What is MyBuilder and what does it do?

MyBuilder calls itself an online marketplace, and it is run by MyBuilder Limited in London. Homeowners post a job for free, MyBuilder sends it to trades whose skills and work area match, and the trades who want it express interest. The homeowner looks at profiles, work history and reviews and decides whose details to share, and the trade pays a fee for that contact. MyBuilder says around 100,000 jobs a month were posted on average through 2024. For a trade, it is a way to buy introductions to people who have already asked for the work, one shortlist at a time.

How does MyBuilder work for tradesmen?

In three steps, as MyBuilder sets them out. You set up a free profile, which means a skills evaluation for each trade you list and an ID check, and it sends you leads that match your skills and area. You express interest in as many as you like. If the customer shortlists you, you are charged a fee for their contact details and take it from there by phone or in the app. The fees are invoiced at least weekly and taken automatically from the card on your account.

Is MyBuilder free to use for tradesmen?

Free to join, not free to use. Signing up and building a profile costs nothing, and there is no membership or joining fee. What you pay is a Shortlist Fee every time a customer's contact details are shared with you, shown before you commit and quoted excluding VAT. Its terms list one other charge, a £20 plus VAT admin fee if a card payment fails or is clawed back. So it costs nothing while you are only looking, and money every time you get picked.

How much is MyBuilder membership?

There is no membership. The standard deal is free to join and pay per shortlist. What MyBuilder does sell, since March 2026, is an optional Sponsored Placement: a monthly subscription that marks your profile as sponsored and generally shows it above the normal ranking on its directory and invitation pages. The price is not published, only shown when you book, it renews on the first of every month until you cancel with three days' written notice, and it sits on top of your shortlist fees rather than replacing them. Its own terms say it "does not guarantee any minimum number of impressions, Leads, Shortlists, Jobs or revenue", so treat it as paying for visibility, not work.

How much does MyBuilder charge for leads?

There is no published price list. The shortlist fee is worked out from the estimated size of the job, so it scales with the work. Trades report around £2 to £3 for the smallest jobs, £5 to £35 for everyday work, and £50 or more on big projects. Treat those as reported ranges and check the fee shown before you commit, because MyBuilder does not publish fixed prices.

When do you actually pay on MyBuilder?

When the customer's contact details are shared with you. On most leads that is when the homeowner shortlists you after you express interest. On some, the terms allow the details to be shared the moment you express interest, and the fee is charged there and then, so read the option on the lead before you tap. Either way you pay at the "here is their number" stage, not when you win.

Are MyBuilder leads shared or exclusive?

Shared. A homeowner shortlists several trades for the same job, MyBuilder does not publish the limit and trades report up to five, and every shortlisted trade pays their own fee. So you are usually quoting against other shortlisted trades who all paid to be there.

Do you pay if you do not win the job on MyBuilder?

Yes. The fee is charged when you are shortlisted, not when you win, so you can pay to quote and still lose the job to another trade. That is the single biggest thing to understand before you start.

Can you get a refund on MyBuilder?

Rarely, and never as cash. The terms make shortlist fees non-refundable, with any refund at MyBuilder's "sole discretion" and paid only as Account Credit, which cannot be turned into cash and, unless MyBuilder gives it another date, expires 12 months from issue. Trades report being refused even for customers who never answered.

Which is better, MyBuilder or Checkatrade?

They are built differently. Checkatrade sells monthly plans: an Approved profile at £30 a month that brings no leads on its own, lead plans from £59 a month, and a pay-as-you-go option where the fee per lead varies with the job. MyBuilder is free to join and charges per shortlist. Checkatrade suits a trade who wants a monthly listing and the badge; MyBuilder suits planned home-improvement work you pick job by job. On both, other trades can be after the same customer, and the customer stays theirs, not yours.

Does MyBuilder vet tradesmen and check insurance?

It verifies your ID and business details and checks certifications, or runs a skills assessment, for the trades you list. But it states that confirming a trade is insured is down to the homeowner, so insurance is not necessarily a joining gate. Checkatrade lists up to 12 checks, and on Bark verification comes with the paid plans rather than being applied to everyone.

Yes. It is a real UK company, MyBuilder Limited, registered in England under number 05272398, owned since 2017 by Home Advisor Limited and part of the Angi family of sites. The jobs come from real homeowners, and it checks ID, company details and certifications or a skills test when you join. Legit is not the same as profitable, though. Its own terms say it "does not guarantee that you will be able to quote or secure work for Jobs you have paid a Shortlist Fee for", which is the honest summary of what you are buying.

Is MyBuilder any good for tradesmen?

It is good at one thing: putting you in front of homeowners with a described job for a modest fee and no monthly commitment. Because customers write out the job, home-improvement leads can be well described. But trades commonly report tyre-kickers fishing for a ballpark price and customers who never reply, and you still pay the non-refundable fee if you were shortlisted. Quality is the luck of the draw, and you are betting the fee on it. Judge it on your cost per won job, not on how it feels.

Last updated 21 October 2026

Is MyBuilder worth it for tradesmen?

Short answer: for some. MyBuilder is free to join, has no membership, and only charges when a customer's details are shared with you, so it costs nothing until you are picked. It works if you are a home-improvement trade with good reviews who picks off the cheap, well-described jobs. It is hard to justify if you are new with no reviews, in an emergency trade, or somewhere quiet, because you pay per shortlist whether you win the job or not, and that never comes back.

Below is the honest version most of these comparisons skip: what it really costs, the one number nobody works out for you, what trades actually say once the fees start landing, and who should walk away.

Everything here about MyBuilder's contract comes from its own published terms and conditions, last read on 21 October 2026. Terms get revised, so check yours against the current version before you act on anything.

The 30-second version

MyBuilder against the rest.

Where MyBuilder sits next to the other lead sites, and next to owning your leads outright.

Platform	How you pay	Lead shared with	Best for
MyBuilder	Free to join, pay per shortlist	Not published. Trades report up to 5	Planned home-improvement work
Checkatrade	Monthly plan (from £30, lead plans from £59) or pay per lead	Can be several	Trades who want a monthly listing and the badge
Bark	Credits bought in advance (£1.80 each + VAT), spent per lead	Up to 5	Flexibility, wide range of trades
Rated People	No longer sold. Its leads go to Checkatrade members	As on Checkatrade	Nobody new: it closed all memberships
Your own website + ads	You pay for the site and the ads	Nobody, it is yours	Owning your leads outright

How it works

How MyBuilder actually works.

This is the bit that catches people out, so it is worth getting straight. You do not pay to join and you do not pay to look. You pay the moment the customer's number is shared with you, which is usually when they pick you.

Join free
no membership, no monthly fee

Express interest
flag the jobs you fancy, free on most leads

They shortlist you
and you are charged, win or lose

You quote against the others shortlisted
the customer picks one

The defining mechanic

You pay to enter the race, not to win it.

Being shortlisted buys you the introduction and the customer's number, nothing more. The same job can be shortlisted with other trades too, each of whom paid, and only one wins. The fee is the same whether you land a £3,000 bathroom or never get a reply, and it does not come back.

The money

What it really costs.

Here is the honest bit: MyBuilder does not publish a price list. The shortlist fee is worked out from the estimated size of the job, so every figure you see quoted online, this one included, is a reported range, not an official tariff. Always check the fee shown on the job before you commit. As a rough guide, from what trades report in mid-2026:

Job size	Reported shortlist fee
Smallest jobs	Around £2 to £3
Everyday jobs	Around £5 to £35
Large projects	£50 or more, with much higher figures reported

Those are reported figures, not a published tariff, and the bands are ours for readability rather than MyBuilder's. What MyBuilder does publish is the mechanism, and it is the fairer half of the deal: its terms say the fee "is calculated based on the likely size, value and location of the Job", is shown to you excluding VAT before you express interest, and is charged when the customer's contact details are shared with you. Usually that means the homeowner shortlisting you; on some leads the details come straight away and so does the fee. Once charged, it is non-refundable even if the job goes nowhere. The price on the screen, though, is not the number that decides whether it is worth it.

The number nobody works out

Your real cost per won job.

Every comparison quotes you the fee per shortlist. None of them do the sum that actually matters, because the fee is not what a job costs you. What a job costs you is every fee you paid on the ones you lost, plus the one you won. Here is the sum:

shortlist fee × shortlists it takes to win one = your true cost per job

Say you fit bathrooms. As an example, you get shortlisted on jobs at £15 a go, and because the lead is shared with other trades, you win one in four. That is four fees, £60, for every job you land, before you have spent an hour quoting the three you lost. On a £3,000 bathroom, £60 is nothing. On a £200 job at £10 a shortlist won one in three, you are paying £30 to make £200, and now it matters.

Big-ticket work

High job value, cost per won job is a rounding error. This is where MyBuilder pays.

Small, shared jobs

Low value, several trades, and the fees on the ones you lose eat the margin on the one you win.

The rule

Total your monthly fees, divide by jobs won. If that is a big slice of an average job, it is not working.

Straight from the trade

What trades actually say.

Not the glowing homeowner reviews, the trade forums. The picture there is consistent, and it cuts both ways.

The gripes

Paying to be shortlisted then losing the job
Charged when the customer never replies
Tyre-kickers fishing for a ballpark price
Thin job descriptions you pay to find out about
Refund requests refused

The fair points

Cheaper leads than Rated People used to be
You only pay when picked, which feels fairer
You choose which jobs to go for
Well-described home-improvement jobs let you judge before you pay

The honest read from the trade: cheaper and fairer in structure than Rated People was, and it can pay if you are ruthlessly selective on the low-fee, well-described jobs. But it is riddled with paying-for-nothing, thin descriptions and refused refunds.

Vetting and trust

How well does it vet?

MyBuilder checks your ID and business details and looks at your certifications, or runs a skills test, for the trades you list. That is more than Bark, where verification comes with a paid plan rather than being applied to everyone, but fewer than the up to 12 checks Checkatrade lists. Worth knowing: MyBuilder puts the job of confirming a trade is insured onto the homeowner, so being insured is not necessarily a gate to joining. For you, it means the customer has to take more on trust, so your reviews and proof of insurance do more of the selling.

The honest verdict by trade

Who it is for, and who should walk away.

Worth a go if

You do planned home-improvement jobs
You have a strong review history
You cherry-pick the cheap, well-described jobs
You are new with no budget, testing demand
You are in a busy area with plenty of jobs

Give it a miss if

You do emergency or reactive work
You are new with no reviews yet
You are rural or somewhere quiet
You hate paying for jobs you lose
You would rather own your leads than rent them

And yes, sometimes the answer is keep it. If you are just starting out with nothing else bringing work in, a few quid a shortlist to test demand while you build your own thing is a fair call. We would rather tell you that than pretend a lead site is always the enemy. If your trade is on the miss list, the other routes are compared in where else trades buy their leads.

The bigger picture

Renting leads, or owning them.

Step back from MyBuilder versus Checkatrade versus Bark and the real split is this: a lead site lead is rented. You pay for the introduction, share it with a few rivals, and the customer was never really yours. Win or lose, next month you start again and pay again. A lead from your own website and your own ads is owned. The customer found you, they are yours, and the repeat work and the recommendation to their neighbour cost you nothing.

We are straight about it: that is a build, not a switch you flip today, and a lead site can tide you over while you get there. But once it is running, you stop paying to enter a race you usually lose. If you want the full argument, we laid it out in the shared-lead trap, and the practical order for getting more work is in how to get more leads. If you are also weighing the rivals, see is Checkatrade worth it, is Bark worth it and is Rated People worth it, or put the other three side by side.

The 90-day test

How to tell if it is working.

Do not run it on a hunch. Give it ninety days and one simple sum, then decide with numbers, not feelings.

Track every fee. Log what you spend on shortlists each month, and every job you actually won from them.
Work out cost per won job. Total fees divided by jobs won. That is your real number, not the fee per shortlist.
Compare it to the job. If your cost per won job is a small slice of an average job, keep going. If it is eating your margin, stop.
Compare it to owning. Weigh it against what a lead from your own website and ads would cost, once, for a customer you keep.

Why us

Why take our word for it?

Fair question, because we build websites and run ads for trades, so we have a horse in this race. Honestly? Because we will tell you to stay on MyBuilder when it is the right call, and we make nothing from you doing that. We only do well when your phone rings with work that is yours, so we would rather give you the real sum than talk you off a platform that is paying.

Straight answers

Questions trades actually ask.

What is MyBuilder and what does it do?: MyBuilder calls itself an online marketplace, and it is run by MyBuilder Limited in London. Homeowners post a job for free, MyBuilder sends it to trades whose skills and work area match, and the trades who want it express interest. The homeowner looks at profiles, work history and reviews and decides whose details to share, and the trade pays a fee for that contact. MyBuilder says around 100,000 jobs a month were posted on average through 2024. For a trade, it is a way to buy introductions to people who have already asked for the work, one shortlist at a time.
How does MyBuilder work for tradesmen?: In three steps, as MyBuilder sets them out. You set up a free profile, which means a skills evaluation for each trade you list and an ID check, and it sends you leads that match your skills and area. You express interest in as many as you like. If the customer shortlists you, you are charged a fee for their contact details and take it from there by phone or in the app. The fees are invoiced at least weekly and taken automatically from the card on your account.
Is MyBuilder free to use for tradesmen?: Free to join, not free to use. Signing up and building a profile costs nothing, and there is no membership or joining fee. What you pay is a Shortlist Fee every time a customer's contact details are shared with you, shown before you commit and quoted excluding VAT. Its terms list one other charge, a £20 plus VAT admin fee if a card payment fails or is clawed back. So it costs nothing while you are only looking, and money every time you get picked.
How much is MyBuilder membership?: There is no membership. The standard deal is free to join and pay per shortlist. What MyBuilder does sell, since March 2026, is an optional Sponsored Placement: a monthly subscription that marks your profile as sponsored and generally shows it above the normal ranking on its directory and invitation pages. The price is not published, only shown when you book, it renews on the first of every month until you cancel with three days' written notice, and it sits on top of your shortlist fees rather than replacing them. Its own terms say it "does not guarantee any minimum number of impressions, Leads, Shortlists, Jobs or revenue", so treat it as paying for visibility, not work.
How much does MyBuilder charge for leads?: There is no published price list. The shortlist fee is worked out from the estimated size of the job, so it scales with the work. Trades report around £2 to £3 for the smallest jobs, £5 to £35 for everyday work, and £50 or more on big projects. Treat those as reported ranges and check the fee shown before you commit, because MyBuilder does not publish fixed prices.
When do you actually pay on MyBuilder?: When the customer's contact details are shared with you. On most leads that is when the homeowner shortlists you after you express interest. On some, the terms allow the details to be shared the moment you express interest, and the fee is charged there and then, so read the option on the lead before you tap. Either way you pay at the "here is their number" stage, not when you win.
Are MyBuilder leads shared or exclusive?: Shared. A homeowner shortlists several trades for the same job, MyBuilder does not publish the limit and trades report up to five, and every shortlisted trade pays their own fee. So you are usually quoting against other shortlisted trades who all paid to be there.
Do you pay if you do not win the job on MyBuilder?: Yes. The fee is charged when you are shortlisted, not when you win, so you can pay to quote and still lose the job to another trade. That is the single biggest thing to understand before you start.
Can you get a refund on MyBuilder?: Rarely, and never as cash. The terms make shortlist fees non-refundable, with any refund at MyBuilder's "sole discretion" and paid only as Account Credit, which cannot be turned into cash and, unless MyBuilder gives it another date, expires 12 months from issue. Trades report being refused even for customers who never answered.
Is MyBuilder worth it for tradesmen?: It can be if you are a home-improvement trade with strong reviews who cherry-picks the cheap, well-described jobs, because you pay only when a customer picks you and the fees trades report on small jobs are low. It is hard to justify if you are brand new with no reviews, in an emergency trade, or in a quiet area, because the non-refundable fees stack up whether you win or not.
Which is better, MyBuilder or Checkatrade?: They are built differently. Checkatrade sells monthly plans: an Approved profile at £30 a month that brings no leads on its own, lead plans from £59 a month, and a pay-as-you-go option where the fee per lead varies with the job. MyBuilder is free to join and charges per shortlist. Checkatrade suits a trade who wants a monthly listing and the badge; MyBuilder suits planned home-improvement work you pick job by job. On both, other trades can be after the same customer, and the customer stays theirs, not yours.
Does MyBuilder vet tradesmen and check insurance?: It verifies your ID and business details and checks certifications, or runs a skills assessment, for the trades you list. But it states that confirming a trade is insured is down to the homeowner, so insurance is not necessarily a joining gate. Checkatrade lists up to 12 checks, and on Bark verification comes with the paid plans rather than being applied to everyone.
Is MyBuilder legit?: Yes. It is a real UK company, MyBuilder Limited, registered in England under number 05272398, owned since 2017 by Home Advisor Limited and part of the Angi family of sites. The jobs come from real homeowners, and it checks ID, company details and certifications or a skills test when you join. Legit is not the same as profitable, though. Its own terms say it "does not guarantee that you will be able to quote or secure work for Jobs you have paid a Shortlist Fee for", which is the honest summary of what you are buying.
Is MyBuilder any good for tradesmen?: It is good at one thing: putting you in front of homeowners with a described job for a modest fee and no monthly commitment. Because customers write out the job, home-improvement leads can be well described. But trades commonly report tyre-kickers fishing for a ballpark price and customers who never reply, and you still pay the non-refundable fee if you were shortlisted. Quality is the luck of the draw, and you are betting the fee on it. Judge it on your cost per won job, not on how it feels.

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