Last updated 25 September 2026
The lead never says if the car is parked on the street.
Most mobile mechanic work isn't sold by the lead at all. ClickMechanic and Fresh Car each keep 20% of every job they pass you. Zapo, formerly Get Work, runs search ads for garages and mechanics from £400 a month plus VAT, roughly £40 for each lead it expects to send. Buy the click yourself from Google and a mobile mechanic search costs £2.44 to £6.57.
None of them tells you where the car will be when you arrive. On the customer's drive, a service is just a service. Parked on the road outside, the same brake job is an offence for anyone doing it for money.
The law, word for word
"A person who carries out restricted works on a motor vehicle on a road is guilty of an offence"
That's section 4 of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005, and "restricted works" covers servicing, repair, maintenance and fitting parts. The get-out for unpaid work doesn't apply to anyone working "for gain or reward". What it means for a booking.
Where we stand
We don't sell mobile mechanic leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying mobile mechanic leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build mobile mechanics 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 paying for
A cut of every job, or a fee for every quote you lose.
A marketplace like ClickMechanic only charges when a job is finished and paid for, and then it takes the same share whatever the job. A lead seller charges for the lead, so what it costs you depends on how many you have to buy to land one. On small jobs those two work out very differently.
Below, each job is priced at the middle of Checkatrade's range, then worked both ways: 20% taken off the job, and Zapo's forecast cost per lead multiplied by the 3 quotes it takes to win one.
| Job | Typical UK price | A 20% commission | Zapo, about £40 a lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Interim service | £110 | £22 a job | £120 a win, 109% of the job |
| Front brake pads | £105 to £135 | £24 a job | £120 a win, 100% of the job |
| Front brake pads and discs | £190 to £240 | £43 a job | £120 a win, 56% of the job |
| Full service, small to large car | £170 to £395 | £57 a job | £120 a win, 42% of the job |
| Replace a car battery | £300 | £60 a job | £120 a win, 40% of the job |
| Replace a clutch | £320 to £1,350 | £167 a job | £120 a win, 14% of the job |
Job prices from Checkatrade's car service (March 2025), brake pad (April 2026) and clutch (March 2026) cost guides, and its car battery page. The clutch range adds its labour, kit and fluid ranges together. ClickMechanic prices its own bookings, so the commission column shows the cut on these prices, not what it would quote. We take Zapo's cheapest plan and share it across the 10 leads it forecasts, before VAT. The one-in-3 hit rate is the one MyJobQuote tells its own members to expect.
We use a rough rule, not a measured one: winning a customer shouldn't take more than 10 to 15 percent of what the job pays. A flat 20% is always over it. A bought lead is far worse on the small jobs, where £120 to win an £110 interim service is 109% of it, and better on the big ones, at 14% of a clutch. The two cost the same on a job of about £600.
If services and pads fill your week
Paying for leads you might lose makes no sense on a job worth about a hundred pounds. A cut you only pay when the car is done is cheaper there, and so is a customer who books you again next year without anyone in the middle.
If clutches and cambelts are your trade
Twenty percent of a big job is a lot to hand over. Checkatrade puts a mobile mechanic's callout at £45 to £85 and the hourly rate at £25 to £60, so on a clutch the commission can be worth more than the callout and a couple of hours' labour put together.
Your numbers
How much can one mobile mechanic lead cost and still pay?
Pick the job you do most, say how many quotes it takes to land one, then put in a seller's price. Flick between the interim service and the clutch to see why the same lead can be cheap or ruinous.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A MOBILE MECHANIC 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
£14
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £28 to £42
- Which per lead is
- £9 to £14
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 rule of thumb we work to. Nobody has measured it for mechanics.
Who sells the work
Four take a cut, four charge up front, and nobody sells "mobile mechanic leads".
Search "mobile mechanic leads" and the first twenty UK results on 24 September 2026 held no UK firm selling them: mechanics' own websites, Yell listings, forums and a Facebook group asking who can jump start a car. Lead Pronto has no mechanic page, and nor do Leads Do Work, MyJobQuote, MyBuilder or Rated People. The work reaches mobile mechanics through the eight below, each quoted from its own pages.
| Who | What it costs | Who else gets the job | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| ClickMechanic | 20% commission on completed jobs | Not stated | "completely FREE to join" |
| Fresh Car | 20% of each completed job | Not stated | "You keep 80%." |
| AutoFixFair | 0% at first, then 10 to 15% commission | Garages and mechanics quoting against you | "get competing prices" |
| WhoCanFixMyCar | £99 + VAT once, then unpublished success fees | Anyone who quotes | "only pay success fees on bookings you win" |
| Bark | £1.80 a credit, credits per lead not published | Up to 5 professionals | "up to 5 responses" |
| Get Work (now Zapo) | £400 to £1,600 + VAT a month | Nobody | "exclusive leads to car garages" |
| Leads Everyday | Monthly fee, not published, clicks on top | Nobody | "never shared with competitors" |
| TrustATrader | Yearly fee, not published | A limited number per area | "Never pay for your leads" |
ClickMechanic sets the price and leaves you the warranty
ClickMechanic is free to join and "Commission is charged at 20% of the booking total", collected only once the customer has paid. It sends local jobs to your phone and you accept or turn them down. What you don't choose is the price: ClickMechanic quotes the customer itself, and says its jobs pay £35 to £85 an hour, "quoted using technical data".
It asks for motor trade insurance, at least £1 million of public liability cover, an NVQ or City and Guilds Level 2 and, on its join page, 5 years' experience. Customers get a 12-month warranty, and if one comes back, "the warranty lies with you". The 20% comes off the job once; the return visit is unpaid.
Fresh Car pays weekly, and two more let you set the price
Fresh Car, a mobile valeting franchise network, also runs a marketplace for mobile mechanics: "We charge a flat 20% fee on the value of each completed job. You keep 80%." It pays weekly and expects you to have "the tools, van, and setup needed to carry out mobile work".
AutoFixFair is newer and lets you set your own prices. It charges nothing on your first 20 bookings or 90 days, then 10 to 15%, and customers post a job to "get competing prices from nearby garages and mobile mechanics". WhoCanFixMyCar works the same way, with a £99 plus VAT admin fee up front and success fees it doesn't publish. It says it has "almost 300 mobile mechanics" on its network, so you're quoting against garages with a ramp as well as each other.
Zapo sells to garages, and Bark to whoever answers
Zapo has no mobile mechanic page. Its car garages page promises "exclusive leads to car garages, garage owners and mechanics" from search ads, on the same plans it sells every trade: £400 a month plus VAT to start, £200 of which is ad budget, for 10 forecast leads, with volumes that it says vary "by sector, location and season". Ask whether its adverts will say mobile, or whether you'll be paying for people who wanted to drop the car off.
Bark has no mobile mechanic category either; its Car Mechanics listing covers "Mobile mechanic visits at home or work". A credit costs £1.80, the number of credits a lead takes is shown on the lead, and "Each customer can receive up to 5 responses". Credits last 3 months, and Bark returns them if your first pack wins you nothing. More in is Bark worth it.
Leads Everyday, TrustATrader and Checkatrade
Leads Everyday has a mobile mechanic page offering leads "never shared with competitors" for "a flat monthly fee as agreed during your consultation", with the Google Ads spend "paid directly to Google" on top. Its terms ask you to answer leads within 30 minutes and stop the service at the end of the billing period you cancel in. TrustATrader charges a yearly fee it doesn't publish, limits members per area, and wants 5 references and 2 years in the trade. Checkatrade lists mobile mechanics as a category, prices by postcode, and its memberships run for 12 months; see is Checkatrade worth it. Where one job goes to several mechanics at once, the shared-lead trap shows what that does to the quote.
Everything here about ClickMechanic'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 mobile mechanic 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 mobile mechanic customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingBuying the click yourself
Sellers bid more for a mechanic than drivers bid for one.
Only about 10 people a month search "mobile mechanic leads", and the click averages £12.69, with the top-of-page bid reaching £67.68. "mechanic leads" is £14.03 and "garage leads" £16.80. A driver typing "mobile mechanic near me" costs £2.72 a click, about 5 times less, and 40,500 of them do it every month. The dearest customer search is "mobile car servicing" at £6.57.
The last column turns each click into a lead using the 7.33% conversion rate WordStream measured for home improvement search ads in the United States. Mechanics aren't home improvement and the UK isn't the US, so read that column as a ballpark.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| mobile car servicing | 210 | £6.57 | £90 |
| mobile car service | 1,300 | £5.36 | £73 |
| mobile brake repair | 110 | £5.30 | £72 |
| mobile car servicing near me | 140 | £3.95 | £54 |
| mobile clutch replacement | 390 | £3.34 | £46 |
| mobile car battery replacement | 2,400 | £3.09 | £42 |
| mobile battery replacement near me | 880 | £2.90 | £40 |
| mobile car diagnostics near me | 590 | £2.82 | £38 |
| mobile mechanic | 22,200 | £2.79 | £38 |
| mobile mechanic near me | 40,500 | £2.72 | £37 |
| mobile car mechanic near me | 6,600 | £2.44 | £33 |
UK Google Ads data from 24 September 2026. Each click price is an average Google works out from what advertisers bid, so the amount you actually pay can come in lower. Only searches with "mobile" in them are listed: "mechanic near me" brings garage customers as well.
At £33 to £90 a lead, your own ads run from a little under Zapo's £40 to more than twice it, and on a cheap service they lose to a cut you only pay on finished work. Where they pull ahead is what the customer is and who they rang:
- Bid on clutches and brakes, skip the jump starts
- Ask for the postcode and where the car is parked
- Set your own price, not a marketplace quote
- The regular customer rebooks you, no cut
- Pay Google direct, no markup
- The account stays yours
There's no motor or mechanic category in Google's Local Services Ads for the UK, so ordinary search ads are the paid way in. Working out what a van-based business should put in each month is covered in how much to spend on Google Ads.
Before you book it in
The kerb outside the house is not your workshop.
Section 4 of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 covers "the repair, maintenance, servicing, improvement or dismantling of a motor vehicle" and fitting or replacing its parts. Do any of it on a road and it's an offence. There's a defence for work done neither as a business nor "for gain or reward", which rules out every paying job you take.
What a mobile mechanic can rely on is narrower. Repairs that "arose from an accident or breakdown", where fixing it on the spot was necessary, are defended if they're done within 72 hours. A booked service or a planned set of pads isn't a breakdown. Councils can hand out a £100 fixed penalty, and some take £60 if it's paid early. In court the fine goes up to £2,500.
The drive or the road
Newcastle City Council says the offences "apply only to activity on a public road", so a private drive is fine. Charnwood adds estate access roads owned by housing associations or residents. Ask where the car will be on the first call.
The MOT lead
gov.uk says only approved centres "showing the blue sign with 3 white triangles" can carry out an MOT. Take the pre-test check and the repairs on the failure sheet; the test itself has to be booked at a centre.
The air-con regas
Recovering refrigerant from a car's air conditioning needs its own F gas qualification. gov.uk's words: "It is against the law to work with F gas if you do not have the correct qualifications." No ticket, no regas leads.
What leaves with you in the van
gov.uk's classification guidance lists engine oil, oil filters, brake fluid and lead acid car batteries as hazardous waste, and says not to mix oils with brake fluid or antifreeze. Anyone carrying waste has to register as a waste carrier, which gov.uk says is "usually free if you only transport waste you produce yourself", and not registering carries an unlimited fine. At a business customer, the consignment note guidance says a mobile service must consign hazardous waste every time it takes it away.
Then the road test. The Road Traffic Act 1988 says nobody may use a vehicle on a road without insurance covering them, and gov.uk puts driving a car you're not insured to drive at £300 and 6 points. ClickMechanic asks for motor trade cover because it expects a test drive after repairs, and DVLA won't issue trade plates without it. Our guide to tradesman insurance covers the rest.
The waste rules here are England's. The street repairs offence covers England and Wales, with a near copy in Northern Ireland. None of it shows up in a lead. When a customer finds you through your own website, the booking form can ask whether the car is on a drive, and whether it's due its MOT.
Through the year
The trade stays level all year. Flat batteries come in January.
Zapo says volumes vary "by sector, location and season" and Leads Everyday's terms mention "seasonal demand"; neither says when. For mobile mechanics the searches answer it. "mobile mechanic near me" only ever sat in two bands, 40,500 and 49,500, a swing of about 1.2 times across the whole year.
UK searches for "mobile mechanic near me", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, rounded bands.
UK searches for "mobile car battery replacement", by month
The same twelve months, and the one job with a real winter peak.
Batteries climb from November
"mobile car battery replacement" rose to 2,900 in December and 4,400 in January, about 2.8 times May and August. At £3.09 a click it costs less than any of the servicing searches, so it's the one to turn up in the cold.
Everything else is steady work
The servicing and clutch searches show no winter jump like the battery one. A flat year suits a steady ad budget, and a jump start in January is a chance to book the same car's service in spring.
Once you have said yes
A job on the drive comes with the customer's rights attached too.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 says every service must be done "with reasonable care and skill", and anything you tell the customer that they rely on becomes part of the deal. If the work falls short, they can ask you to put it right at your own cost, and if that fails, cut the price, as far as the full amount. On a marketplace booking you carry that and its warranty too.
A job booked from a lead over the phone is a distance contract, and one agreed standing on the drive is an off-premises one. The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 treat both the same way:
- Fourteen days to cancel a service
- A breakdown they rang you out to is exempt
- Extra work on that visit is not
- Early start? Get the request in writing
- No cancellation notice? Nothing owed for those days
The regulation on starting early wants the request "on a durable medium" when it's agreed at the customer's home, so a text back saying yes is worth keeping.
Speed still matters most with a bought lead: Leads Everyday asks for a reply inside 30 minutes, and the research behind that advice is set out in our roofing leads guide. A car key lead is a locksmith's job; those sellers are in the locksmith leads guide.
Where the lead came from
A booking and a lead are two different things to check.
A marketplace booking arrives with the customer already signed up to the marketplace's terms. A bought lead arrives as someone's details, and the Information Commissioner's Office says the business using them has to make its own checks, sized to the risk, rather than take the seller's word. If you text or email them, the consent must name you. We searched the ICO's enforcement list and found no fine naming mechanics or garages; the home improvement cases are in the roofing guide.
Before you pay for mechanic leads, ask:
- Is it a booking or a set of contact details?
- Which advert or website did it come from?
- Does the consent name my business?
- How many other mechanics got it?
- Did anyone ask where the car is parked?
Keep a note of every answer with the lead it belongs to. If a customer complains about being contacted, what you checked at the time is your answer, and a seller's sales page won't do that job for you.
Which way to go
Small jobs suit a cut. Big ones suit a lead. Regulars suit your own name.
Take marketplace jobs if
- There is no ad budget yet
- Services and pads are the work
- Their price suits you
- You hold motor trade cover
Think twice if
- Clutches are your bread and butter
- Five mechanics get the same lead
- You can't answer in half an hour
- The car lives on the street
Run your own if
- You want to set the price
- You want the customer back next year
- You want the call alone
- Your account, kept if you leave
Lots of mobile mechanics mix the two: marketplace jobs to fill a quiet Tuesday, and their own ads bringing in the bigger repairs and the customers who come back. How the same choice plays out in other trades is in our trade leads guide.
Our sources
How we got these numbers together.
You should know who's talking: we get paid to build mechanics' websites and run their Google Ads, not by any marketplace. On a cheap service a 20% cut still beats paying for your own clicks, and the tables above show that too.
We read each marketplace and seller on its own website, most recently on 25 September 2026. How often drivers search, and what each click goes for, we took from Google Ads for the UK on 24 September 2026. What a service, a set of pads or a clutch pays is Checkatrade's figure, from its motoring price guides. The street repairs offence is quoted from the Act itself and council pages, the MOT, waste and F gas rules from gov.uk, and the insurance and consumer rules from legislation.gov.uk. Waste is handled differently in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, so check your own nation's rules there.
Questions mobile mechanics ask
Mobile mechanic leads, answered.
- How much do mobile mechanic leads cost in the UK?
- Most of the work is sold on commission rather than per lead. ClickMechanic and Fresh Car both take 20% of each completed job, and AutoFixFair 10 to 15% after a free start. Zapo, formerly Get Work, runs search ads for garages and mechanics from £400 to £1,600 a month plus VAT, about £40 per lead it forecasts on its cheapest plan. Bark charges £1.80 a credit, and up to 5 mechanics can answer one customer. A click on a mobile mechanic search costs £2.44 to £6.57 in Google Ads.
- What does ClickMechanic take from each job?
- 20% of the booking total, collected only once the job is done and the customer has paid. Joining is free. ClickMechanic prices the job for the customer, so you accept or decline a booking at its price, and the 12-month warranty it offers customers sits with you.
- Can I service a customer's car parked on the street?
- Not as a business, in England and Wales. Section 4 of the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 makes repairing, servicing or maintaining a vehicle on a road an offence, and the defence for unpaid work doesn't cover anyone doing it for money. Breakdown and accident repairs that can't wait are allowed within 72 hours. Councils can issue a £100 fixed penalty, and the court fine goes up to £2,500. The customer's own driveway is fine.
- Can a mobile mechanic do an MOT?
- No. gov.uk says an MOT has to be done at an approved test centre showing the blue sign with three white triangles. You can fix the faults before and after the test. A car whose MOT has run out can only be driven to a pre-booked test or to and from a repair, and the fine for driving without one is up to £1,000.
- What do I do with the old oil and battery?
- Take them with you and keep them apart. Engine oil, oil filters, brake fluid and lead acid batteries are all hazardous waste. Carrying waste needs a waste carrier registration, which gov.uk says is usually free if it is only your own waste, and taking it from a business customer's premises needs a consignment note each time.
- Do mobile mechanics need motor trade insurance?
- The law says you need insurance that covers you to drive a car on a road, and a road test counts. Driving a vehicle you aren't insured for can mean a £300 fixed penalty and 6 points. ClickMechanic asks for motor trade cover because it expects mechanics to test drive after repairs, and DVLA won't issue trade plates without it.
- When is demand for mobile mechanics highest?
- The main search hardly moves. "mobile mechanic near me" sat between 40,500 and 49,500 searches every month for a year. Batteries are the exception: "mobile car battery replacement" peaked in January at 4,400, about 2.8 times its quietest months.
- Is it legal to buy mobile mechanic leads?
- Yes, as long as you can show where each one came from. The ICO puts the checking on the business buying the data and says a seller's assurances on their own are not enough. For texts and emails, the consent has to name your business. We found no ICO fine that names mechanics or garages.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Your own customers, your own prices, and no cut off the top of either.
We build your website and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, aimed at the servicing and repairs you want and the postcodes you cover. See what it costs, then tell us about your van and we'll build it around the jobs you'd rather be doing.