How Much Do Construction Leads Cost in the UK?
Published UK prices for construction leads, what pushes them up or down, and the one number that tells you whether they are worth it.
The short answer
A single construction lead in the UK typically costs somewhere between £6 and £70. The figure worth knowing is what each won job costs you.
Published 2026 pricing puts Bark at £6 to £30 per connection, MyBuilder and Rated People at £15 to £60 per lead, and Checkatrade at £600 to £1,200 a year for membership. Roofing leads generally sit between £10 and £70 each.
Those are the prices of an enquiry, not a job. Some enquiries never reply, some want a price for comparison, and some go to someone else. Once those are counted, the true cost per job won is estimated at £150 to £1,000.
This guide covers what you are paying for under each pricing model, what pushes the price up or down, and how to work out your own cost per job won so you can compare routes on the number that matters.
Published prices
What UK platforms charge contractors
Published 2026 rates for the most commonly used lead platforms, plus roofing leads generally.
Platform pricing as published by Trades Grow, One Base Media, Sleepless Tradesman and SwiftLead, 2026. Rates change, so check current pricing before relying on these figures. Google Ads figures as published by PositionWorks (2025 UK home services benchmarks, roofing) and Aimpro Digital (2026). Click prices vary by area, service and how well the account is run.
Google Ads
What Google Ads really costs a roofer
Running your own ads avoids shared leads, but it is not cheap, and every click is paid for whether or not it becomes work.
You pay for clicks, not customers
UK roofing searches are reported at around £4.50–£9.20 a click. You pay each time someone clicks, whether they ring you, fill in the form or leave straight away.
A monthly budget, not a one-off
A sensible budget for a local single-team roofer is put at £750–£2,500 a month, and £1,000–£1,500 a month is described as the realistic floor for higher-ticket trades. An agency to run the account typically adds £295–£895 or more a month.
Not every lead is a lead
Google itself says its filters cannot stop every invalid lead reaching your forms, and calls lead quality a shared effort. Broad keywords and default settings can spend budget on searches that were never going to become work, so accounts need regular attention.
Even a properly managed roofing account is quoted at roughly £75–£160 per booked job, before your own time on quotes that do not convert. Google Ads figures as published by PositionWorks (2025 UK home services benchmarks, roofing) and Aimpro Digital (2026). Click prices vary by area, service and how well the account is run.
Pricing models
Three ways contractors pay for enquiries
Per lead or per connection. You pay each time you take up an enquiry. MyBuilder and Rated People work on a per-lead basis, and Bark charges per connection with a customer. The appeal is control: you choose which jobs to pay for, and a quiet month costs you little. The drawback is that you pay whether or not the job comes to anything, and on these models the same request is commonly open to more than one trade.
Membership or subscription. You pay a fixed fee to be listed, and customers contact you through the listing. Checkatrade is the best-known example in the UK, at £600 to £1,200 a year on published 2026 pricing. The cost is predictable, but it is paid before any enquiry arrives, and how much work a listing produces depends heavily on your trade, your area and your reviews. Our guide to pay-per-lead vs subscription compares the two models in more depth.
Your own marketing. Paid search, a Google Business Profile, your own site and referrals. There is no price per lead on the tin, because you are paying for clicks, time or design work, and the cost per enquiry only becomes visible once you measure it. Costs vary a great deal by trade and area, so the sensible approach is to test on a small budget and track what each enquiry and each job actually costs. The guide to Google Ads for contractors covers how to do that without overspending.
Platform pricing as published by Trades Grow, One Base Media, Sleepless Tradesman and SwiftLead, 2026. Rates change, so check current pricing before relying on these figures.
What drives the price
Why one lead costs £10 and another costs £60
The published ranges are wide for good reason. Six things move the price of an enquiry.
Your trade
Trades with higher-value jobs, such as roofing and extensions, generally cost more per lead than small handyman work. The platform is pricing the job's likely value, not your chance of winning it.
Your area
Where many firms are competing for the same customers, lead prices tend to rise. Roofing leads are commonly reported at the top of their range in competitive areas.
The size of the job
A full roof replacement enquiry is usually priced higher than a slipped-tile repair. A bigger job carries more potential margin, and the platform prices that in.
How many trades see it
Where an enquiry is open to several firms, each of them pays and only one wins. That doesn't change the price on the page, but it changes what each lead is really worth to you.
How well it's qualified
An enquiry with a clear description, photos and a genuine timescale is worth more than a name and a phone number. Most platforms leave qualification to you.
The time of year
Demand for many trades is seasonal. Enquiries can be plentiful in some months and scarce in others, and that affects both price and competition.
The number that matters
Cost per lead tells you the price. Cost per job won tells you the cost.
A £20 lead sounds cheap until you count how many of them it takes to win a job. If most enquiries don't reply, or reply and choose someone else, every won job is carrying the cost of all the ones that went nowhere. That is how a £15 to £60 lead turns into a true cost per job won estimated at £150 to £1,000.
It is also why two contractors on the same platform can reach opposite conclusions. One responds within the hour, quotes the next day and follows up, and wins a healthy share of what they pay for. Another is on a roof all day, calls back in the evening and quotes a week later. They are paying the same price per lead. Their cost per job won is completely different.
The answer page on what cost per lead means sets out the basic definition. For the full method, including your time and the jobs you lose on price, see the true cost per job won.
Platform pricing as published by Trades Grow, One Base Media, Sleepless Tradesman and SwiftLead, 2026. Rates change, so check current pricing before relying on these figures.
Do the maths
Work out your own cost per job won
You need three months of honest records. Estimates will flatter the result.
Add up what you spent
Every lead charge, membership fee, ad spend and listing upgrade over the period. Include fees you paid for enquiries you never followed up.
Count the enquiries you received
Each lead or contact the spend produced, whether it turned into anything or not.
Count the jobs you actually won
Accepted quotes that went ahead, not quotes sent. A quote the customer never answered is not a win.
Divide spend by jobs won
That is your cost per job won. Compare it against the margin, not the turnover, on a typical job in your trade.
Add your time
Site visits, quoting and chasing for jobs you didn't win are a real cost. Even a rough hourly figure changes the picture, and it is usually the part contractors leave out.
Compare each route separately
Run the same sum for each platform and channel. A route that looks expensive per lead can be the cheapest per job, and the reverse is just as common.
Worth paying for?
What separates a good lead from an expensive one
The price is only half of it. The other half is how likely the enquiry is to become paid work.
Usually worth paying for
- A clear job description, ideally with photos
- Within your normal travel distance
- A job size that suits your firm
- A customer with a realistic timescale
- Few or no other trades on the same enquiry
- One you can respond to quickly
Worth thinking twice about
- A name and a number, nothing more
- Well outside your usual area
- Too small to justify the visit
- No timescale, or 'just getting prices'
- Open to several other firms
- Arrives when you can't reply for hours
Keeping costs down
How contractors lower what each job costs them
Respond fast. On any model where several trades see the same enquiry, the first credible reply has an advantage. If you can't answer during the day, that is worth solving before you spend more on leads. Our guide on why shared leads don't convert explains why speed matters so much.
Be selective. Paying for every lead in range is the quickest way to raise your cost per job. Decide in advance what a good enquiry looks like for your firm and pass on the rest. When is a lead worth paying for? gives a simple test.
Quote properly and follow up. A clear written quote, sent promptly and followed up a few days later, wins more work than a figure sent by text. The work you have already paid to reach is the cheapest work you'll ever win.
Build channels you own. Reviews, referrals and a Google Business Profile cost time rather than a fee per enquiry, and they keep producing work if you stop paying a platform. They are slower to build, which is why most contractors run them alongside paid leads rather than instead of them.
Measure every route. The platforms that suit you are the ones with a cost per job won you are comfortable with. For roofers, how much roofing leads cost looks at that trade specifically, and Checkatrade vs MyBuilder vs Rated People compares the three best-known platforms. Our guide to getting more work as a contractor covers every route side by side.
Pricing and terms change, and each platform sets out how and when it charges in its own terms. Read them before you sign up, check whether there is a minimum term, and note how refunds or credits work if an enquiry turns out to be invalid.
A different model
Where a contractor network fits
Paying per lead or per year isn't the only way to get work. A contractor network, such as Mortaro's, generates the enquiries itself and appoints one contractor to each one. Nothing is paid upfront: no membership, no subscription and no charge per lead.
Instead, you price the job at trade rate, Mortaro adds its fee on top in the customer's quotation, and you are paid your rate in full. Mortaro also books the site visit, prepares and follows up the quotation, and administers the deposit and balance to you without unnecessary delay. No upfront lead fees, explained covers where the fee sits in detail.
It doesn't suit everyone. The customer receives the quotation under the Mortaro template rather than your own, there are standards on response times and site visits, and no network can promise a set volume of work. How contractor networks work sets out the arrangement and its trade-offs.
Straight answers
Questions about lead costs
What is a typical price for a construction lead?
Published 2026 pricing puts most per-lead charges between £6 and £60, with roofing leads generally between £10 and £70. Membership directories such as Checkatrade charge £600 to £1,200 a year instead. Rates change, so check each platform's current pricing.
Are cheaper leads better value?
Not necessarily. A cheap lead shared with several firms can cost more per job won than a dearer one you are likely to convert. Compare routes on cost per job won, not price per lead.
Why are my leads getting more expensive?
Usually because of competition in your trade and area, the size of jobs you are bidding for, or seasonal demand. Our answer on why leads get expensive covers the common causes.
Is it cheaper to do my own marketing?
It can be, once it is established, but it takes time and the cost per enquiry varies widely by trade and area. Test on a small budget and measure the cost per job won before scaling up.
For contractors
Tell us about your business
Your trade, the areas you cover and the size of work you take on. A person reads every enquiry, and if it looks like a fit we will send you the full application.