Last updated 23 September 2026
Construction leads are a list every rival can read.
A construction lead is a project, not a customer: a planning application, a tender or a job a research team has found. Constructionline's Marketplace costs £599 a year. Buildscout starts at £99 plus VAT a month, Planning Pipe at £44.95 and BuildAlert's planning data at £29. Glenigan and Barbour ABI quote each firm separately.
Most of what those services sort is public. Councils have to keep a register of every planning application, and public sector contracts over £12,000 sit on a free government site. The fee buys the searching, the contacts and the private tenders, and every other subscriber on your patch buys the same list.
The free version
Every council in England must keep the list you're being sold.
The planning rules require a register of "every application for planning permission", each entry made within 14 days, and let councils put it online for anyone to inspect. A data service is a faster way to read it. What each service adds.
Where we stand
We don't sell construction leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying construction leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build contractors a website that turns visits into calls, and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, so every lead that comes in is a customer who found you, and nobody else was sold it.
What you are buying
Four things get sold as a construction lead.
None of them is a client asking you to quote. Each one is a project you've been told about, and what separates them is where the information starts and how many other firms can read it.
| Lead | Where it starts | Free to read? | Who else sees it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Planning application | The council planning register | Yes, on the council website | Anyone who looks |
| Public tender | A government body or agency | Yes, no account needed | Every firm that bids |
| Private tender or EOI | A main contractor with a package to let | No, through Constructionline | Members pricing that trade |
| Researched project | A seller's research team | No, by subscription | Every subscriber on that patch |
What a planning application lead is
Under article 40 of the Development Management Procedure Order 2015, each planning authority in England "must keep, in two parts, a register" of the applications for its area, add each one within 14 days, and may publish it on its website. A planning lead is a line from that register: the site, the proposal, the applicant or their agent, often the drawings. Selling it doesn't make it private. A seller can only make it quicker to find, and some add names and numbers their researchers have rung round for.
Public tenders cost nothing to find
gov.uk's Contracts Finder lists government contracts worth over £12,000 including VAT, and says "You can still search and apply for contracts without an account." High value work, usually above £139,688, goes on Find a Tender. Scotland has Public Contracts Scotland, Wales has Sell2Wales, and Northern Ireland has eSourcing NI and eTendersNI. If a paid service shows you a public sector tender, check it against these sites, where it costs nothing.
Nobody sells a project to one firm
Barbour ABI says 3,000 companies use its platform. Buildscout counted 2,737 leads in Essex in 90 days, and every subscriber who draws a campaign round Essex sees that same 2,737. A project list is sold to as many firms as will pay.
Homeowner work is a different guide
If you want a householder who has asked for a builder, that's builder leads, where the letters to planning applicants are covered too. For every other trade that buys leads, start with our trade leads guide.
Before paying for project data, ask the seller:
- How many subscribers cover my area?
- Is this researched, or the council list?
- Which projects are private, not public?
- Can I stop at the end of a month?
- What is the price with VAT and fees?
Your numbers
A year of project data costs less than one small package.
Checkatrade puts the roof structure on a new house at £6,500 to £20,000. Here is a year of each service at its published starting price, and how much of one roof structure, taken at £13,250, it would use up.
| Service | Published entry price | A year at that price | Share of one roof structure |
|---|---|---|---|
| BuildAlert, data only | £29 a month | £348 | 2.6% |
| Planning Pipe, regional | £44.95 a month | £539.40 | 4.1% |
| Constructionline Marketplace | £599 a year, or £50 a month | £599 | 4.5% |
| Buildscout, Find Leads | £99 + VAT a month | £1,188 + VAT | 9.0% |
| Houzz Pro | £139 a month after 30 days free | £1,668 for 12 paid months | 12.6% |
| Glenigan, Barbour ABI | On request only | Not published | Unknown |
Prices as each seller publishes them; only Buildscout states VAT. A Constructionline first invoice adds a joining fee it doesn't price on that page. Roof structure from Checkatrade's house building cost guide, June 2026.
A roof structure pays for about 22 years of Marketplace. On a £126,000 to £300,000 three-bed house the subscription barely registers. So the fee is rarely what makes project data dear. The real cost is the hours spent pricing tenders you don't win, against a list your rivals are pricing from as well.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A CONSTRUCTION LEAD?
Pick a job, or type in what yours are worth
Starts on one in three, the figure MyJobQuote tells its own trades to expect. Put in yours.
You can pay up to about
£663
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £1,325 to £1,988
- Which per lead is
- £442 to £663
Put a seller's price in the last box and this will tell you what each won job would cost you.
The 10 to 15 percent band is a rough rule of thumb, not a measured figure. One win in 3 is MyJobQuote's figure for the trades on its platform; no data seller publishes a win rate for tenders, so put in your own.
Who sells them
Seven services, quoted from their own pages.
Each is quoted from its own product and pricing pages. Where one company says two different things, you get both.
| Seller | Price | Who else sees the project | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Constructionline | £599 a year, or £50 a month over a year | Every member searching that trade | "Access over 15,000+ Invitations To Tender sent each month" |
| Glenigan | On request, twelve-month subscription | Every subscriber on that region and sector | "be first on the phone" |
| Barbour ABI | On request, "entirely bespoke" | By its own count, 3,000 companies | "See who's working with who." |
| Buildscout | £99 + VAT a month; campaigns from £2,998 + VAT a year | Every subscriber in the area | "Rolling Contract. Cancel anytime." |
| Planning Pipe | From £44.95 a month | Every subscriber, and the council website | "over 5000 new construction leads in the UK each week" |
| BuildAlert | Data from £29 a month; letters £50 to £500 a month | Anyone with the council portal | "No shared leads" |
| Houzz Pro | £139 a month after a 30-day trial | Homeowners choose from a directory | "Local residential construction leads are our speciality" |
Constructionline: private packages, with public tenders mixed in
Marketplace is the Constructionline product aimed at subcontractors, and you can buy it without full membership. It carries three kinds of private lead: invitations to tender, billed as "Exclusive openly advertised tenders", where "main contractors are actively seeking subcontractors to submit pricing"; expressions of interest ahead of a formal tender; and market intelligence leads with "direct contact details for main contractors and estimators". It says it collects leads from as many as 70% of major UK contractors.
Its FAQ adds that you also get "public tenders, and planning applications", which are the two free sources above. The £599 is worth judging on the private packages alone. Its payments page says "Memberships are invoiced annually", and the first invoice includes a joining fee on top of the first year.
Glenigan and Barbour ABI sell a head start
Glenigan says its researchers make over 1 million phone calls a year so that you can "be first on the phone", and that a partnership with the Planning Portal finds some projects "before local authorities". Its price depends on the regions and sectors you pick, and "As you add more criteria, the price will rise", over a twelve-month subscription with five logins. Barbour ABI prices every account separately, has 45 researchers, and offers a view of "who's working with who" on rivals' projects. That view runs both ways once your own jobs are in its database. Both sell speed. It only matters because the others on the platform are ringing the same numbers.
Planning Pipe counts its leads two ways
The regional plan is from £44.95 a month and the national one from £89.95, with "No long term commitment". One page says the site reports "over 5000 new construction leads in the UK each week". On the day we read it, the pricing page counter showed "12511 new projects in the last 7 days". Either way, it is far more than one firm can price, and it is the same feed for everyone on the plan.
BuildAlert and Buildscout: letters on a public list
BuildAlert's London page promises "No shared leads" and "No subscription", and names its source as "London borough planning portals". Its pricing page sells monthly plans from £50 to £500 beside pay as you go, and a data-only plan from £29. So "No shared leads" can only mean BuildAlert doesn't sell one lead to several firms. The application itself is on the council portal for every builder in the borough.
Buildscout's self-serve plan is £99 plus VAT a month on a rolling contract. Its campaign plans, which post the letters for you, are priced by the year: from £2,998 plus VAT up to £5,988 plus VAT for national coverage, with monthly billing kept for FMB and FCA members.
Houzz Pro is the homeowner side in a hard hat
Houzz Pro's construction leads page says "Local residential construction leads are our speciality", and the product advertises your profile in its Find Pros directory. That is homeowner work, the same market as the builder leads guide covers, at £139 a month once the free month ends.
Everything here about Constructionline's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 23 September 2026. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
Rather have construction leads that are yours alone?
That's what we do. We don't sell leads. We build the website and run the Google Ads that bring construction customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingBuying the click yourself
Tenders come from a main contractor. Client work starts with a search.
The searches below are clients: a business wanting its office fitted out, a developer after a groundworks firm, a family building a house. "construction companies near me" is the busiest at 6,600 a month and the cheapest at £2.64 a click. Fit-outs are the dear end: £39.83 a click for "commercial fit out companies". To turn clicks into leads, the last column assumes 7.33% of clicks become one. That is WordStream's figure for home improvement ads on American accounts, and commercial buyers may behave differently.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| commercial fit out companies | 390 | £39.83 | £543 |
| office fit out companies | 880 | £31.51 | £430 |
| new build contractors | 260 | £13.81 | £188 |
| commercial building contractors | 140 | £11.11 | £152 |
| commercial builders | 210 | £10.29 | £140 |
| warehouse construction | 170 | £9.04 | £123 |
| building firms near me | 590 | £5.62 | £77 |
| shop fitters | 1,900 | £5.20 | £71 |
| groundworks contractors | 390 | £4.45 | £61 |
| design and build contractors | 210 | £4.42 | £60 |
| building contractors | 2,400 | £3.98 | £54 |
| building contractors near me | 1,600 | £2.99 | £41 |
| construction companies near me | 6,600 | £2.64 | £36 |
Google Ads data for the UK, pulled 23 September 2026. These are bid-based estimates, so most advertisers pay less per click.
£36 to £543 a lead is far more than a line in a database. The difference is who is on the other end. A fit-out lead at £543 is a business that has just asked for a fit-out firm, and no subscriber was sent their name. Firms hunting for data are a pricey audience too: "construction leads" gets 170 searches a month at £31.19 a click. Your own ads suit you when:
- You sell direct to the client
- You do fit-outs, new builds or groundworks
- You want the call, not a line on a list
- You want nobody else sent the lead
- Your clicks, billed by Google to you
- The ad account is in your name
If your work is packages for main contractors, keep the tender service: ads won't put you on an estimator's list. How big a budget to start with is covered in how much to spend on Google Ads.
Google Local Services Ads
Google's UK list of Local Services Ads categories includes "General contractor services". In the UK you pay when a customer's call is answered, and you can't claim credits back on bad leads. It is built for local clients, not tenders. The setup is in our Local Services Ads guide.
Making the approach
A contact from a database is still a person.
Project data hands you names: estimators, developers, architects, applicants. The ICO's business-to-business guidance splits them by what kind of business sits behind the number, and construction has plenty of both kinds.
A limited company
A main contractor or developer trading as a limited company is what PECR calls a corporate subscriber. The email rule "does not apply to corporate subscribers", so you can email an estimator at one without prior consent. Keep a list of anyone who opts out.
A sole trader
A sole-trader groundworker or an ordinary partnership is treated the same as a private person. You can email or text them only "if they have specifically consented, or the 'soft opt-in' applies". A self-builder on a planning form is a private person outright.
Any sales call
Some firms register with the TPS and some with the CTPS, so the ICO says to screen against both, plus your own do-not-call list, before a live B2B call. A number published in a tender pack still goes through the check.
Where you hold a named person's details, UK GDPR applies on top, and the ICO says that includes "publicly available personal data" used in a business context. Writing to householders who have applied for planning has its own rules, set out in our builder leads guide. If you buy a contact list rather than a data service, the checks the ICO expects before you use it are in our roofing leads guide.
Through the year
Clients look for a construction firm most in September and January and least in December.
"construction companies near me" hit its highest level in September and January and its lowest in December, then eased off through the summer. It never stopped, and the quietest month still had thousands of searches.
UK searches for "construction companies near me", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, rounded bands.
Two peaks, one dip
September and January tie at the top, and December runs about 2.25 times lower.
Yearly fees don't flex
Constructionline invoices by the year and Glenigan sells twelve months at a time. An ad budget can be trimmed for December and raised for the busy months.
Which way to go
Choose by who pays you, then by how much you can price.
Pay for tender data if
- You price packages for contractors
- Someone in the office can bid
- You can wait for a start date
- You want private packages
Use the free sources if
- Your work is public sector
- You cover one or two councils
- You have time to search
- You only need the planning list
Run your own ads if
- Clients hire you directly
- You do fit-outs or new builds
- You want the call, not a list
- You want an account that stays yours
A firm that does both kinds of work can run both: a tender service for the subcontract side, and its own ads for clients who come looking. Whichever you pick, the list is shared and the search isn't. A client who types "construction companies near me" and finds you has not been sent to anyone else.
Our sources
Where these figures come from.
Our interest is plain: we run Google Ads for trades, and this guide only recommends them for client-side work. Where a tender service is the better tool, it says so.
Each service was read on its own product, pricing and payment pages on 23 September 2026. Click prices and search volumes are Google Ads data for the UK, pulled the same day. The planning register duty is from legislation.gov.uk, the tender thresholds from gov.uk, the contact rules from the ICO, and job prices from Checkatrade. The planning register described here is England's; the devolved nations keep their own.
Questions contractors ask
Construction leads, answered.
- What are construction leads?
- Information about a building project before the work is let: a planning application, a tender from a public body or a main contractor, or a project a research team has tracked down with the names of the people running it. Nobody has asked you for a price. You find the project, then you make the approach. A homeowner asking for a builder is a different product, covered in our builder leads guide.
- How much do construction lead subscriptions cost?
- Where a price is published: BuildAlert's data-only plan from £29 a month, Planning Pipe from £44.95 a month for a region or £89.95 nationally, Constructionline Marketplace £599 a year or £50 a month over a year, Buildscout £99 plus VAT a month, and Houzz Pro £139 a month after a free month. Glenigan and Barbour ABI give a price only on request, and Glenigan says it rises with every region and sector you add.
- Where can I find construction leads for free?
- Two places. Every council in England has to keep a register of planning applications, and it can put that register online for anyone to inspect. Public sector contracts over £12,000 including VAT are listed on Contracts Finder, which you can search and bid through without an account, and bigger ones, usually above £139,688, on Find a Tender. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own tender sites.
- How many other contractors see the same project?
- No seller publishes a count per project. Their own figures give a sense of it: Barbour ABI says 3,000 companies use its platform, Constructionline says it collects leads from as many as 70% of major UK contractors for every member to search, and a planning application sits on a council register anyone can read. Assume every firm doing your kind of work in your area can see it too.
- What is a planning application lead?
- A planning application copied from a council register, usually with the applicant's address, the agent's details and the drawings. By law in England the council must add each application to its register within 14 days of receiving it. A data service saves you checking every council yourself. It doesn't give you anything the register doesn't hold, unless its researchers have added contacts.
- Can I email or ring a company I found in a construction database?
- A limited company, usually yes: the ICO says the email rule in PECR does not apply to corporate subscribers. A sole trader or an ordinary partnership is treated like a private person, so you need their consent or the soft opt-in to email or text them. Before any sales call, screen the number against both the TPS and the CTPS. If you hold a named person's details, UK GDPR applies as well.
- Should a construction firm run Google Ads instead of buying data?
- It depends who pays you. If you price packages for main contractors, a tender service puts you in front of the estimator and ads mostly won't. If clients hire you directly for fit-outs, new builds or groundworks, they search for it: "office fit out companies" is typed about 880 times a month, at £31.51 a click, and an ad reaches that person before anyone else has the job.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Get the call from the client before the job is on anyone's tender list.
We build the website and run the Google Ads in an account in your name, aimed at the construction work clients search for, across the area you cover. The price is on one page, and questions come straight to us.