sum in more detail. Our fees are on the pricing page, month-to-month, with 14 days' notice.
Sources & method
MyBuilder facts come from its own pages, read on 1 October 2026: the tradesperson terms and conditions (mybuilder.com/terms-of-use, clauses 6, 10, 12 and 13) for how the fee is triggered, that it is non-refundable and shown excluding VAT, refunds as Account Credit only, credit expiry, the ranking factors, sponsored placement and the right to stop using it at any time; and the support centre articles "What are the fees?" (28 October 2024), "How are lead fees calculated?" (4 December 2024), "When do I pay for a lead?" (5 November 2024), "What is shortlisting?" (25 October 2024), "Can I request a credit for a shortlist fee?" (policy for shortlists from July 2026), "Do you screen tradespeople on MyBuilder?" and the Reviews Policy (mybuilder.com/reviews-policy). Checkatrade facts come from its own pages, read the same day: join.checkatrade.com/pricing (plan prices, inclusions, 12-month term, the 12 checks, how customers contact you), the membership renewals support page (created November 2025) for auto-renewal, phone-only cancellation, the Direct Debit point and review treatment on rejoining, the platform terms of use (checkatrade.com/platform-terms-of-use) for the ranking criteria, and its blog posts on how it checks tradespeople and reviews for the 90% verified claim. MyBuilder's support pages carry their own dates and may have changed since. The roughly 3 to 5 trades per MyBuilder job, and the wider range of fees per contact, come from third-party write-ups (including Local Ladder, localadder.co.uk) and are unverified. The break-even tables are Scalepoint's own arithmetic on example fees, not data from either company. Our own pricing comes from our pricing page. Both companies change their terms, so confirm current prices and terms before you commit.
In summary
MyBuilder charges a fee each time a homeowner's details are shared with you, win or lose, and has no membership. Checkatrade charges £30 or from £59 a month on a 12-month contract. Divide a year of Checkatrade fees by your likely fee per MyBuilder contact to find the crossover, then track win rate for 90 days before you commit to either.
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