- Checkatrade is membership-for-visibility; Rated People combines a subscription with per-lead credits for jobs homeowners post — you pay twice-over for access, but control which jobs you chase.
- On both, several firms can contact the same homeowner, so your callback and follow-up discipline sets the real cost per booked job.
- For survey-led, big-ticket work, the exclusive pay-per-booked-survey model — MyTradeBuddy — usually beats both on cost per job, because no competitor ever holds the same enquiry.
The short answer
Checkatrade is the bigger consumer brand: you pay a membership quoted for your trade and area, homeowners find your vetted profile, and enquiries come to you directly. Rated People works from the other end: homeowners post jobs, and your subscription plus lead credits buys you access to express interest in the ones you choose.
Choose Checkatrade for always-on visibility and review-led credibility, if your patch's listing page isn't already crowded. Choose Rated People if you want to pick your jobs and can win callback races. And if most of your revenue comes from surveys and big-ticket jobs, read the last section first — the shared-lead mechanic both platforms run is exactly where that work leaks margin.
Costs: one bill vs two
Checkatrade's cost is a single recurring membership, quoted individually — get a price for your postcode rather than trusting forum figures, and diarise the renewal, because rising renewal quotes are the most common complaint trades raise about membership directories.
Rated People layers a base subscription with credits spent per lead, so your monthly cost moves with how many jobs you chase. That flexibility is real, but so is the failure mode: paying subscription plus credits in a month where the leads you bought didn't answer or went to a faster competitor.
Neither pricing page tells you the number that matters. Run one honest month on either — total spend divided by jobs actually booked — and compare that against your average job's margin. The method is in our is Checkatrade worth it? cost-per-booked-job guide.
Lead quality and the race dynamics
Checkatrade enquiries arrive warmer on average — the homeowner found and chose your profile — but volume depends on your patch, your reviews and how many competitors sit beside you on the results page. Count them before you sign; it's the single best predictor of what membership will be worth.
Rated People jobs are posted to the platform, not to you, and several firms can buy in. Response speed decides most of them: by the time a lead is four hours old, the homeowner has usually spoken to someone. If your working day doesn't allow near-instant callbacks, credits become an expensive way to arrive second.
On both platforms, follow-up after first contact is where firms diverge most. The quote that gets chased politely on day 2 and day 7 wins against the quote that was sent and forgotten — a discipline gap that has nothing to do with which platform you chose. Our lead generation guide covers the follow-up system that fixes it.
When neither is the answer
Both platforms share the same structural fact: the homeowner can be in play with several firms, and the platform is paid regardless of who wins. For quick call-outs that's a tolerable tax. For boiler replacements, bathrooms, re-roofs and heat pumps — jobs won through a survey visit — a shared enquiry lost to a faster caller is hundreds of pounds of margin gone, repeatedly.
That's the case for the exclusive model: demand generated for one business per area, every enquiry answered instantly and qualified, chased across the whole decision window, and billed per booked survey. MyTradeBuddy runs that model for UK trades; the honest trade-offs are that it's built for survey-led work rather than £80 jobs, and one-business-per-area means your patch may already be taken.
The pragmatic setup many firms land on: keep whichever directory already pays its way for reviews and credibility, put an answering-and-follow-up system behind everything, and let an exclusive pipeline fill the survey diary. Whatever mix you pick, judge each channel by the same number — cost per booked job — and re-run it quarterly.
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Frequently asked questions
Checkatrade suits firms wanting always-on, review-led visibility in an uncrowded patch; Rated People suits firms that want to choose their jobs and can call back within minutes. Neither is universally better — compare local competition, run a month, and divide spend by jobs booked.
Rated People combines a base subscription with credits spent per lead you choose to contact, so monthly costs scale with how many jobs you chase. Check current pricing directly — and budget for the leads you'll pay for but not win, because several firms can buy the same job.
Yes — homeowners post a job and several tradespeople can express interest, with the homeowner shortlisting from responders. Shared access is the model on Checkatrade too. Exclusive enquiries exist only where demand is generated for one business per area, as in pay-per-booked-survey systems like MyTradeBuddy.
It depends on the goal: Google Local Services Ads and a strong Google Business Profile for owned visibility; other marketplaces if you just want different shared leads; or an outcome-priced exclusive pipeline (pay per booked survey) if your work is big-ticket and survey-led. Our Checkatrade alternatives guide compares the full list.