Cost · Lead platforms · UK 2026
What Checkatrade costs over 3 years
The membership is the floor, not the ceiling. Here is the real three-year sum, lead fees and renewal hikes included, set against a flat monthly website.
Pay £150 a month for three years and you have handed over £5,400 before you count a single lead fee on top. That is the number nobody puts on the brochure, because Checkatrade does not quote a yearly price; it quotes a monthly one and lets the meter do the rest. Once you add the per-job charges most trades also pay, and the renewal hikes that tend to land after year one, the three-year cost stops being a phone bill and starts being the price of a decent second-hand van.
This is the long sum laid out plainly. No spin, no pretending a directory has no use. Just the running total over 36 months, against the flat monthly cost of a site that is yours, so you can see where the money actually goes before you sign another year.
Over three years, Checkatrade costs roughly £4,300 to £6,500 on membership alone, and commonly more than £14,000 once the £5 to £40 per-lead fees are added. A done-for-you website is £50/month for a one-pager (about £1,800 over three years) or £100/month for a full site (about £3,600), with no per-lead charge and an asset you own at the end. The flat plan wins on cost and on ownership.
The headline monthly fee is only the start
Checkatrade charges a monthly membership and a separate fee for most leads on top, so the price on the call is the floor of what you pay, not the total.
The thing that trips trades up is treating the membership quote as the whole cost. It almost never is. There are two meters running, and both of them matter when you stretch the figure across three years.
The membership meter
Checkatrade does not publish prices; you get a quote based on your trade and area. Reported 2026 figures put a basic listing around £60 a month, with most trades landing between £100 and £150 plus VAT before they have had a single lead, according to SwiftLead's cost breakdown. Call it £1,440 to £2,160 a year, every year, just to keep the profile live.
The per-lead meter
On top of membership, most trades pay for each lead: commonly £5 to £15 for a small job and £20 to £40 for a larger one like a boiler swap or a bathroom refit. Those leads are frequently shared with rival trades, so you can pay for five enquiries and win one. SwiftLead's worked plumber example puts an average month at about £400 all-in, with busy months near £775. That is the real shape of the bill, and it is why the evergreen verdict in is Checkatrade too expensive in 2026 lands where it does.
The 3-year running total, side by side
On membership alone Checkatrade runs to about £4,300 to £6,500 over three years; with average lead fees it passes £14,000, against roughly £1,800 to £3,600 for a flat-fee website.
| Route | Per month | 3-year total |
|---|---|---|
| Checkatrade, membership only (low) | ~£120 | ~£4,300 |
| Checkatrade, membership only (typical) | ~£150 to £180 | ~£5,400 to £6,500 |
| Checkatrade, all-in average month | ~£400 | ~£14,400 |
| Website, one-pager | £50 | ~£1,800 |
| Website, full multi-page | £100 | ~£3,600 |
| Website, full site (paid annually) | £75 equivalent | ~£2,700 |
Reading the figures honestly
The fair comparison is not the cheapest Checkatrade month against the dearest website. It is like for like over time. Even the most conservative membership-only Checkatrade figure, with no lead fees at all, beats a full website over three years, and the moment you add the per-lead charges every trade actually pays, the gap runs to thousands of pounds a year. The full breakdown of every route, builders, sparkies, plumbers and all, sits on the tradesman website cost page.
The renewal you cannot see coming
One more thing the three-year view exposes: the second-year jump. New members are often on an introductory rate that ends after twelve months, and trades regularly report renewals climbing hard when it does, in one documented case from about £52.50 to £150 a month, roughly a 185% rise. A website plan does not do that. The price you agree is the price that holds, which is the whole point of a flat fee.
Cost per won job is the number that actually bites
Because Checkatrade leads are shared and charged for, your true cost is per job won, not per month, and that figure climbs every time a paid lead goes to a faster rival.
Why the monthly fee understates it
Spend £400 in a month, chase eight shared leads, win two, and each won job has cost you £200 in platform fees before materials, fuel or your own time. Have a quiet month and you have still paid the membership for the privilege of being there. The fee does not flex with your luck, which is the opposite of how a website behaves: it costs the same whether it sends you one enquiry or twenty.
What a website does to that number
A site you own has no per-lead charge, so the more it works the cheaper each enquiry gets. At £50 a month, ten enquiries in a month is £5 a lead; thirty is under £2. And the enquiry comes only to you, with no rival reading the same message. We walked through filling the diary this way in get more work without paying for leads, and weighed the two routes directly in Checkatrade vs your own website.
When the three-year cost can still be worth paying
Checkatrade's three-year bill earns its keep in one case: a brand-new trade with no reviews and no website, buying instant credibility for the months before its own channels start working.
The one situation where it adds up
Be fair to the platform. If you went out on your own last month, have no reviews, no website and no name, the slow build of search and word of mouth will not pay this month's diesel. A few hundred pounds on a platform that borrows a recognised brand's trust and puts you in front of customers from day one can be the bridge that keeps you trading while you find your feet. For that first stretch, the cost buys something real: time.
Why even then it should have an end date
The trap is letting the bridge become the road. The three-year sums only turn ugly when a short-term leg-up quietly becomes a permanent overhead, paid year after year while you already have the reviews and reputation to stand on your own. Set a date to review it. The day your own site and Google Business Profile bring steady work, the membership has done its job and the meter should stop, not roll into a fourth year at a higher renewal.
What you are left holding after 36 months
After three years of Checkatrade you own nothing that keeps working once you stop paying; after three years of a website you own the domain, the pages and every lead it has sent you.
Rent versus asset
This is the part the spreadsheet alone misses. Every Checkatrade payment buys access for that month and nothing beyond it. Cancel after three years and the profile, the ranking and the reviews tied to it disappear; you are back to square one having spent five figures. A website is the reverse: three years in, the domain, the content and the search position are yours, and the reviews you gathered on a free Google Business Profile alongside it follow your business wherever it goes.
The bottom line on three years
On pure cost, the flat website wins over three years even against Checkatrade's cheapest sums, and wins by thousands once lead fees are counted. On what you own at the end, it is not close. Checkatrade can still earn its keep as a short-term bridge for a brand-new trade with no reputation yet, but as a permanent way to get work, three years of it is an expensive way to end up owning nothing.
See your own site before you spend another penny
I'll build you a free mockup of your actual business, your name, your trade, your area, before you pay anything. Like it? A one-pager is £50/month and a full multi-page site is £100/month, with hosting, SSL and unlimited small changes included on every plan and zero setup fee. Pay annually and save about 30%. Sites are usually live in about a week. Apply at sitework.uk/#apply.