Do You Need a Website If You’re on Checkatrade or MyBuilder?

If you already get work from Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People or Bark, it’s a fair question: why pay for your own website too? The honest answer is that the two do different jobs, and the tradespeople who win online use both. Here’s the straight version, with no sales spin.

What the directories are good at

Lead platforms put you in front of people who are ready to hire, and they handle the reviews and the ranking for you. For a newer trade business, that’s genuinely useful, and worth keeping. The catch is what you give up for it.

What you give up by relying on them alone

• You’re rented, not owned. Your profile lives on their platform. They set the rules, the fees and who appears above you, and they can change any of it tomorrow.
• You’re ranked against your competitors. Every directory page shows the customer three or four other trades right next to you. You’re paying to appear in a shortlist you don’t control.
• You pay per lead, forever. Many platforms charge for each lead whether or not you win the job, and those costs never stop. A website is a one-off build you then own.
• You miss the searches they don’t cover. Plenty of people skip the directories and Google “electrician in [town]” or “emergency plumber near me” directly. If you have no site, you’re invisible for those, and they’re some of the best jobs.

What your own website does that a directory can’t

Your own site is an asset you own outright. It’s where a customer checks you out before they call, whether they found you on a directory, a van sign or word of mouth. It captures the direct Google searches the platforms don’t, it shows your work and accreditations the way you want, and once it’s built there’s no per-lead fee. It’s also the one place the customer is looking at only you, with no competitor in the frame.

This matters more every year. As Google shifts to AI answers and fewer plain search results, the businesses that own a direct relationship with their customers, their own site and their own contacts, are the ones that stay in control. Renting your entire presence from a platform is the risky option, not the safe one.

The sensible setup

Keep the directories while they pay their way, and build your own website as the home base everything points to. Put your site on your van, your quotes and your directory profiles, so the audience you’re paying to reach also becomes an audience you own. For most trades that own site starts at a fixed £495.

Want yours built? See our guides for electricians, plumbers and builders, or the main websites for tradespeople page. Not sure your current site is pulling its weight? Get a free website review and we’ll tell you the three things to fix.