Last updated 25 September 2026
A garden room lead never mentions the spare bed.
Leads Do Work sells a garden room lead for £30 plus VAT. BuildAlert charges £2.00 to post a letter to a homeowner who applied for planning, and AceLeads takes a share of the jobs you win after a joining or setup fee. Buy the click from Google yourself and a garden room search costs £2.40 to £13.49.
On a room worth tens of thousands, none of those prices is the number to watch. The line that matters on the form is what the room is for. An office can go up without planning permission or building control. Put a bed in it and it needs both. The form will say "office" or "annexe", so ask the question it skips: will anyone ever sleep in there?
The government's own guidance
"A purpose incidental to a house would not, however, cover normal residential uses, such as separate self-contained accommodation or the use of an outbuilding for primary living accommodation such as a bedroom, bathroom, or kitchen."
That's the technical guidance on householder permitted development in England, on the rule garden rooms are built under. What it means for your quote.
Where we stand
We don't sell garden room leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying garden room leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build garden room installers 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 the jobs pay
On a garden room, the lead price hardly moves the sums.
The table runs from an insulated shed with power up to a room built for guests. Each job is set against Leads Do Work's £30 lead and against about £89, which is what a lead from your own ads on "garden rooms near me" works out at.
| Job | Typical UK price | Leads Do Work, £30 a lead | Own ads, about £89 a lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Insulated shed with power | £1,500 to £2,500 | £90 per job won, 4.5% | £268 per job won, 13.4% |
| Small insulated office, assembled | £3,200 to £7,800 | £90 per job won, 1.6% | £268 per job won, 4.9% |
| Modular room, professionally installed | £8,000 to £15,000 | £90 per job won, 0.8% | £268 per job won, 2.3% |
| Garden office, 9 to 12 m² | £16,000 to £32,000 | £90 per job won, 0.4% | £268 per job won, 1.1% |
| Guest accommodation, 15 to 24 m² | £24,000 to £50,000 | £90 per job won, 0.2% | £268 per job won, 0.7% |
Shed with power: Checkatrade cost guide, June 2026. Assembled office: Checkatrade cost guide, June 2026. Modular room: MyBuilder price guide, June 2026. Garden office: MyJobQuote cost guide, August 2026. Guest room: MyJobQuote cost guide, August 2026. Each range is taken at its middle, and the percentage is how much of that job the leads cost. The win rate is MyJobQuote's, which says its trades typically win one job in 3. The own-ads figure divides a £6.55 click by 7.33%, an American conversion rate, so treat it as a rough guide. Lead prices are before VAT.
A rule of thumb we use, and it is only that: the leads behind a won job should come to no more than 10 to 15 percent of what the job pays. On a garden office in the middle of the range, that allows £2,400 to £3,600 per room sold. At £30 a lead you could buy 80 to 120 of them for one win and still sit inside it. The shed is the one row where the lead cost shows, at 13.4% of the job from your own ads, and Leads Do Work prices sheds separately at £14, or £42 a shed won. So the price per lead is rarely what sinks a garden room firm. A diary full of surveys for kit buyers and dreamers does.
Most people searching want a kit, not a builder
"garden rooms" gets 40,500 UK searches a month and "summer house" 74,000. The searches that name a firm are tiny next to them: "garden room builders" 170, "garden room installers" 70, "garden room companies" 260. The click prices split the same way: the firm searches cost £9.53 to £13.49 a click, the product search £3.11. Ask a seller which searches its adverts run on, because leads off the big product searches will include plenty of people pricing a flat-pack.
If you lay the base, paths and planting round the room as well, how that work is sold is in our landscaping leads guide.
Your numbers
Choose the room, then see how many leads one sale can carry.
It starts on a garden office. Try the shed to see where a bought lead starts to bite, or enter the average of your last few builds. Then put in how many surveys it takes you to sell one room, and the price a seller has quoted you.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A GARDEN ROOM 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
£1,200
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £2,400 to £3,600
- Which per lead is
- £800 to £1,200
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 our own rough check, not a measured figure. Electrics can sit outside the room price: MyBuilder puts a basic supply at £800 to £1,500 and a fully wired room with its own consumer unit at £2,000 to £3,000.
Who sells them
Nine places sell garden room leads. One prints a price per lead.
"Garden room leads" and "garden office leads" both came back with no measurable UK searches, so these sellers reach you through sales calls and adverts rather than the other way round. Every row is taken from the seller's own website and quotes it word for word.
| Seller | Price | Who else gets it | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leads Do Work | £30 a room, £14 a shed, + VAT; £11 a week | 1 to 3 others, 5 at most | "no more than 5 competing" |
| Leads 2 Trade | Not published | 1, up to 3 or up to 4, by lead type | "sent out up to 4 times" |
| gardenroomleads.com | Budgets of £800 to £1,500 a month | One builder per area, it says | "only one builder per area" |
| gardenroomleads.co.uk | Per survey delivered, price not shown | One firm per postcode district, it says | "Postcode districts protected" |
| AceLeads | Joining or setup fee, then a share of won jobs | You choose per lead | "Exclusive or shared" |
| Direct Data Squad | Not published | Exclusive, shared or resold | "Second-Use Leads" |
| BuildAlert | £2.00 a letter, £2.50 a postcard | Anyone reading the planning register | "no shared leads" |
| MyJobQuote | Credits, shown after sign-up | Up to 3 builders | "Up to 3 local Builders" |
| Bark | Credits at £1.80 | Up to 5 professionals | "Garden Room Installers" category |
Leads Do Work: the same £30 for a pod or an annexe
Its Connect price list files garden rooms under general building, as "Extension | Garden Room", at £30 before VAT for a household and "Not available" for a business. Sheds sit under gardening at £14. At one win in 3, a room sold through it costs you £90 in leads, whatever size the room turns out to be.
There's an £11 charge each week you stay signed up, lead or no lead, which adds up to £572 a year before VAT. Its terms put 1 to 3 other tradesmen on each job and never more than 5. You can cancel at any time, and a lead you think was wrong can be sent back for a person to review.
Leads 2 Trade asks what the room is for, then sells some leads four times
Its leads come off its own comparison websites and are checked by its own team before they're passed on. The checks cover homeowner status, a start date from "immediate to within 6 months", and the "Approximate size and purpose of use for the garden room". That last one is the most useful line any seller here captures, for reasons set out below. How many firms get it depends on the lead type. A Hot Key lead is "unique" to one installer, a Premium lead goes to "a maximum of 3 installers" with an appointment booked and no charge if you don't sit it, a Qualified lead is "sent out up to 4 times", and the Lead Vault sells top-up leads "on a first come first served basis". No price is published.
Two sellers called Garden Room Leads, and neither prints a lead price
gardenroomleads.com runs campaigns for one builder per area and says most clients "start with a budget of £800-£1,500 per month", with the cost per lead set on a call. Its case study claims a client went to over 300 leads a month and was booked three to six months ahead; that's the seller's own account. gardenroomleads.co.uk, a trading name of PMH Marketing Limited, sells surveys rather than leads: homeowners it describes as ready for a "£25K+ garden room", checked for a garden of at least 18 m² and "permitted-development headroom", and "Pay only for surveys delivered." It says it works with three companies in the South East.
AceLeads: free to browse, with a fee to get in
Its garden room page lists what each lead holds: intended use ("office, gym, studio, annexe, living space"), approximate size, budget, timeframe and "Any planning or foundation notes". It says you "reserve for free and only pay when a lead becomes real business". Its pricing page adds the part the garden room page leaves out: a joining fee on one route and a setup fee on the other, then a percentage of each larger job you win. Neither figure is published, and the route that keeps an area to yourself "does come with a minimum".
Direct Data Squad sells last year's leads too
It gathers garden room leads "primarily via social media lead generation" and sells three kinds: exclusive, non-exclusive ones that "could also be provided to any competitors" in your postcodes, and "Second-Use Leads", people who asked for a quote at some point in the last 12 months. It publishes no price, only that "the stricter your criteria the more expensive the leads will be". Adfluential and Wiizard Marketing also sell garden room leads, from pay per lead to a revenue share, without a price on show.
BuildAlert writes to the rooms that left a paper trail
It searches councils' planning applications and posts your letter to the homeowner, at £2.00 a letter or £2.50 a postcard, pay as you go or on plans from £50 a month. Its own page is honest about the catch: it sees the garden rooms that need "a planning application or a certificate of lawfulness", meaning annexes, bigger studios and rooms near a boundary. A room built under permitted development with no certificate never reaches the register. Nor is the application private: another firm reading the same register can write to the same house. Planning-application leads for bigger building work are compared in our builder leads guide.
Directories and franchises send the job to a builder
MyJobQuote's garden room price guide points homeowners to its builders, where "Up to 3 local Builders will then be in touch". Bark lists "Garden Room Installers" and sells credits at £1.80 each without saying how many a garden room lead costs. At the flat-pack end, Pure Garden Buildings sells a shed installation franchise that promises "leads recommended by the manufacturer". Zapo, formerly Get Work, sells search ads for dozens of trades and has no garden room category. How the directory contracts work is in Checkatrade vs MyBuilder vs Bark, and what a shared survey does to your price is in the shared-lead trap.
Everything here about Leads Do Work's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 25 September 2026. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.
Rather have garden room 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 garden room customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingBuying the click yourself
A click from someone hiring costs more than a click from someone browsing.
"garden room companies" costs £13.49 a click and "garden rooms" £3.11, less than a quarter as much. The last column turns each click into a lead price by dividing by 7.33%, WordStream's conversion rate for home improvement search ads. That rate comes from American accounts, so the column is a guide, not a quote.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| garden room companies | 260 | £13.49 | £184 |
| garden room companies near me | 110 | £11.59 | £158 |
| garden room installers | 70 | £11.31 | £154 |
| garden room installers near me | 70 | £10.19 | £139 |
| garden room builders near me | 110 | £9.80 | £134 |
| garden room builders | 170 | £9.53 | £130 |
| bespoke garden rooms | 1,000 | £6.67 | £91 |
| garden rooms near me | 2,400 | £6.55 | £89 |
| garden office near me | 590 | £5.92 | £81 |
| garden office builders | 1,600 | £5.21 | £71 |
| insulated garden rooms | 6,600 | £4.33 | £59 |
| garden office | 18,100 | £3.82 | £52 |
| garden rooms | 40,500 | £3.11 | £42 |
| garden room with bathroom | 590 | £2.65 | £36 |
| garden annexe | 590 | £2.43 | £33 |
| garden room cost | 880 | £2.40 | £33 |
UK Google Ads figures pulled on 25 September 2026. Each click price is an average across the auction, and your own bids, area and adverts will land you above or below it. Monthly searches are a twelve-month average. "garden room installers" also counts "garden room installation", and "garden rooms" counts the singular.
So a lead from your own ads costs £33 to £184 on these figures, more than Leads Do Work charges on every search listed. On a room worth five figures that gap matters less than what it buys you:
- Bid on the firm searches, not the kit searches
- Ask the use and the size on your own form
- Answer the planning question before the survey
- Nobody else is sent the homeowner
- Google bills your own card directly
- The ad account stays in your name
Two searches in the table are worth a second look: "garden room with bathroom" (590 a month) and "garden annexe" (590). Both describe rooms the government's guidance places outside permitted development, so an advert for them should say you handle the application. What to spend each month is a separate question, worked through in how much to spend on Google Ads.
Local Services Ads have no garden room slot
Google's UK category list for its pay-per-lead ads has nothing for garden rooms, garden buildings or outbuildings. The nearest it offers are general contractors, carpenters and landscapers. The categories and the way the leads are charged are in our Local Services Ads guide.
Planning, in England
An office can be permitted development. A guest bedroom can't be.
Garden rooms in England go up under Class E of the permitted development order, which covers a building "required for a purpose incidental to the enjoyment of the dwellinghouse as such". An office, a gym or a studio can fit that. A bedroom, a bathroom, a kitchen or a self-contained annexe can't, on the government's own reading quoted at the top of this page, so those rooms need a planning application.
That puts the answer in the lead itself. Leads 2 Trade records the "purpose of use", AceLeads lists "annexe" and "living space" among its uses, and MyJobQuote prices guest accommodation as a garden room at £24,000 to £50,000. Homeowners ask it too: "garden room planning permission" gets 1,300 UK searches a month and "do i need planning permission for a garden room" 720.
Near the fence, 2.5 metres is the ceiling
If any part of the building is within 2 metres of the boundary, the whole of it is capped at 2.5 metres high. The guidance measures from the highest ground right next to the building, so a sloping garden eats into it.
Further in, 3 or 4 metres
Elsewhere the limit is 3 metres, or 4 with a dual-pitched roof (hipped roofs count), and the eaves can't go above 2.5 metres anywhere. One storey only, and no verandah, balcony or raised platform.
Behind the house, and half the garden at most
Nothing can sit forward of the wall that forms the front of the original house. And all the buildings in the garden together, the house aside, can't cover more than 50% of it, so count the shed that's already there.
Listed, protected or switched off
A listed house gets no Class E rights at all. On protected land, which includes conservation areas and National Parks, nothing can go between the side wall and the boundary, and in National Parks, AONBs, the Broads and World Heritage Sites anything over 20 metres from the house is capped at 10 m² in total. A council can also strip the rights with an article 4 direction or a condition on the house's own planning permission, so check both.
Questions to ask before you price it
- What will the room be used for, day to day?
- Will anyone ever sleep in it?
- Does it need a toilet, shower or sink?
- How close to the boundary will it sit?
- Is the house listed or in a conservation area?
- Were permitted development rights removed?
Where the answer is borderline, a lawful development certificate settles it: once the council grants one for a proposed build, that build is presumed lawful. That same certificate is what puts a garden room on the register BuildAlert reads. These limits are England's; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland set their own. Attached to the house, it stops being an outbuilding at all and becomes an extension, which is builder territory.
Building regulations and the power supply
A garden room can skip building control and still need Part P.
The Building Regulations 2010, which cover England and Wales, exempt small detached buildings in Schedule 2. The size and the boundary decide most of it, and one word decides the rest: sleeping.
Up to 15 m², with no bed
A detached building with a floor area of 15 m² or less that "contains no sleeping accommodation" is exempt, wherever it stands in the garden.
15 to 30 m², with a condition attached
A single-storey building up to 30 m², again with no sleeping accommodation, is exempt only if no point of it is less than 1 metre from the boundary, or it is built "substantially of non-combustible material". A timber room over 15 m² tight to the fence doesn't qualify.
A bed ends both exemptions
Neither exemption survives sleeping accommodation, on our reading of the text. So the guest room that needs planning permission also needs building regulations approval, and the room above 30 m² needs it whatever it's for. Price both into the quote from the start.
Power from the house brings Part P back in
Regulation 9(3) applies Part P to an exempt garden room that takes its electricity from the house, and under regulation 12(6A) a new circuit is notifiable. Regulation 9(2) does the same for the water rules when the supply comes from the house.
A new circuit to the bottom of the garden is the notifiable kind of electrical job, so it goes through building control or an electrician registered with a competent person scheme. How electricians buy leads, and what that registration means, is in our electrician leads guide.
One more rule to know. Sign the order at the customer's kitchen table and they can usually cancel within 14 days and have the deposit back. Goods made to the customer's own specification are excluded, but the regulations don't say whether a garden room built to their design counts, so don't lean on it. The full rules, and why to hold off ordering materials until the window closes, are in our conservatory leads guide.
Through the year
Garden room searches peak in March, not in high summer.
The busiest month for "garden rooms near me" was March 2026, with 3,600 UK searches. The quietest were November 2025 and December 2025, at 1,300, a gap of roughly 2.8 to one. June managed just 1,900. BuildAlert tells garden room firms that advertising brings "seasonal demand that spikes ad prices every spring and summer". We can't see click prices month by month, but the searches don't show a summer rush.
UK searches for "garden rooms near me", by month
Monthly UK search bands from Google Ads, September 2025 to August 2026. Compare the heights of the bars; each figure is approximate.
January is the office month
"garden office" had its biggest month in January 2026, at 27,100 searches, ahead of the March peak for garden rooms in general. If offices are your main build, have the adverts running before the new year.
Check the growth claims against the searches
Leads 2 Trade reported in June 2024 that its garden room and extension leads were up 31.24% on a year before. Local searches for garden rooms went from 2,900 in September 2025 to 2,400 in August 2026. Twelve months is too short to call a trend, so don't budget on anybody's growth figure.
Where the lead came from
A garden room lead can be a year old before it reaches you.
The ICO puts the checking on the business that buys the data: checks and due diligence in proportion to the risk, and a seller's word that the consent is fine doesn't count. It also says consent passed on by a third party generally shouldn't be relied on after 6 months. Set that against Direct Data Squad's second-use leads, from people who asked for a quote any time in the last 12 months. The regulator has acted on this before: Lead Pronto, which sells leads, was handed a £30,000 penalty in November 2025 because the consent behind its texts listed not one of its 18 buyers.
Before the first payment, get these answered:
- When did this customer fill in the form?
- Which website, and is my business named on it?
- How many other firms has it gone to?
- What did they say the room is for?
- Rough size, budget and start date?
Keep each answer with the lead it came with, and date it. That record is how you show the checks were made if a homeowner or the ICO ever asks.
Which way to go
Let sellers top up the survey diary. Sell the big rooms from your own ads.
Buy leads if
- You can survey within days
- The seller records the use and size
- You know how many firms get it
- The consent names your business
Be wary if
- The lead is months old
- It comes off kit and flat-pack adverts
- Four firms are sent the same survey
- The fee to join is quoted, not printed
Run your own if
- You build offices, gyms and annexes
- You want planning asked up front
- You want the homeowner to yourself
- You want the ad account in your name
At one win in 3, a Leads Do Work room costs £90 in leads, which is 0.4% of a mid-range garden office. The money is in what the room is for and whether the homeowner rang anyone else. Every trade weighs the same choice, and they're laid side by side in our guide to trade leads.
Our sources
Where every figure in this guide comes from.
One thing to weigh first: we make our living from websites and Google Ads for trades and sell no leads, so we're better off if you run your own. That's why every seller is quoted in its own words, and why the job table shows a bought lead costing less than one from your own ads.
We read each seller's own website on 25 September 2026. The keyword numbers, both how often each search is made and what its click costs, came from Google Ads for the UK on 25 September 2026. Room prices come from Checkatrade, MyBuilder and MyJobQuote. The planning limits are from the permitted development order and the government's technical guidance, the building regulations points from legislation.gov.uk, and the lead-buying duty from the ICO.
Questions installers ask
Garden room leads, answered in brief.
- How much does a garden room lead cost?
- Leads Do Work charges £30 plus VAT for a garden room lead and £14 for a shed, with an £11 weekly fee on top. BuildAlert charges £2.00 a letter to write to homeowners who applied for planning. AceLeads takes a joining or setup fee and then a share of the jobs you win. Most sellers, Leads 2 Trade included, don't publish a price. A click from Google on a garden room search runs £2.40 to £13.49.
- Is a garden room lead sold to more than one company?
- Depends on the seller and the lead type. Leads Do Work puts 1 to 3 other firms on a job and 5 at most. Leads 2 Trade's Premium leads go to up to 3 installers and its Qualified leads up to 4 times. Both Garden Room Leads websites say one firm per area, and Direct Data Squad sells exclusive, shared and second-use leads side by side.
- When does a garden room need planning permission?
- In England, a garden room can go up under permitted development if its use is incidental to the house and it stays inside the limits: single storey, 2.5 metres high within 2 metres of the boundary, 3 metres elsewhere or 4 with a dual-pitched roof, eaves no higher than 2.5 metres, not in front of the house, and no more than half the garden covered. A listed house, some protected areas and an article 4 direction take the rights away or narrow them.
- Can a garden room be used as a bedroom?
- Not under permitted development. The government's guidance says a purpose incidental to the house does not cover self-contained accommodation or primary living accommodation such as a bedroom, bathroom or kitchen, so a guest room or annexe needs a planning application. Sleeping accommodation also takes the building out of the building regulations exemption for small detached buildings.
- Does a garden room need building regulations approval?
- Usually not, if nobody sleeps in it. A detached building up to 15 m² with no sleeping accommodation is exempt. Between 15 and 30 m² it is exempt only if every point is at least 1 metre from the boundary or it is built substantially of non-combustible materials. The electrics are a separate matter.
- Does the electrical supply to a garden room need notifying?
- Yes, when it is a new circuit. Part P still applies to an exempt garden room that takes its power from the house, and a new circuit is notifiable work, either through a building notice or by an electrician registered with a competent person scheme. Water from the house brings the water supply rules in too.
- When do people search for garden rooms most?
- UK searches for "garden rooms near me" peaked at 3,600 in March 2026 and fell to 1,300 in November 2025 and December 2025, a swing of about 2.8 times. "garden office" was busiest in January 2026, at 27,100.
- What should I check before buying garden room leads?
- How old the lead is, whose name is on the consent, how many other firms get it, and what the customer said the room is for. The ICO says consent from a third party generally shouldn't be relied on after 6 months, and one seller sells "second-use" leads up to 12 months old.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Garden room surveys booked by homeowners who found your website first.
We build your website and run Google Ads in an account under your own name, bidding on the people looking for a firm rather than a flat-pack, with the room's use asked on the form so the planning question is answered before you visit. See what it costs, then tell us about your garden room business and we'll aim the campaign at the sizes and uses you want to build.