Checkatrade vs Facebook Ads for Home Improvement: Real Numbers Compared

If you run a home improvement company in the UK - windows, doors, conservatories, extensions, garden rooms - you have almost certainly tried Checkatrade at some point. It is the default. Someone tells you to "get on Checkatrade" and you sign up, pay your monthly fee, and wait for the phone to ring.

And it does ring. Sometimes. But so does the phone of every other company in your area who is also paying Checkatrade for the same leads.

We speak to home improvement companies every week, and the same frustration comes up again and again: "We are paying for leads, but so are four other companies. By the time we call back, someone else has already booked the job."

So the question is not whether Checkatrade works at all - it clearly does generate some business. The question is whether there is a better way to spend that money. A way where the leads are exclusively yours, where you build your own brand, and where you are not racing three other installers to return a phone call.

That is exactly what we are going to compare in this article. Real numbers. No fluff. Checkatrade vs Facebook ads for home improvement companies - and which one actually delivers better value for money in 2026.

How Checkatrade actually works (and what it costs)

Checkatrade is a lead generation platform. Homeowners search for a trade, Checkatrade shows them a list of vetted companies, and the homeowner contacts one or more of them. It is straightforward and it has been around since 1998, so most homeowners recognise the name.

Here is what you are actually paying for:

The monthly membership

Checkatrade membership costs between £70 and £120 per month depending on your trade category and location. Some specialist categories like windows and conservatories sit at the higher end. That works out to roughly £840-1,440 per year - and here is the important bit - that is before you factor in whether you actually win any work from it.

The 12-month lock-in

Checkatrade requires a 12-month minimum contract. You cannot try it for a month and cancel if it does not work. You are committed for the full year. If the leads dry up after month three, you are still paying for months four through twelve.

How leads are distributed

This is where it gets tricky. When a homeowner searches for, say, "window installers in Reading", Checkatrade does not send that lead exclusively to one company. It shows the homeowner a list of every Checkatrade member in that area and category. The homeowner might contact two, three, or four of you.

So you are not buying leads. You are buying visibility on a platform where you compete with other paying members for the same homeowner's attention. That is a crucial distinction.

The reviews system

One genuine advantage of Checkatrade is the reviews system. Verified reviews build trust, and homeowners do read them. But here is the catch - those reviews live on Checkatrade's platform, not yours. If you ever leave Checkatrade, you leave your reviews behind. You have spent years building up their platform, not your own.

How Facebook ads work for home improvement companies

Facebook and Instagram ads work differently from Checkatrade in almost every way. Instead of waiting for a homeowner to search for your trade, you put your work directly in front of homeowners who match your ideal customer profile - before they have even started looking for quotes.

Here is how it works in practice for a home improvement company:

You choose exactly who sees your ads

Facebook lets you target by location, age, income bracket, homeownership status, property type, and interests. So if you install conservatories in Surrey, you can show your ads specifically to homeowners aged 35-65 in Surrey who live in detached or semi-detached houses. No wasted spend on renters or people outside your area.

You control the creative

Your ads show photos and videos of your actual installations, with your branding and your message. This is not a listing on a directory. This is your own advert, appearing in the Facebook and Instagram feeds of your ideal customers alongside posts from their friends and family. It feels native. It does not feel like an advert.

Every lead is exclusively yours

When someone fills in a form on your Facebook ad or clicks through to your website, that lead goes to you and only you. There is no list of competitors. There is no race to call back first. That homeowner has seen your work, liked the look of it, and actively asked to hear from you.

You build your own brand

Every time your ad appears in someone's feed - even if they do not click - they see your company name, your logo, and your work. Over time, you become the company people think of when they decide to get new windows or a conservatory. That brand recognition has compounding value. Checkatrade builds Checkatrade's brand. Facebook ads build yours.

You can scale up or down instantly

Busy month and your diary is full? Pause the ads. Quiet patch coming up? Increase the budget. There is no 12-month lock-in. You are in control of how much you spend and when you spend it. If something is not working, you change it tomorrow - not in twelve months when your contract expires.

Side-by-side cost comparison

Let us put real numbers next to each other. This comparison is based on typical figures we see for UK home improvement companies - window and door installers, conservatory builders, extension companies, and garden room suppliers.

At first glance, Checkatrade looks cheaper. £100 a month vs £2,000 a month - that is a big difference. But the cost per lead is only half the story. What actually matters is the cost per sale - how much you spend to win an actual paying job.

Let us work through an example. Say you are a window installation company and both channels generate 20 leads in a month:

Checkatrade scenario: 20 shared leads at £25 each = £500 in effective lead cost. At a 12% close rate (because those leads were also sent to three other companies), you close 2.4 jobs. Your cost per sale is roughly £208.

Facebook ads scenario: 20 exclusive leads at £33 each = £660 in lead cost. At a 28% close rate (because nobody else has that lead), you close 5.6 jobs. Your cost per sale is roughly £118.

The Facebook leads cost more individually, but because they close at double the rate, you end up paying less per actual job won. And you got more than twice as many sales from the same number of leads.

The hidden cost of shared leads

The close rate difference is not just about lead quality. There is a deeper problem with shared leads that most Checkatrade members do not think about until it starts costing them real money.

The race to respond

When a homeowner submits an enquiry through Checkatrade, multiple companies get notified. The first company to call back has a massive advantage. Studies consistently show that the first responder wins the job 35-50% of the time. If you are the second or third company to call, your chances drop dramatically.

This creates an unhealthy dynamic. You end up glued to your phone, dropping everything to call back leads within minutes, because if you wait even an hour, someone else has already booked the survey. That is not a sustainable way to run a business.

Price gets driven down

When a homeowner is comparing three or four quotes from Checkatrade companies, price inevitably becomes the deciding factor. It is hard to differentiate on quality when you are one name on a list. So the close rate drops and the margin gets squeezed at the same time. You are not just winning fewer jobs - you are winning them at lower profit.

The "tyre kicker" problem

Checkatrade makes it very easy for homeowners to request quotes. That low barrier means you get a higher proportion of people who are "just getting prices" with no real intention to go ahead. They want three quotes to compare, they choose the cheapest, or they decide not to bother at all. You have spent time and fuel driving to a survey that was never going to convert.

With Facebook ads, the dynamic is different. The homeowner has seen your specific work, liked what they saw, and actively filled in a form to hear from you. They did not just click a button on a directory. They engaged with your brand. That intent gap shows up clearly in close rates.

You are building someone else's moat

Every review you collect on Checkatrade, every job you do well, every happy customer who writes a testimonial - it all builds up Checkatrade's platform, not yours. If you leave after three years, you have nothing to show for it. Your Google reviews, your Facebook reviews, your website testimonials - those stay with you forever. Checkatrade reviews do not.

What about Bark, MyBuilder, and other platforms?

Checkatrade is not the only lead generation platform out there. Many home improvement companies also use Bark, MyBuilder, Rated People, or Trustmark. The core problem is the same with all of them - shared leads - but there are some differences worth noting.

Bark

Bark uses a credit system rather than a monthly fee. You buy credits and spend them to unlock leads. This sounds more flexible, but in practice, the cost per lead can be higher than Checkatrade - often £15-30 per lead that is also sent to multiple companies. The quality is inconsistent, and many tradespeople report a high proportion of leads that go nowhere.

MyBuilder

MyBuilder is popular for smaller trades (plumbers, electricians, decorators) but less relevant for large home improvement projects. Their model is similar - homeowners post a job, multiple tradespeople express interest, and the homeowner picks one. The per-lead cost can be reasonable, but the shared nature remains the fundamental issue.

Rated People

Rated People works similarly to Bark with a pay-per-lead model. Lead costs vary by trade and location, typically £5-20 per lead. Again, leads are shared. The platform is smaller than Checkatrade, which can mean fewer leads but also less competition in some areas.

The common thread

Every one of these platforms has the same structural problem. You are paying to appear on someone else's platform, competing for shared leads, and building their brand instead of your own. The only channel that solves all three of those problems at once is running your own advertising - whether that is Facebook ads, Google Ads, or both.

When Checkatrade still makes sense

We are not saying Checkatrade is worthless. There are specific situations where it can still be the right choice:

You are brand new and need your first jobs

If you have just started your company and have zero reviews, zero portfolio photos, and no online presence, Checkatrade can be a reasonable way to get your first 10-20 jobs. You need that initial work to build a portfolio, collect testimonials, and get some cash flow going. Think of it as a short-term launchpad, not a long-term strategy.

You have no website or social media presence

Facebook ads work best when you have photos of your completed work, a basic website or landing page, and ideally some customer reviews. If you have none of those things, Checkatrade gives you a ready-made profile page that can stand in for a website. But this is a reason to build those assets, not a reason to stay on Checkatrade permanently.

You are a sole trader with very limited capacity

If you only need two or three jobs a month and you are already getting some through word of mouth, the low cost of Checkatrade membership might be all you need to fill the gaps. But the moment you want to grow beyond that - to hire, to expand your area, to take on bigger projects - you will hit Checkatrade's ceiling very quickly.

The transition period

Many of the companies we work with keep their Checkatrade membership running for the first month or two while their Facebook ads ramp up. There is nothing wrong with overlapping. Just make sure you track where each lead comes from so you can compare the numbers honestly. Most companies cancel Checkatrade within three months once they see the difference.

Real results from Facebook ads for home improvement companies

Let us talk about what actually happens when a home improvement company switches from relying on lead platforms to running their own Facebook ads.

Across the campaigns we manage, we consistently see results that would be impossible to achieve through Checkatrade:

• Window and door leads at £33 each - 187 leads in a single campaign, all exclusive, all within the target area
• x13 return on ad spend for window and door campaigns - for every £1 spent, £13 comes back in revenue
• x37 return on ad spend for conservatory campaigns - because the average order value is so much higher, the ROI is extraordinary

To put those numbers in perspective: if you spent £2,000 on Facebook ads and achieved a x13 return, that is £26,000 in revenue from a single month's ad spend. To get the same result from Checkatrade at a £208 cost per sale and a £5,000 average order value, you would need Checkatrade to deliver 5.2 sales in a month from a £100 membership - and with shared leads and a 12% close rate, that would require over 40 leads, which most Checkatrade memberships simply do not deliver.

You can see our full results breakdown on the homepage, including lead volumes, cost per lead, and return on investment across different home improvement categories.

Making the switch: what to expect

If you are currently relying on Checkatrade and considering Facebook ads, here is what a typical transition looks like:

Month one

We set up your campaigns, create the ad creative using photos and videos of your work, and start testing different audiences and messages. Leads start coming in within the first week, but the first month is partly about learning - Facebook's algorithm needs data to optimise. Expect 15-30 leads depending on your budget and area.

Month two

The algorithm has learned who responds best to your ads. Cost per lead typically drops by 15-25% as we cut the audiences and creatives that are not performing and double down on what is working. By now you should be seeing a clear difference in lead quality compared to Checkatrade.

Month three

This is where it gets exciting. Campaigns are optimised, your brand is gaining recognition in your area, and you have a steady flow of exclusive leads coming in. Most companies cancel their Checkatrade membership around this point because the comparison is so clear.

Month six and beyond

Your Facebook page has built up social proof - likes, comments, shares on your ads. Your brand is established in your local market. Homeowners start coming to you directly instead of searching on Google or Checkatrade. The ads are now supplementing an already-growing brand rather than being your only source of leads.

The bottom line

Checkatrade served a purpose when there were fewer options. But in 2026, paying £100 a month to share leads with your competitors whilst building someone else's brand is not the smartest use of your marketing budget.

Facebook ads cost more upfront, but the maths works out in your favour when you look at what actually matters: cost per sale, lead exclusivity, close rates, and long-term brand building.

The home improvement companies that are growing fastest right now are not the ones with the most Checkatrade reviews. They are the ones whose ads appear in local homeowners' feeds every day, showing beautiful photos of their work and making it easy to get in touch.

If you are spending money on Checkatrade and wondering whether there is a better way, there almost certainly is.