Checkatrade vs Your Own Customer Base

Checkatrade is a UK trade directory and lead-generation platform. For electricians, it offers:

• A profile page showing your qualifications, insurance, and customer reviews
• Visibility to customers searching for electricians in your area
• A lead generation mechanism: customers submit jobs and you receive the details
• A review system linked to actual jobs (reviews are verified against submitted jobs)
• Marketing support including a website badge

The cost:

Checkatrade publishes three membership tiers on its pricing page: Free at £0/month, Approved at £30/month, and Growth from £59/month. Growth is where lead flow sits, and it does not state a total member count either. Its exact price beyond that £59 starting point depends on how much competition and demand exists for your trade in your specific area and how many leads you want, so any figure quoted by a third-party blog for a Growth plan is somebody else's postcode, not necessarily yours.

The honest question to ask: how many jobs do you need to win from Checkatrade to cover whatever membership fee you are actually quoted, and how does that compare to what you could achieve investing the same effort (and money) into building your own channels?

Checkatrade's Growth tier starts from £59/month, but the exact price for a given lead volume is quoted by trade and postcode rather than published, so run this worked example with your own actual quote, not the numbers below. Say a hypothetical membership costs £1,000 a year:

• You'd need roughly £5,000–£7,000 in additional revenue to justify it (assuming 20–25% net margin)
• At an average job value of £350 (mix of EICRs, consumer units, fault finding), that's 14–20 additional jobs a year from Checkatrade
• Roughly 1–2 jobs a month

Whether 1–2 extra jobs a month is realistic depends heavily on your profile's review count and star rating. BrightLocal's Local Consumer Review Survey 2026 found that 47% of consumers won't use a business with fewer than 20 reviews, and 31% now only use businesses rated 4.5 stars or higher, up from 17% the year before. A thin, low-rated profile is filtered out before a customer ever compares your quote to anyone else's.

The maths tend to work best for businesses that:

• Actively collect Checkatrade reviews from every completed job (not just occasional ones)
• Respond quickly to enquiries received through the platform
• Have a reasonably complete profile with qualifications and photos

The alternative to paying Checkatrade is investing the same time and money in building channels you own. The key owned channels:

Google Business Profile + reviews

Free to create and maintain, per Google's own setup guidance. The same BrightLocal 2026 survey backing the Checkatrade maths above applies here too: a thin, low-rated profile gets filtered out before a search even reaches you, on Google as much as on Checkatrade. Investment: time to collect reviews and occasional updates. No per-lead cost. Builds compounding value over time.

Website with local SEO

A simple website targeting "[service] [town]" keywords carries a small monthly hosting cost and a one-off cost to build and optimise your key pages; get quotes for both rather than assuming a figure, since hosting and web-design pricing vary by provider. Ongoing maintenance is minimal. Once ranking, generates free leads indefinitely. For the full playbook, see how to get your electrician business on page 1 of Google.

Referral programme

Asking existing customers for referrals and offering a modest incentive. Cost: almost nothing. How many jobs a referral programme produces depends entirely on the size of your past-customer list and how consistently you ask, so track your own numbers rather than assuming a rate.

The advantage of owned channels:

Your GBP, website, and referral network have compound value. Each additional review makes you more visible. Each satisfied customer who refers a friend adds to your base. The per-lead cost decreases over time as the asset base grows. Compare this to Checkatrade, where you pay a membership every year regardless of how established you are.

There is one more owned advantage worth naming: answering fast. Most Checkatrade shoppers, and most of your own enquiries, ring two or three electricians and go with whoever answers first, and that is the one thing you can't do from the top of a ladder. An office team can, and Tradehand gives you one without hiring anyone: it replies to every enquiry within the minute, day or night, then drafts and chases the quote and books the job in, so you stop losing leads you already paid for. Unlike a Checkatrade membership you pay every year regardless, there is no monthly fee; it earns 5% of the invoices it chases and collects, so if it doesn't collect, you don't pay. See how it works.

Checkatrade makes sense if:

• You're a new business without an established customer base or reviews
• You're entering a new service area where you don't have existing reputation
• You have capacity you need to fill quickly and can't wait 6–12 months for SEO to kick in
• You're committed to actively collecting reviews and maintaining a strong profile
• Your average job value is high enough that each converted lead significantly exceeds the effective cost per lead

Own channels make more sense if:

• You've been in business 2+ years and have a base of past customers to work from
• You're already collecting Google reviews consistently
• Your conversion rate from Checkatrade leads is poor (Checkatrade shoppers tend to get multiple quotes)
• Your membership cost is high relative to your average job value

The optimal strategy for most electricians:

Use Checkatrade for the first 1–2 years to fill capacity while building your Google reviews and website presence. As your owned channels strengthen, reduce reliance on Checkatrade and invest that money in SEO or Google Ads instead. The goal is to own your lead generation rather than renting it.

If you're on Checkatrade, maximise it:

• Get reviews on every job: Checkatrade reviews require customers to submit a job first, then rate it. Walk customers through the process at the end of the job rather than sending a link later. Consistent review collection is the single biggest driver of enquiry volume on the platform
• Complete your profile: upload photos of recent work, add all your qualifications and insurance details, write a genuine bio. Profiles that look complete and professional convert better
• Respond to enquiries within minutes: Checkatrade enquiries are time-sensitive. Being the first tradesperson to respond to a lead converts at much higher rates than responding hours later
• Track your ROI: note every job that comes from Checkatrade and the revenue it generates. Review the numbers every 6 months. If you're not covering the membership cost 3x over, it's not worth renewing