Checkatrade Alternatives: Where Else Trades Get Work
- Website Strategy
The Checkatrade alternatives worth considering are other channels rather than other directories. There are six worth knowing about: other paid directories, your Google Business Profile, a website that ranks for the work you want, repeat and referral work run deliberately, local social and community groups, and referrals from merchants, suppliers and other trades. They are not interchangeable, and they differ on what they cost, how fast they produce work, and whether you still have the demand in two years if you stop paying.
We have covered whether Checkatrade earns its fee separately. This post assumes you have made that call and want to know what else is out there.
Almost every article on this topic is a list of rival platforms. That is a poor answer, because moving from one paid directory to another does not change the position you are in.
With any of them you are renting demand. You pay to be shown to an audience somebody else built, in an order somebody else decides, on terms that can be revised at renewal. Stop paying and the enquiries stop that week. That is not an accusation about any one company, it is just how the model works, and it is a reasonable thing to buy as long as you know that is what you bought.
Every route to work sits in one of three buckets. Rented, where you pay for access and own nothing. Borrowed, where it is free but the platform sets the rules. Owned, where the demand belongs to you and keeps working after you stop spending.
Most trades have one rented channel and nothing else, which is the position worth getting out of.
Every realistic route to work for a UK trade, compared on what it suits, what it costs, how fast it works, and who owns the result.
| Channel | Best for | What it costs | How fast | Who owns the result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Other paid directories | A trade or area where one platform dominates | Membership fee, per-lead fee, or both | Days to weeks | The platform. Stop paying and it stops |
| Google Business Profile | Anyone working a defined local patch | Free, plus an afternoon and minutes a week | Weeks to months | Google owns the platform, you own the reviews |
| A website that ranks | The specific jobs you want more of | Upfront build, then time or a monthly fee | Three to twelve months | You, and it compounds |
| Repeat and referral work | Any trade with finished jobs behind them | Almost nothing except attention | Immediate | You, entirely |
| Local social and community groups | Domestic trades in a tight area | Free, plus real time and patience | Days | Whoever runs the group. Rules change |
| Merchant and trade referrals | Trades who buy locally and work alongside others | Reciprocity, and turning up | Weeks | You, but it lives on relationships |
The last column is the one comparison lists tend to leave out, and it is what separates a channel you rent from one you build.
Another paid directory is occasionally the right call, usually when one platform has real depth in your trade or area, which you can see from the volume of jobs posted near you.
The mechanics differ far more than the marketing does. Some charge a flat membership and let you quote freely. Some sell each lead. Some sell the same lead to three or four of you. Some take a percentage of the job. We are not printing fees here, because they change often enough that any figure would be out of date by the time you read it. Ask for current terms in writing.
Four questions worth asking whichever platform you are considering:
If you are on a competent person scheme or a trade register, you are probably already paying for a listing you have never filled in. Those registers exist because work signed off under a competent person scheme does not need separate building regulations approval, and most of the bodies behind them run a public search for homeowners. So does TrustMark, the government endorsed quality scheme. Those entries cost nothing extra, and they are usually blank apart from a phone number.
For local work, a properly finished Google Business Profile is usually the highest return thing available to a trade, and it costs nothing but an afternoon.
Google is unusually direct about how this works. Its own guidance names three factors behind local ranking, relevance, distance and prominence, and states plainly that there is no way to pay for a better local position. Distance you cannot do much about. The other two are largely admin.
What that means in practice:
The pattern we see most often is a profile that was verified once, years ago, and never touched since. If you want the do-it-today version, the half-hour version of this is written for exactly that.
One caveat so this does not oversell itself. A profile on its own is not local SEO, and past a certain point it stops improving without something behind it.
A website is the slowest channel on this list and the only one where the demand ends up belonging to you.
Be clear about which sort, because most trade sites do not do this job. A five page brochure ranking for your own business name is doing what a directory listing does, only quieter. The version that replaces rented demand has a real page for each job you want to be called about, in each town you cover, written the way you would explain it standing in somebody’s kitchen.
It is slower and it costs money up front. Three to twelve months is a fair expectation in our experience, and nobody can promise you a position. If your site already exists and produces nothing, there is usually a specific reason rather than a mystery.
What you get for the wait is different in kind. A page ranking for the work you want brings enquiries with no commission on them, no other three trades quoting the same job, and no renewal date. That is the argument for a website built around the jobs a trade actually wants rather than a tidy digital brochure.
The three routes below cost the least and get the least attention, because none of them arrive as an invoice with a login to remind you they exist.
Repeat work and referrals. Every finished job leaves behind someone who may buy again and someone who will be asked who did yours. Left to chance that produces a trickle. Made deliberate it is the cheapest work you will ever get, because the acquisition cost is nil. Deliberate means a list of every customer with the job and the date, a reminder to ring the service ones annually, a message a week after you leave mentioning you have space next month, and two cards left rather than one.
Local social and community groups. For a domestic trade in a tight patch, the village or estate Facebook group can out-produce anything paid, though not as advertising. Recommendations happen when a resident asks for one and other people answer. Being visible and useful is what gets your name typed by somebody else. Posting an advert every day gets you muted.
Merchants, suppliers and other trades. The most overlooked route in the whole list. The counter at your merchant is asked for a good plumber several times a week, and so is every trade working alongside you, because the kitchen fitter needs a sparky and the sparky needs a plasterer. Those enquiries arrive pre-warmed with an implied recommendation attached, and they are rarely shopped against three other quotes. It costs nothing but reciprocity, and it stops the moment you take referrals without sending any back.
If you can only do one thing this month, finish your Google Business Profile. It is free, it is the fastest of the lot, and most trades have genuinely never completed it.
A sensible order after that:
The trades who never worry about work rarely have one channel. They have three that feed each other, usually a finished Google profile, a site that ranks for a handful of specific jobs, and a referral habit meaning half the callers already trust them before they ring.
Three channels run properly will do more than six run badly, so do not try to start all of them at once.
What is the best alternative to Checkatrade? For most local trades it is a fully completed Google Business Profile, because it is free, it reaches people searching in your area right now, and almost nobody has finished theirs. Paid directories are the fastest alternative, and a website that ranks is the only one where the demand ends up belonging to you.
Are there free alternatives to Checkatrade? Yes, and they are the ones most trades ignore. A Google Business Profile costs nothing. Neither do local community groups, referrals from merchants and other trades, or repeat work from past customers. Trade register and scheme listings are usually included in a registration fee you already pay.
Is another trade directory better than Checkatrade? They are variations on the same model rather than different answers. Judge them on mechanics, not brand: whether leads are exclusive or shared, the minimum term, and whether there is genuine job volume in your trade near you. Ask for current terms in writing, because pricing on all of them changes.
How do tradesmen get work without a directory? Mostly through three channels working together. Local search, meaning the Google profile and a site that ranks for the jobs they want. Repeat and referral work from customers they already have. And relationships with merchants, suppliers and the other trades who stand next to them on site.
Do I still need a website if I have a Google Business Profile? For anything beyond the simplest local work, yes. The profile is where you get found, the website is where somebody decides. It also feeds the profile, because Google weighs prominence signals that largely sit off the listing itself. A profile with nothing behind it plateaus.
How long before a new website brings in work? In our experience three to twelve months, depending on how competitive your trade and area are, and how much of the site is genuinely about the work rather than about you. Nobody can promise a timeframe or a position. It is the slowest channel here, which is why it should not be the only one you start.
Is Facebook worth it for getting trade work? For domestic trades in a defined area it can be one of the strongest channels there is, though not through advertising in groups. The work comes from recommendations other people make when a resident asks. Being visible and useful in the group is what gets your name typed by somebody else.
Look for a second and third channel rather than a replacement directory, and start with the free one you have probably already got and never finished.
If you would rather we told you which of these your business is actually missing, run your site through our free audit or just ask, you know where we are.
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