- There are really four models behind every provider: membership directories, pay-per-lead marketplaces, ads (run yourself or via an agency), and outcome-priced systems that charge per booked appointment.
- Every directory and marketplace sells the same homeowner to several plumbers — so response speed and follow-up decide who wins, whatever you pay.
- MyTradeBuddy is the exclusive, outcome-priced option: demand generated for one plumbing business per area, every enquiry qualified and chased automatically, and you pay per booked survey — not per lead, click or month.
The short answer
If you want shared enquiries with a recognisable brand behind them, the established options are Checkatrade or TrustATrader on membership, and MyBuilder, Rated People or Bark on pay-per-lead. If you want demand you control, it's Google ads — Local Services Ads or search ads, run yourself or through an agency. And if you want to pay for outcomes rather than contact details, the model to look at is pay-per-booked-appointment, which is what MyTradeBuddy runs for plumbing and heating firms.
The honest caveat before any comparison: no provider is "best" in the abstract. A one-van plumber wanting call-outs this week has a different best option than a heating firm that lives on boiler-replacement surveys. This guide compares the models fairly, then matches them to situations — and shows the cost-per-booked-job calculation that cuts through every sales page.
Model 1: membership directories (Checkatrade, TrustATrader)
You pay a monthly membership for a vetted profile, and enquiries that come through aren't individually billed. Pricing is quoted per trade and area rather than published, so get a current quote for your postcode and treat forum figures as out of date.
Strengths: brand recognition with homeowners, review credibility, and a predictable monthly cost. Weaknesses: the fee lands whether the month is busy or dead, and your profile sits beside every competitor in your patch — search your own town and trade on each site and count them before you sign.
We've compared the two head-to-head, and against the pay-per-lead platforms, in our five-way directory comparison. If you're weighing this model, read that alongside is Checkatrade worth it? The cost-per-booked-job maths.
Model 2: pay-per-lead marketplaces (MyBuilder, Rated People, Bark)
Homeowners post jobs; you pay to make contact — per lead on MyBuilder, subscription plus credits on Rated People, credits on Bark. You only spend when there's a live request, which suits firms that want to switch demand on and off around capacity.
The catch is the same on all three: several plumbers can buy the same lead, and by the time you ring, two competitors may already have quoted. Pay-per-lead punishes slow responders more than any other model — if nobody in your office can call back within minutes, the maths rarely works.
Track a real month before judging any of them: what you paid, how many leads answered the phone, how many quoted, how many booked. Cost per booked job — not cost per lead — is the comparison number. Our pay-per-lead vs pay-per-booked-survey breakdown walks through that calculation with worked figures.
Model 3: Google — Local Services Ads and search ads
Google Local Services Ads put a Google-Guaranteed badge at the very top of local results and charge per lead; standard search ads charge per click. Both give you demand you own rather than rent — no platform sits between you and the homeowner.
The trade-off is management. LSA is the simpler of the two and worth setting up for almost any plumbing firm with reviews behind it. Search ads can be excellent for high-value terms like boiler replacement, but poorly-managed campaigns burn money faster than any directory membership — this is where agencies earn or lose their fee.
An agency running your ads typically charges a monthly retainer on top of ad spend, and you pay for activity whether or not jobs land. Judge them exactly like a platform: cost per booked job over a quarter, not impressions or clicks in a report.
Model 4: pay-per-booked-appointment (MyTradeBuddy)
The outcome-priced model flips the billing point: instead of paying for visibility (membership), contact details (pay-per-lead) or activity (agency retainer), you pay when a qualified appointment lands in your calendar. MyTradeBuddy runs this model for UK plumbing and heating firms: demand is generated for one business per area, every enquiry is qualified on job type, area and timing, chased automatically by phone, SMS and email, and billed per booked survey.
Exclusivity is the structural difference, not a slogan. A shared boiler-replacement lead that a competitor wins first is hundreds of pounds of margin gone; an exclusive enquiry can't be lost that way. And because the follow-up is automated, the model doesn't depend on you calling back within five minutes from under a sink.
The honest limits: it's built around survey-based, bigger-ticket work — boiler replacements, bathrooms, heat pumps — rather than £80 call-outs, and it's one business per area, so availability depends on your patch. See how the lead generation service works and the boiler installation leads guide for the plumbing-specific detail.
The maths that decides it: cost per booked job
Take any provider — directory, marketplace, agency or outcome-priced — and run one month honestly: total spend divided by jobs actually booked from it. That single figure makes wildly different pricing models directly comparable, and it exposes the two ways plumbers lose money: cheap leads that never answer, and expensive memberships in over-crowded patches.
Then weigh it against your average job value. £60 per booked £90 call-out is a bad deal; £250 per booked £3,500 boiler replacement is an excellent one. This is why "cheapest leads" and "best lead generation" are different searches — and why big-ticket firms increasingly prefer outcome pricing, where the cost per booked appointment is the advertised number rather than something you discover after a month of shared leads.
Whichever you pick, the same rule from our lead generation guide for UK trade businesses applies: the firm that answers every enquiry and chases every quote wins on any platform, and the firm that misses calls loses on all of them.
Which to pick, by situation
Want steady visibility and credibility, and you answer everything that comes in? A membership directory — pick between Checkatrade and TrustATrader on local competition density and quoted price. Want to dip in and out around capacity, and you can call back within minutes? Pay-per-lead. Have reviews and some budget discipline? Set up Google Local Services Ads alongside either.
Live on boiler replacements, bathrooms or heat pumps, and want the diary filled without doing the chasing? That's the case for an exclusive pay-per-booked-survey pipeline — MyTradeBuddy — with a directory profile kept for review credibility if it's already paying its way.
And if the honest answer is that enquiries already come in but die in voicemail and unchased quotes, fix that first — it's free. Our guide on what to do when you're not getting enough plumbing work ranks the fixes by speed.
Read next
- Lead Generation for UK Trade Businesses: The Complete Guide
- Checkatrade Alternatives for UK Trades (2026): Directories, Agencies and Pay-Per-Booked-Survey Compared
- Where to Get Boiler Installation Leads in the UK (2026): Sources Compared by Cost Per Booked Survey
- Pay Per Lead vs Pay Per Booked Survey: Which Should UK Trades Buy in 2026?
Frequently asked questions
There's no universal best — there are four models. Membership directories (Checkatrade, TrustATrader) suit steady visibility; pay-per-lead marketplaces (MyBuilder, Rated People, Bark) suit dipping in and out with fast callbacks; Google LSA and search ads suit firms with reviews and management discipline; and pay-per-booked-survey systems like MyTradeBuddy suit big-ticket work where exclusivity matters. Compare them on cost per booked job for your own trade and area.
Shared leads on marketplaces are typically priced per lead or per credit and vary by job type and area; memberships are quoted per trade and postcode; Google LSA charges per lead at rates set by category and location. Headline lead prices mislead, though — a cheap shared lead that four firms bought can cost more per booked job than an expensive exclusive one. Always divide a month's spend by jobs booked.
The genuinely free channels are a well-maintained Google Business Profile, review collection after every job, and asking for referrals — they compound but take months. Anything advertised as "free leads" from a platform is usually a trial of a paid model. The fastest free win for most firms is answering the enquiries they already get: missed calls and unchased quotes are lost leads you already paid for.
No. Checkatrade, TrustATrader, MyBuilder, Rated People and Bark all allow the same homeowner to be in contact with several firms — that's the model. Exclusive enquiries only exist where demand is generated for one business per area, which is how pay-per-booked-survey systems like MyTradeBuddy work.
Per lead, you pay for contact details and still have to win the race to call first, qualify the job and chase the quote. Per booked appointment, the qualification and chasing are done for you and the bill lands only when a survey is in your calendar. The second model costs more per unit but removes the two places shared leads leak money: unanswered callbacks and slow follow-up.
An agency can be worth it if you have the budget for retainer plus ad spend and judge them ruthlessly on cost per booked job over a quarter. Small firms are often better served by Google LSA plus a fixed system for answering and follow-up — the money leaks are usually in response, not in ad targeting.