Last updated 23 September 2026
Decorating leads: the same price for a room or a whole house.
Short answer: a decorating lead costs £4.74 to £7.20 plus VAT bought in a pack, £24 plus VAT bought one at a time, around £40 plus VAT on a done-for-you ads plan, an undisclosed fee on MyJobQuote or MyBuilder, or £0.41 to £11.03 a click if you buy it from Google yourself.
The catch is in the other half of the sum. Checkatrade prices a small room at £350 and a 5-bed house at £5,500 to £7,500. The sellers mostly charge one price for both. Decorating is a trade of lots of small jobs, so a lead price that looks fair on a whole house can eat a single room alive.
Where we stand
We don't sell decorating leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying decorating leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build painters and decorators 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.
Size the job before you price the lead
A £350 room and a £5,500 house aren't the same lead.
A decorator might paint a door for £80 to £100 on Monday and start a whole house the week after. So the useful question isn't what a lead costs. It's what the job behind it can afford. At MyJobQuote's own figure of one job won in 3 quoted:
| Decorating job | Typical price | Most a lead should cost | Figure from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Painting a small room (8 sq m) | £350 | about £18.00 | Checkatrade, Jun 2026 |
| Wallpapering a room, labour only | £350 to £500 | about £21.00 | Checkatrade, Jun 2026 |
| Exterior of a 3-bed semi | £1,100 to £1,500 | about £65.00 | Checkatrade, Jun 2026 |
| Hallway, landing and stairs | £1,450 to £1,750 | about £80.00 | Checkatrade, Jun 2026 |
| Painting a 2-bed flat | £1,500 to £2,500 | about £100 | Checkatrade, Jun 2026 |
| Painting a 5-bed house | £5,500 to £7,500 | about £325 | Checkatrade, Jun 2026 |
How we got the third column: we allow 10 to 15 percent of a job's price for the cost of winning it, then spread that over the 3 leads it takes to win one. On a small room that leaves about £18.00 a lead. On a 2-bed flat it's about £100, and on a 5-bed house about £325.
Now hold that against Leads Do Work's Connect price: £24 plus VAT for an interior or exterior painting lead, the same for a touch-up as for a full repaint. That's too dear at the small-room end of the table and a bargain at the top. Only 4 of the 6 jobs above can carry it. The seller can't tell you which one you're buying, and neither can you until you ring.
Read the leads they show you
Most of the leads on show are one room, paint supplied.
Three of the sellers publish recent decorating leads as a shop window. They're worth reading closely, because they're the best sample you'll get of what you'd be paying for. These are word for word:
"I have the white paint and gloss already"
"a little touch-up job where paint came off around a ceiling spotlight"
"I need to wallpaper the top half of this WC. I have the wallpaper and glue ready"
"Medium sized room repainting in white. Labour only"
There are bigger ones too. One London lead on the same Leads Do Work page asked for a front and rear exterior with 13 windows to repair and repaint, which is a proper job. And one in its decorating feed was for replacing the silicone in a bathroom, which isn't decorating at all.
The pattern that matters is "I have the paint". The Decorators Forum tells decorators to "Make money on materials! You will get a trade discount, so you can add a 10% mark-up, or even more." A labour-only lead takes that off the table before you've picked up the phone. The job is smaller than its room count suggests.
None of that makes the small jobs bad work. A door or a WC fills a gap in the week. But they're the jobs where a £24 lead shared with three other decorators costs you most, so buy leads for them only at a price that fits, and point your own advertising at the rooms, flats and exteriors you actually want.
Put your own jobs in
Work out your ceiling for the jobs you quote.
Pick the kind of job most of your leads turn into, or type in your own average. If you win more or fewer than one in 3, change that too. Then put in what a seller charges per lead and see whether it fits.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A DECORATING 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
£325
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £650 to £975
- Which per lead is
- £217 to £325
Put a seller's price in the last box and this will tell you what each won job would cost you.
That 10 to 15 percent is a rule of thumb from the ad industry rather than anything measured. Checkatrade's prices include regular trade paint, so on a labour-only job your real figure is lower.
Who sells decorating leads, and on what terms
Six sellers, and only one prices a single lead.
These are the companies on the first page of Google for "decorating leads", each read from its own pricing page, help centre or terms.
Leads Do Work: two prices for the same lead
Leads Do Work gets its leads from "a network of over 300 home improvement websites, blogs and related online content", and sells them to decorators two ways. All prices exclude VAT.
| Option | Price | Per lead | Bad lead? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smart Local Lite | £36.00 for 5 | £7.20 | No returns |
| Smart Local Local | £54.00 for 10 | £5.40 | No returns |
| Smart Local Plus | £94.80 for 20 | £4.74 | No returns |
| Connect | £11 a week plus leads | £24.00 | Returns reviewed |
The packs are the cheapest decorating leads on this page. The small print explains why: "Individual lead returns are not available under the Smart Local contract", and "Homeowner enquiries may also be supplied to other suitable local businesses." A pack renews by itself once it's delivered, and "Payments already made for an active pack are non-refundable."
Connect costs three to five times as much per lead and buys you two things: returns that are "manually reviewed" and credited back to your balance, and a smaller crowd. Leads Do Work says Connect customers "compete with 1 to 3 tradesmen for the same work, with no more than 5 competing for any given job", and get sent leads first.
Get Work: one decorator per area, half the fee on ads
Get Work, which is rebranding as Zapo, runs Google Ads to a page it builds for you and says "We send these painting and decorating leads to you, and only you". Its Startup plan is £600 plus VAT a month, of which "£300 Google Ads Spend", that's 50% of the fee, with an estimate of 15 leads. That's £40 a lead plus VAT if the estimate holds, and Get Work says it "can vary by trade, location and time of year." You pay upfront and the subscription renews automatically.
Two of its claims are worth checking against the numbers. It says "over 3.2 million people search Google each month to find a local painter and decorator". The ten decorating searches in our own Google Ads pull add up to 47,700 a month. And its figure that its pages turn "1 in 5 visitors into decorating leads" is its own, with no workings shown.
MyJobQuote and MyBuilder: you quote against others
MyJobQuote prices its decorating jobs in credits, weighing things like the customer's "Budget", the "Competition for the lead" and its "Age". It doesn't publish the prices. "Up to 3 tradesmen can accept details for each job lead", disputes must be filed within 48 hours, and there's no refund "where the customer has found another tradesman". Unused credits expire after 6 months.
MyBuilder is free to join and to express interest. "If you're shortlisted, we charge you a fee for the customer's contact details", and its terms say "It is not necessary for you to be awarded the Job for the Shortlist Fee to be payable." The fee amount isn't published. The Decorators Forum's view, for what it's worth: "most Decorators who I speak to who use work leads sites like My Builder have negative feedback."
Houzz Pro and Checkatrade: a listing, not a lead
Houzz Pro is £139 a month after a 30-day free trial. Houzz says you can cancel "anytime during the free 30-day trial before your annual subscription begins". Advertising is extra, "Starting at £119/month". Its "concierge team screens decorator leads", but it doesn't say how many you'll get or who else gets them.
Checkatrade tells painters it "saw 857,000 searches for painting and decorating jobs on our website" in 2025, and invites them to "enjoy a share of our job leads for painters." Its own terms confirm what "share" means: on its Opportunities Board, "multiple trades may unlock the same Opportunity". For the full picture see is Checkatrade worth it and is MyBuilder worth it.
Everything here about Leads Do Work'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.
If you're weighing a cheap shared lead against a dearer one, read the shared-lead trap first.
Rather have decorating 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 decorating customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingRunning your own ads
Cheap clicks for the work you choose, and dear ones for the rest.
Most decorating clicks cost under £5. To turn a click price into a lead price we use WordStream's 2025 average of 7.33% of Home & Home Improvement search clicks becoming a lead. It's US data, so treat the last column as a guide.
| Work | What they type | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commercial | commercial painting | £11.03 | £150 |
| Finding a painter | painter near me | £4.78 | £65 |
| House painters | house painters | £4.28 | £58 |
| Painting and decorating | painting and decorating | £4.18 | £57 |
| Painters and decorators | painters and decorators | £4.07 | £56 |
| Near me | painter and decorator near me | £3.31 | £45 |
| Decorators near me | decorators near me | £2.99 | £41 |
| Wallpapering | wallpaper hanging | £2.69 | £37 |
| Interior | interior painting | £0.56 | £8 |
| Exterior | exterior painting | £0.41 | £6 |
Click prices are Google Ads data for the UK, pulled 23 September 2026. These are bid-based estimates, so most advertisers pay less per click than this.
Be straight about it: a Smart Local pack at £4.74 a lead beats your own ads on the busiest search, where "painter and decorator near me" works out at about £45 a lead. If all you want is volume, the pack is cheaper. Commercial painting, at about £150 a lead, is dear because offices and landlords are worth fighting over.
But look at the bottom of the table. "exterior painting" is 4,400 searches a month at about £6 a lead, and "interior painting" about £8. Some of those searchers may be planning to do it themselves, so start them on a small budget and watch what comes in. An exterior on a 3-bed semi is £1,100 to £1,500 on Checkatrade's figures. That's the real difference with your own ads. You pick which searches to pay for, so the whole-house and outside jobs get the budget and the single touch-ups don't. And you get:
- Nobody else was sold the lead.
- You choose rooms, houses or exteriors.
- Ads run only when you can answer.
- No margin on the click.
- Pause for a full diary, no pack to use up.
If you work with us, the Google Ads account is opened in your name, with your card on it, and it stays with you with its whole history if you leave. Our guide to how much to spend on Google Ads sets the budget. And don't wait for Google's pay-per-call format: the UK list for Local Services Ads has no painting or decorating category, so for decorators it's search ads.
The decorator's year
Autumn is the rush. December is the cliff.
In Sep and Oct, 22,200 people a month typed "painter and decorator near me". In Dec it was 6,600. The busiest months are 3.4 times the quietest. From February to August it barely moves.
UK searches for "painter and decorator near me", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, rounded bands.
Book January in October
The busy autumn months are when you'll turn work away. Don't. The Decorators Forum's advice is to put customers on a list with a rough time frame rather than a fixed date. Fill the December and January gap with the autumn leads you can't start yet.
Move the budget with the searches
A pack of bought leads renews at the same price whatever the month. Your own ad budget doesn't have to. Spend harder in September and October, ease off in December, and come back in January when searches climb to 14,800.
Work you don't pay a seller for
What decorators say actually fills the gaps.
Two of Google's top results for decorating leads aren't sellers at all. One is a Facebook work leads group, behind a login. The other is the Decorators Forum, whose author runs a decorating business and lists what worked for him. His routes, in his words:
Ring other decorators
When you're quiet, "Call round the local Decorators, introduce yourself, explain you're quiet and ask if they have any big projects you can jump on. You might end up subbing, which means you'll earn slightly less".
Ring builders
"It can be difficult working for builders, but there's work to be done." Ask if they have anything you can price for them.
Estate and letting agents
Agents advise sellers to redecorate before they list, and letting agents need rooms done between tenants. His verdict: "This has been very effective for me over the years."
Leaflets, with care
Two people, 800 leaflets, "an average of 3 calls and won 1 job". Counting both day rates and the print, "£300 or so for 1 job isn't commercially viable."
None of these is a lead you'd share with four strangers. Subbing pays a bit less, and if you move on to commercial work, the same author warns that "a lot of the commercial contracts are 60- or 90-day payment terms". Agents can turn into repeat work. And his view on marketing is the maths this whole page runs on: spend on it, and "you might only need to win one in three or one in five jobs you go to see, rather than four out of five". Roofers run the same maths on much bigger jobs, which our roofing leads guide works through.
Winning the lead once you have it
Show the checks a cheaper quote can't match.
On a shared lead, three decorators turn up to look at the same lounge. The one who explains the prep usually beats the one who texts a number. Two things are worth putting on your website and your quote.
Old lead paint, handled properly
This is lead the metal, and it's a genuine rule of the trade. The Health and Safety Executive says you're most at risk if you regularly:
- Strip paint in pre-1980s homes.
- Burn paint off with blow lamps.
- Dry sand old paint.
HSE's advice is to strip old paint only "if it is flaking, chipping or it is a risk to children", and where it's sound, use wet abrasive paper to key it. And it applies to you even if you work alone: "If you are self-employed you need to take the same action to protect yourself as an employer takes to protect employees". A customer in a Victorian terrace with young children will be glad you raised it before they did.
A scheme that actually checks your work
Painting and Decorating Association
It calls itself "the industry's only UK-wide trade body", and says members "are vetted for quality workmanship, fully insured, follow a strict code of practice".
Dulux Select Decorators
Applicants need 3 years' experience and a year running their own business, and pass "a practical workmanship assessment on a current job". Members hold at least £1,000,000 public liability cover and offer "a 24-month workmanship guarantee".
Then answer fast. Checkatrade admits decorating "may not be time sensitive" the way an emergency plumber is, "But people do appreciate a quick reply." Why the first hour matters is covered in the roofing guide.
The law on bought leads
Before you pay a seller, ask where the lead came from.
If you ring or text people from a bought list, the Information Commissioner's Office expects you to have checked how their consent was collected. It says a buyer "must undertake proportionate checks and due diligence", and "It is not enough to simply accept a third party's assurances." Four questions cover it:
- Which site collected it?
- How long ago?
- Does the consent name me?
- Was it screened against the TPS?
The nearest case
We found no ICO fine in painting or decorating. The case closest to a decorator buying leads is Lead Pronto Ltd, a home improvement lead generator the ICO fined £30,000 in November 2025. It sent 76,605 texts on consent tucked into its privacy policy, and the ICO found that "none of these companies were listed in the privacy policy. It cannot be argued that consent was informed." That's 18 firms relying on consent that never mentioned them by name.
Which route suits which decorator
Buy the small jobs cheap. Own the big ones.
A cheap pack can work if
- You want gap fillers
- You can ring within minutes
- You don't mind sharing
- The per-lead price is low
Be wary of
- Flat prices on tiny jobs
- Labour-only leads
- Refunds paid as credit
- Annual terms after a trial
Run your own ads if
- You want whole houses
- You want exterior work
- You want commercial jobs
- You want the lead to yourself
A lot of decorators will end up doing both, and that's fine. Let the packs and the forum routes keep a quiet week ticking over. Put your own money into the searches that bring 2-bed flats, whole houses and exteriors, where a single job is worth £1,500 or more and the customer rang you and nobody else.
How this was put together
We run ads for trades. Here's why that doesn't skew this.
We'd rather you ran your own ads, and we said so at the top. We've also said where a bought pack beats them on price, and quoted every seller from its own pricing page, help centre or terms rather than its headline. You can check every figure yourself.
We read every seller's pages on 23 September 2026, the day we pulled the click prices. Leads Do Work's prices come from its Connect and Smart Local pages, Get Work's from its pricing page, Houzz's from its pricing page and MyJobQuote's terms from its help centre. Job prices are from Checkatrade's cost guide, the free routes from the Decorators Forum, the lead paint advice from HSE and the Lead Pronto notice from the ICO.
Decorators ask
What decorators ask about buying leads.
- How much do decorating leads cost in the UK?
- Leads Do Work charges £24 plus VAT for an interior or exterior painting lead on its Connect service, plus a £11 weekly fee, or sells packs of 5 to 20 leads from £36 plus VAT. Get Work's Startup plan is £600 plus VAT a month for an estimated 15 leads, about £40 each before VAT. Houzz Pro is £139 a month on an annual subscription. MyJobQuote and MyBuilder don't publish their prices. Buying the click yourself on a decorating search costs £0.41 to £11.03.
- Are decorating leads exclusive?
- Rarely. MyJobQuote lets up to 3 tradesmen accept each lead. Leads Do Work says Connect customers compete with 1 to 3 others and never more than 5, and its cheaper packs "may also be supplied to other suitable local businesses". Checkatrade offers painters "a share" of its leads. Get Work works with one tradesperson per trade per area, and the leads from your own Google Ads are yours alone.
- How much should a painter and decorator charge per day?
- The guides disagree. Checkatrade's June 2026 table puts the day rate at £250 to £400, averaging £325 plus paint. MyBuilder's August 2026 guide says £150 to £250. Both say London and the big cities sit at the top.
- How much does it cost to decorate a house?
- On Checkatrade's June 2026 figures, a 2-bed flat is £1,500 to £2,500 and a 5-bed house is £5,500 to £7,500, both including regular trade paint. Its separate 4-bed guide, last updated May 2024, says roughly £2,000 to £4,000. A single medium room is about £450.
- How can I get decorating work without paying for leads?
- The Decorators Forum suggests ringing other decorators when you're quiet and asking if they have big projects you can join, calling builders, and leaving your card with estate and letting agents, which its author says has been "very effective for me over the years". Subbing pays a bit less, but you're not running the job.
- When is the busiest time of year for decorators?
- Searches for "painter and decorator near me" peaked at 22,200 a month in Sep and Oct 2025 and fell to 6,600 in Dec, then held at 18,100 for most of spring and summer. Plan your quiet weeks, and your ad budget, around December.
- Do painters and decorators need to worry about lead paint?
- Yes. HSE says you're most at risk when you remove paint in properties built before the 1980s, strip it with blow lamps or gas torches, or dry sand it. If the paint is sound, key it with wet abrasive paper instead. Self-employed decorators must protect themselves the way an employer protects staff.
- Is buying decorating leads legal?
- Yes, but the checks are yours. The ICO says a business buying marketing data must do proportionate due diligence and can't just accept the seller's assurances. We found no ICO fine in decorating. In November 2025 it fined the lead generator Lead Pronto £30,000 because its consent named none of the 18 clients it generated data for.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
A diary of whole houses, not other people's leftover rooms.
See what it costs, then tell us what work you want more of. We'll show you what your own decorating leads would look like, aimed at the flats, houses and exteriors you'd rather be quoting, and sold to nobody else. Got a question first? Just message us.