No Upfront Lead Fees: How the Model Works
Nothing to join and nothing per enquiry. Where the fee sits instead, how it reaches us, and what it means for your pricing.
How it works
You pay nothing to join and nothing per enquiry. Our fee sits in the customer's quotation, on top of your price.
No membership, no subscription, no joining fee and no charge per lead. No charge for quotations that don't convert either. That is the full list of what you pay to be in the Mortaro network.
Contractors are right to be wary of that. Every business has to earn somewhere, and 'free' usually means the cost has been moved rather than removed. So this page sets out where ours sits, how it reaches us, and what it means for the price you submit.
The short version: you price at trade rate, we add our fee on top in the customer's quotation, and you are paid your rate in full. Nothing is deducted from it. The rest of this page is the detail behind that sentence.
The comparison
What contractors pay before any work arrives
Published UK platform pricing, alongside the upfront cost of the Mortaro network.
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.
Why upfront fees exist
How paid lead models earn their money
Upfront models charge you for access. A per-lead platform charges for each enquiry or connection. A directory charges an annual or monthly fee to be listed. Either way, you pay before you know whether the work is real, and you pay whether or not you win it.
The published figures give the scale: £6 to £30 per connection on Bark, £15 to £60 per lead on MyBuilder and Rated People, £600 to £1,200 a year on Checkatrade, and £10 to £70 for a roofing lead generally. None of those is the number that matters, though. Once you account for the enquiries that never become jobs, the true cost per job won is estimated at £150 to £1,000.
That cost doesn't disappear. It comes out of your margin or it goes into your price, and a higher price is harder to win, which pushes the cost per job up again. Plenty of contractors have been round that loop more than once.
None of this makes the platforms dishonest. They sell access, and they are clear about it. It simply means that the risk of an enquiry not turning into paid work sits entirely with you.
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.
The Mortaro model
Where the fee sits instead
Three steps, and the order matters.
You price at trade rate
You survey the job and put your figure together at trade rate: a full price for the work, without the marketing, sales and admin costs the network carries for you.
Our fee is added on top
We prepare the customer's quotation with our fee added to your figure. The customer receives one professional quotation that names you as the appointed main contractor.
You are paid your rate in full
The deposit and the balance are paid to you through us and passed on without unnecessary delay. Nothing is deducted from your rate.
Aligned interests
We earn when the job goes ahead
The practical effect of the structure is that our income depends on the same things yours does. Because our fee is part of the customer's quotation, an enquiry that never becomes accepted work earns us nothing either.
That changes behaviour. We have every reason to qualify customers properly before they reach you, book visits that actually happen, present your price well, follow quotations up and keep the customer informed. We have no reason to pass the same enquiry to several contractors, and we don't: one contractor is appointed per enquiry. Is the work exclusive? covers that directly.
It also explains why the network is selective and why the standards matter. A platform paid up front has been paid whatever happens to the job. We haven't. Everything we earn depends on reliable contractors doing good work, and on customers being glad they went ahead.
Your pricing
What it means for the price you submit
The fee sitting on top of your rate, rather than being taken out of it, is the part that matters most for your numbers. You don't have to inflate your price to make room for us, and you don't have to accept less than you submitted. The number you send is the number you are paid.
What we do ask is that the number is a genuine trade rate. The customer's quotation includes our fee, and customers compare prices. Because you are no longer recovering marketing, sales and admin costs through each job, the customer can usually be quoted at around what they would expect going direct, with the coordination included. That only holds if your figure is at trade.
We don't publish our fee, for the same reason you don't publish your margins. What is fixed, and what we are happy to explain to anyone, is the mechanism: it is added on top of your rate, it is our own commercial arrangement, and it never comes out of your price. Do you take a percentage of my price? gives the one-line answer.
What you pay, and when
The money, from enquiry to completion
Every point at which money could change hands, and what actually happens at each one.
Joining
Nothing. No application fee, no membership, no subscription.
Receiving an opportunity
Nothing. There is no charge per enquiry, and turning one down costs you nothing either.
Attending the site visit and pricing the job
Your time, as with any survey. No fee. If the customer decides not to go ahead, you owe nothing for the enquiry.
The customer accepts
The customer pays a 25% deposit by bank transfer. It is paid to you through Mortaro, acting as payment administration agent, and passed on without unnecessary delay.
Completion
The balance is paid to you the same way. By the end of the job you have received your rate in full. How and when you get paid sets out the flow in detail.
Side by side
Where the risk sits in each model
The real difference isn't the size of the fee. It is who carries the cost when an enquiry goes nowhere.
Paid upfront
- You pay before the enquiry arrives
- You pay whether or not you win the job
- The same enquiry may go to several trades
- You write, send and chase your own quote
- You collect your own deposit and balance
- Stop paying and the enquiries stop
Through the Mortaro network
- Nothing to pay before, during or after
- No cost to you if the customer doesn't go ahead
- One contractor appointed per enquiry
- We prepare, issue and follow up the quotation
- Deposit and balance passed on without unnecessary delay
- Nothing to renew, because nothing is charged
Why it is built this way
The reasoning behind a fee-on-top model
We could have charged contractors a membership. Plenty of businesses do, and it would be simpler to run. We don't, for two reasons.
The first is that an upfront fee puts the risk on the wrong side. We are the ones qualifying the customer, booking the visit, presenting the quotation and following it up. If any of that is done badly, the job is lost, and it would make little sense for you to have paid for our mistake. With the fee inside the quotation, a job that doesn't go ahead costs you the time you spent on the survey and nothing more.
The second is that it lets us be selective in a way a paid model can't. When contractors pay to join, turning them away means turning away revenue. When they pay nothing, we can hold everyone in the network to the same standards and appoint work on track record alone. That is better for customers, and over time it is better for the contractors who do the work well, because the network's reputation is what keeps the enquiries coming.
It is also a model that only works with contractors who are competitive at trade and reliable on the ground. We would rather say that plainly than have someone join expecting something different.
If it does sound like a fit, the first step is simply telling us about your business. A person reads it, and if it looks right we send the full application and talk through areas, rates and standards. Checks are completed before you are introduced to any customer, and joining costs nothing at any stage. How to join the network explains the process.
No upfront fees does not mean no cost. The cost is that you price at trade rate, you meet the network's standards, and the customer receives the quotation under the Mortaro template rather than your own. For most contractors who have paid for leads, that is the better deal. For some it isn't, and why contractors leave the network is candid about who.
Expectations
What removing the fee changes, and what it can't
Removing the upfront fee removes the risk of paying for work that never comes. It doesn't create work that isn't there. How many opportunities reach you depends on your area, your trade and your track record, and we won't promise a figure. Coverage is UK-wide and confirmed postcode by postcode.
What we can say is that contractors who respond quickly, communicate clearly and complete work well receive more, because allocation follows track record. How opportunities are allocated explains how that works, and why turning a job down carries no penalty.
If you want to see the whole picture of what the fee pays for, what Mortaro handles for contractors lists it stage by stage, and the contractor network hub sets out how the network operates overall.
Straight answers
Questions about fees
Is there really no charge at all?
None to you. No joining fee, membership, subscription or per-lead charge, and nothing for quotations that don't convert. Do you charge for leads? gives the short answer.
Do you take a cut of my price?
No. Our fee is added on top of your trade rate in the customer's quotation. You are paid your rate in full and nothing is deducted from it.
Why don't you publish your fee?
For the same reason contractors don't publish their margins: it is our own commercial arrangement. What we do explain openly is the mechanism, because that is the part that affects you.
What stops you passing my enquiry to other contractors?
The model itself. We appoint one contractor per enquiry and never sell or share it. Our fee only exists inside a quotation that one appointed contractor has priced.
Is there a catch?
There is a trade-off rather than a catch. You price at trade rate, you meet the standards on response times, quoting and site visits, and the customer receives the quotation under the Mortaro template. In return you pay nothing for the work and nothing to run the process around it.
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.