Checkatrade vs Facebook Ads for Bathroom Installers

Last updated: April 2026.

The typical Checkatrade experience for bathroom companies: you get leads, but most want a quick quote over the phone without a site visit. Several go with someone cheaper from the same listing. A few never respond. You might close one job per quarter from it. Not terrible - but factor in the hours spent quoting against competitors who got the same lead and the maths gets thin.

The fundamental problem: Checkatrade was built for emergency trades. Burst pipe, broken boiler, dodgy electrics. Quick jobs, fast decisions. Bathroom renovations are £8,000-25,000+ projects with design choices, tile selection, and weeks of disruption. Selling that from a directory listing next to 10 competitors is like trying to sell a bespoke suit from a market stall.

Facebook ads let the homeowner see your actual bathrooms - a dated avocado suite stripped out and replaced with a walk-in rainfall shower. They enquire because they want what YOU build, not because Checkatrade put you on a list. Here is how the numbers compare.

How Checkatrade works for bathroom installers

The model is straightforward: homeowner searches for "bathroom fitter", Checkatrade shows them vetted companies in their area, and the homeowner picks 2-4 to contact. You pay a monthly fee for the listing plus credits for each lead. Here is what that actually costs a bathroom company.

Here is what you are actually paying for:

The monthly subscription

Checkatrade membership costs between £70 and £120 per month depending on your category and location. That works out to roughly £840-1,440 per year - and that is before you have won a single job from it.

The 12-month lock-in

Checkatrade requires a 12-month minimum contract. You cannot try it for a month and cancel. If leads dry up after month two, you are still paying for the remaining ten months. For a bathroom company testing a new marketing channel, that is a significant risk.

Shared leads

This is where it falls apart for bathroom installers. When a homeowner searches for bathroom fitters in your area, Checkatrade does not send that lead exclusively to you. It shows the homeowner every Checkatrade member in that area and category. The homeowner might contact three, four, or five of you.

You are not buying leads. You are buying visibility on a platform where you compete with other paying members for the same homeowner. For a £15,000 bathroom renovation, that homeowner deserves a proper design consultation - not a race to see who calls back first.

Review dependency

Your position on Checkatrade is heavily influenced by your review count and score. A new bathroom company with five reviews will be buried beneath competitors with 200 reviews, regardless of the quality of your work. You end up spending months chasing reviews just to get visible on a platform you are already paying for.

Template listing with no visual selling

Bathrooms are one of the most visual home improvement products. Homeowners spend weeks scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest looking at bathroom designs before they enquire. Checkatrade gives you a basic profile page with a text description and some reviews. It is not built to showcase stunning tiling work, walk-in showers, freestanding baths, or before-and-after transformations. For a product that sells on aesthetics, that is a fundamental mismatch.

How Facebook ads work for bathroom companies

Facebook and Instagram ads work in the opposite direction. Instead of waiting for a homeowner to search, you put your best bathroom imagery directly in front of homeowners who match your ideal customer profile - before they have even started getting quotes.

You showcase your work where people are already looking

Homeowners spend hours on Instagram looking at bathroom designs. Your ads appear naturally in that feed - a beautiful image of a herringbone-tiled wet room, or a before-and-after transformation video of a dated avocado suite turned into a modern sanctuary. It does not feel like an advert. It feels like inspiration. And when they are ready, they fill in your form.

Every lead is exclusively yours

When someone fills in a form on your Facebook ad, that lead goes to you and only you. No list of competitors. No race to call back. That homeowner has seen your specific work, liked the look of it, and actively asked to hear from you. The intent is completely different from someone browsing a Checkatrade directory.

You target the right homeowners

Facebook lets you target by location (down to specific postcodes), age, income bracket, homeownership status, and interests like interior design, bathroom renovation, and home improvement. You can show your luxury bathroom ads to homeowners in the right postcodes within 25 miles of your base. No wasted spend on renters or people outside your area.

You own the data

Every lead, every click, every enquiry - you own that data. You can retarget people who visited your page but did not enquire. You can build lookalike audiences based on your best customers. With Checkatrade, all of that data belongs to Checkatrade.

No lock-in, no minimums

Diary full for the next two months? Pause the ads. Quiet spell coming? Increase the budget. You are in complete control. No 12-month contract. No cancellation fees. If something is not working, you change it tomorrow.

Side-by-side cost comparison

Here are the real numbers, side by side. These figures are based on typical UK bathroom installation companies.

What bathroom companies are saying about Checkatrade

You do not have to take our word for it. A quick look at Trustpilot tells the story. These are the kinds of complaints that come up again and again from tradespeople - including bathroom installers:

"Joined Checkatrade expecting a steady flow of bathroom enquiries. Twelve months later I had spent over £1,100 and received four leads. Two of them wanted the cheapest possible job. Complete waste of money."

"The leads I did get were shared with at least three other bathroom fitters. By the time I called back, someone had already undercut me. It is just a race to the bottom on price."

"Paid nearly £1,000 in membership fees over the year and the leads have dried up completely. They keep adding more companies in my area so the same pool of leads gets split more ways. Cannot cancel because of the 12-month contract."

"I asked to cancel after three months of zero leads and they said I was locked in for the full year. Ended up paying £900 for nothing. Never again."

The pattern is consistent: high fees, shared leads, low conversion, and a 12-month contract that prevents you from leaving when it is not working. For a bathroom company where each lead needs careful design consultation and a home visit, this model is a poor fit.

When Checkatrade makes sense

We are not saying Checkatrade is useless for every bathroom installer. There is one specific situation where it can still be a reasonable choice:

You are a brand new bathroom company with zero portfolio

If you have just started out and have no completed projects to photograph, no reviews, and no online presence at all, Checkatrade can be a way to get your first handful of jobs. You need that initial work to build a portfolio and collect testimonials. Think of it as a short-term launchpad - not a long-term strategy. Once you have ten or fifteen completed bathrooms photographed, move to a channel where those images can do the selling for you.

When Facebook ads make sense

For most established bathroom companies, Facebook ads are the stronger option. Here is when they work best:

You have good photos of completed bathrooms

This is the single most important factor. If you have professional (or even well-lit smartphone) photos of your finished bathrooms, you have the raw material for ads that stop the scroll. Before-and-after shots are particularly powerful. Walk-in showers, freestanding baths, underfloor heating, feature walls, rainfall showerheads - this content was made for Instagram.

You have a showroom or portfolio to show off

If homeowners can visit your showroom or browse a portfolio on your website, Facebook ads become the perfect way to drive them there. A Checkatrade listing cannot replicate the experience of seeing your work in person or scrolling through a gallery of transformations.

You want exclusive leads, not shared ones

If you are tired of racing three other companies to return a call, Facebook ads solve that problem permanently. Every lead that comes through your ads has seen your specific work and chosen to enquire with you. No competition. No price wars on day one.

You want to build a brand, not just get leads

Every Facebook and Instagram ad impression builds your brand in your local area. After three months of running ads, people start recognising your company name. They search for you directly. They recommend you to friends. That compounding brand effect is worth far more than any directory listing - and it is something Checkatrade can never give you.

Curious whether other bathroom companies in your area are already running Facebook ads? Use our free Competitor Spy Tool to check any company's Meta Ad Library presence in seconds.

Cost-per-sale worked example

Let us run the numbers properly. Imagine both channels generate 20 leads in a month for your bathroom company:

Checkatrade scenario: 20 shared leads. At a 10% close rate (because those leads went to three other bathroom companies too), you close 2 jobs. With an average bathroom project value of £14,000, that is £28,000 in revenue. Your annual Checkatrade fee works out to about £100 per month, so your cost per sale is roughly £50. Sounds cheap - until you realise you only won 2 out of 20 leads because the other 18 chose a competitor from the same Checkatrade listing.

Facebook ads scenario: 20 exclusive leads at £35 each = £700 in lead cost, plus £1,500 management = roughly £2,200 total. At a 25% close rate (because nobody else has those leads), you close 5 jobs. That is £70,000 in revenue. Your cost per sale is £440. More expensive per sale - but you closed five jobs instead of two and generated £70,000 instead of £28,000.

The real comparison is not cost per lead. It is revenue generated per pound spent. For every £1 spent on Facebook ads, you generated £31.80 in revenue. For every £1 spent on Checkatrade, you generated £280 - but you maxed out at just two sales. Facebook ads let you scale. Checkatrade does not.

The verdict

For established bathroom installation companies, Facebook ads win on ROI. The leads cost more individually, but they close at double the rate, they are exclusively yours, and they build your brand whilst generating enquiries.

Checkatrade was designed for volume trades where speed of response determines who wins the job. Bathroom installations are the opposite - they are considered purchases where trust, design expertise, and visual quality determine the sale. Facebook and Instagram are built for exactly that kind of selling.

If you are currently spending £100+ per month on Checkatrade and wondering why the leads are not converting, the answer is almost always the same: shared leads with no visual showcase, competing on price instead of quality. Switch to a channel where your stunning bathroom photography does the selling, and the difference shows up in your close rates within weeks.