Do I need a website if I use Checkatrade or MyBuilder? Honest answer

It's a fair question, and if you're paying £80-£120 a month for Checkatrade — or burning credits on MyBuilder, Bark and Rated People — you deserve a straight answer, not a sales pitch from either side.

Short version: you can get work from those platforms without a website, but they are rented leads, not owned enquiries. Most trades who stick around end up with both: the platforms for short-term volume and a simple website for long-term compounding and trust. Here's the maths, the psychology, and the point where owning your own makes more sense — written from the point of view of someone who talks to joiners, plumbers and roofers about this literally every week.

What Checkatrade / MyBuilder actually sell you

It's not customers. It's access to people looking right now, ranked by who pays and who responds fastest.

• Checkatrade: annual membership (£700-£1,200+ depending on trade and area) for a profile that ranks on Checkatrade's directory. You get seen when people search on Checkatrade, not necessarily on Google. Leads are not guaranteed — you're still competing with three others in the list.
• MyBuilder / Bark / Rated People: pay per lead or per credit. You pay to quote. Whether you win or not, the credit is gone. In busy trades you can spend £30-£80 to quote one job and lose it to someone cheaper or faster.

None of that is inherently bad. If you need a job tomorrow, a directory can put you in front of people tomorrow. A website can't. That's the trade-off. We explain that realistic timeline honestly in how many enquiries a trade site really brings in — months 1-2 are quiet, months 3-6 start to move.

What they don't give you

Three things that matter over a year, not just a week.

1. Trust beyond the platform. Customers don't just search on Checkatrade. They Google your name after a mate recommends you. They tap your van URL. They check you at 9pm on the sofa. If the only thing they find is a directory profile with three photos, they call the next person with a proper site. A simple site with recent photos and Google reviews is your credibility engine — it's what stops work walking away. That's why a site plus GBP plus reviews is the formula we repeat in what you need to rank.

2. Ownership. Stop paying Checkatrade and you vanish from Checkatrade. Stop buying credits and you vanish from Bark. It's rented visibility. Your website, once it's ranked locally, keeps bringing a trickle without you paying per click to someone else. That trickle compounds — two enquiries a month this quarter can become eight next quarter because of reviews and freshness. With directories, next month starts at zero again.

3. Margin. Directory leads are shared or competed hard. You often discount to win them. Own-site enquiries find you specifically — "roofer in Bolton, free quote" with your photos and your reviews — so you keep margin. One builder in Oldham told us he was winning one in four MyBuilder jobs at a lower price, but one in two own-site enquiries near his asking price. The close rate matters more than the lead count.

Let's do the real money maths

Take a typical one-man electrician.

• Checkatrade ~£85/month = £1,020 a year.
• MyBuilder credits ~£60/month average = £720 a year.
• Combined ~£1,740 a year, every year, to stay where you are. Stop and it stops.

Same electrician with a ToolStay site: £29.99/month = £360 a year, everything included, and after month six it's earning its own enquiries that you don't pay per lead for. After 12 months you've spent £360 versus £1,740, and you've built an asset — content, photos, reviews, rankings — that carries into next year. Even after you factor in time to get reviews, the maths remains - own-site enquiries are yours to keep. This is the same comparison as £2k vs £29.99/month but applied to directories — the big cheque today versus the small compounding cost.

When directories DO make sense

I'm not anti-directory. If you just went self-employed last month, need cash flow this fortnight, or you're in a new town where no one knows you, MyBuilder can get you quoting tomorrow. That's genuinely useful. We tell new sparks and plumbers: take the directory hit for three months for cash flow while the site and GBP bed in. Then taper credits as own enquiries grow. Use the directory as a bridge, not a crutch.

Directories also suit if you don't want to think about marketing at all. You answer notifications and quote. No site to keep fresh. The price you pay is margin and dependence.

When a website wins outright

Any of these sound familiar? The website pulls ahead:

• You get word-of-mouth but people can't find you properly afterwards — they Google you and find nothing convincing.
• You want bigger jobs (extensions, rewires, bathrooms at £3k-£15k) where customers comparison-shop properly and read.
• You already pay for directories and wonder why you have to pay again each month just to stay level.
• You want to be found for "[trade] in [your town]" without paying every time someone clicks.
• You have even five good photos and three reviews — that's enough to beat most "welcome to our website" homepages.

Builder example: we talk about that in builder costs. A single case study page for "single-storey extension Stockport" with photos and cost guidance outperforms any directory profile for that search — because Google ranks your site for that specific intent, not a directory page with 40 names.

The hybrid most trades actually end up with

Here's what the trades who look relaxed about leads have in common: they run both for a while, then let the math decide.

• Month 1-3: site live, GBP tidied, 5-10 reviews banked. Directory still on for cash flow.
• Month 4-8: own enquiries start - 3-6 a month, then 6-10. Track close rate. Own-site usually closes higher and at better margin.
• Month 9-12: decide. Many keep a light directory profile for bursts (storms, July rush) but drop the spend. The site plus GBP becomes the base, directory becomes top-up.

That path also protects you if a platform changes fees or your area gets flooded with competitors. One plumber in Leeds who relied solely on Rated People watched his cost per lead double in six months when three new plumbers joined his postcode. His site kept him sane.

If you keep one directory, make it work harder

Link it to your own site. Put your website URL on every directory profile, van, invoice and social. Ask customers who found you on Checkatrade to review you on Google as well — that's the review that helps your own site rank, not just your directory rank. And keep your site's hours, number and photos identical to your profile — that consistency is what Google trusts.

So — do you need a website if you use Checkatrade or MyBuilder?

You don't need one to get work next week. You need one if you want cheaper, higher-margin enquiries that compound next quarter, and a place that makes every recommendation and every directory lead more likely to convert. Over a year, a £29.99/month site that stays current — see why freshness matters and how we keep it fresh — costs a third of a single directory, and you own the asset.

Ask yourself: if you paused your directory tomorrow, would your phone still ring next month? If the answer is no, it's time to own your own. Have a look at pricing, or better, tell us your trade and towns and we'll show you, honestly, whether your area is better served by GBP + site alone or a hybrid for six months.