Website vs paid lead platforms — what does a lead really cost?

Lead sources23 August 20268 min read

Short answer: platform fees buy you access to an enquiry, not the job. The mainstream platforms charge either a recurring membership or per customer contact, several firms see the same enquiry, and your real cost is the fee divided by jobs actually won. A website inverts that — nothing arrives quickly at first, but every enquiry is yours alone and there is no per-enquiry meter running.

How each platform charges

A common pattern, told in one pass: a roofer buys credits to quote on a Rated People job — by the time his quote is in, the homeowner has four others and has stopped answering. The same week, a MyBuilder shortlist fee lands for an enquiry that turns out to be a mate doing it cheap. Neither platform scammed anybody; the model simply charges for the chance. That is the shape to understand before comparing anything.

The models differ, but they share a shape: money goes out for access to a chance. None of them charges only when you win.

The number that actually matters

Forget cost per lead. Work out cost per job won: everything you paid the platform over three months, divided by the number of jobs from it that you were actually hired for.

An illustrative example, and only illustrative: suppose a membership runs £120 a month and brings ten enquiries a month, of which you win two. That is £360 for three months against six won jobs — £60 a job before you have priced any labour. If the same £360 bought four won jobs from better-qualified enquiries, the “more expensive” channel would be the cheap one. Your own figures replace every number in that paragraph, which is rather the point: most firms have never written theirs down.

What a website costs by comparison

A built website front-loads its spend. Our own published prices run from £700 for a five-page sole-trader build plus a care plan from £65 a month — published in full here, so the comparison can be made honestly rather than against a guess. After the build, there is no per-enquiry charge of any kind: the fiftieth enquiry costs what the first did.

The trade-off must be stated as plainly as the platforms’ is: a new domain takes time to earn search visibility, so a website rarely produces enquiries in its first weeks the way a directory profile does. Platforms are faster out of the gate; ownership compounds instead. Both statements are true at once.

Different enquiries, not just different prices

• A platform enquiry arrived because the customer contacted several firms. Price discipline and reply speed decide it.
• An owned-channel enquiry arrived after the customer read your pages, saw your photographs and chose to contact you specifically. Those callers argue less about price and more often become repeat work — not because websites magic up loyalty, but because self-selection happens before the phone rings.

Choose each when

• Platforms suit: new firms building a first reputation, gaps that need filling this month, trades where the platform has deep local customer traffic — ask the rep for your postcode’s numbers rather than guessing — and firms disciplined enough to track won jobs against fees.
• A website suits: every established firm that wants enquiries nobody else received, wants to stop renting its position, and can give the owned channel a few months to start pulling.
• Both together suit: most firms in between — platform for now, ownership compounding underneath, with an honest review each quarter of which is earning its keep.

Where to go next

The single-platform decision gets its own treatment in is Checkatrade worth it. The free half of the owned channel — and exactly where it stops — is in Google Business Profile vs a website. What sits behind our own build prices is explained in what a tradesman’s website should cost, and the general principles are in the main guide.

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