Last updated 23 September 2026
Lead sellers pay more to find you than you pay to find a customer.
On Google's own figures, a click on "scaffolding leads", searched about 20 times a month, costs £116.82. The people bidding on it are selling to scaffolders. A homeowner typing "scaffolding near me" costs £6.55, about 18 times less. That gap is what a scaffolder is worth to a lead seller.
What they sell back is cheap per lead. Leads Do Work lists scaffolding at £18 plus VAT, shared with up to 3 other firms. Zapo, formerly Get Work, works out at about £40 per estimated lead. The catch is the ticket size: a gutter scaffold is £250 a week, and a bought lead has to be paid for out of that.
Read the feed
Not every scaffolding lead wants a scaffolder.
One seller's public scaffolding feed held a homeowner looking to hire a mobile tower and paint the wall themselves, next to a housing association contract over five floors. Neither is a two-storey domestic scaffold. What turns up.
Where we stand
We don't sell scaffolding leads. We help you get your own.
This guide is the honest version of what buying scaffolding leads costs, and who else gets them. What we do instead is build scaffolders a website that turns visits into calls, and run Google Ads in an account in your own name, so every lead that comes in is a customer who found you, and nobody else was sold it.
What you are buying
One label covers a DIY tower and a five-storey tender.
Leads Do Work publishes its latest "Scaffolding hire" enquiries. On 23 September 2026 the list ran from "A scaffold in order to put a gas chimney liner in" and "Scaffold for gable end of house to carry out roofline repairs" to "To hire Mobile Scaffolding for personal use", for a homeowner painting a first-floor wall. Further down sat a housing association wanting scaffolding for "planned, cyclical, and responsive maintenance works", marked 5+ floors and 22+ days.
The tower hire isn't your job, and the housing contract is a tender, not a quick quote. The domestic work in between is priced by the week or the month. Here is what that work is worth, and what a lead costs per job won at the two published prices, winning one quote in 3.
| Scaffold | Typical UK price | Leads Do Work, £18 a lead | Zapo, about £40 a lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single scaffold for gutters, per week | £250 | £54 a win, 22% of the job | £120 a win, 48% of the job |
| High level chimney scaffold, per week | £500 to £820 | £54 a win, 8% of the job | £120 a win, 18% of the job |
| Two-storey house, per month | £800 to £1,200 | £54 a win, 5% of the job | £120 a win, 12% of the job |
Prices from Checkatrade's scaffolding cost guide, last updated February 2026, each worked at the middle of its range for one hire period. One win in 3 is MyJobQuote's figure for its trades. Both lead prices are before VAT; Zapo's is its Launch plan divided by its own estimate.
A won customer should cost around 10 to 15 percent of the job. On a month of whole-house scaffold, both sellers fit, Zapo at 12%. On a week of gutter access, even the cheaper lead takes 22% and Zapo's takes 48%. A week of chimney scaffold at £500 to £820 sits in between. A roofer can shrug off a £40 lead on a new roof. A scaffolder quoting single lifts can't.
If you do domestic scaffolds
Ask the seller whether tower hire counts as a scaffolding lead, and whether you can set a minimum job. Leads Do Work reviews returns by hand and credits them to your balance, so agree in writing what it will take back.
If you want commercial work
Leads Do Work prices a business lead at £21. The housing association enquiry wanted scaffolding for "planned, cyclical, and responsive maintenance works" over 5+ floors and 22+ days, which is contract work. Much of it runs through builders and main contractors, the subject of our builder leads guide.
Your numbers
How much of the hire can a lead eat?
Start from the scaffold you put up most, change the price to your own weekly or monthly rate, then set how many quotes you send for each one you win. Put in a seller's lead price to see what it does to the job.
WHAT CAN YOU PAY FOR A SCAFFOLDING 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
£33
a lead, winning one in 3
- Healthy range, per won job
- £66 to £99
- Which per lead is
- £22 to £33
Put a seller's price in the last box and this will tell you what each won job would cost you.
The 10 to 15 percent band is a rough rule of thumb, not a measured figure. A scaffold kept up past its first period earns more, and Checkatrade says an extension usually adds around 10 percent.
Who sells them
Five ways to buy scaffolding work, in the sellers' own words.
Each firm below is quoted from its own scaffolding page, price list and terms, so the wording is theirs, not ours.
| Seller | Price | Who else gets it | In their words |
|---|---|---|---|
| Leads Do Work | £18 to £21 + VAT a lead, £11 a week | 1 to 3 others, never over 5 | "Jobs are not guaranteed, so customers must respond quickly." |
| Get Work (now Zapo) | £400 to £1,600 + VAT a month | Nobody, it says | "exclusive leads to scaffolding companies" |
| Leads Everyday | Monthly fee, not published | Nobody, it says | "never shared with competitors" |
| Geordie Leads | Not published | Not stated | "No long-term contracts, no minimum volumes." |
| BuildAlert | £2 a letter, or from £50 a month | Anyone reading the same planning list | "other scaffolders could identify the same projects" |
Leads Do Work: the only scaffolding price on the list
Its Connect price list has a row for "Scaffolding / Building work | Scaffolding": £18 for a lead from a homeowner and £21 from a business, "excluding VAT", with a weekly service fee of £11 on top. You agree an area and how many leads you want a week, and it tries to fill that quota.
The small print on sharing is plain: "Customers compete with 1 to 3 tradesmen for the same work, with no more than 5 competing for any given job." The leads come from "a network of over 300 home improvement websites, blogs and related online content". Returns are reviewed one at a time, and a refund goes back on your balance, not your card. How several firms chasing one scaffold adds up is in the shared-lead trap.
Zapo's example lead price and its plan price sit far apart
Zapo, formerly Get Work, says its search ads deliver "exclusive leads to scaffolding companies, scaffolders and installers". An example screen on that page shows "£6.40 Cost per lead". Launch, the entry plan, bills £400 a month plus VAT and puts £200 into ads; spread over the 10 leads Zapo predicts, that's £40 a scaffold enquiry. The scaffolding page promises leads "within the next 14 days", the pricing page "within 1-4 weeks". Contracts run month to month.
Leads Everyday and Geordie Leads: read the whole page
Leads Everyday offers "Targeted Google Ads", "No commission on any jobs" and a campaign live "within 48 hours on average", for a flat monthly fee it doesn't publish. Its process on the same page says "We build targeted lists and craft compelling outreach." Geordie Leads heads its page "scaffolding leads from a large database of active UK projects", then describes them as enquiries "from UK homeowners who have actively searched online". A project database and a homeowner form are different things, so ask each which one you are getting.
BuildAlert sells the address, not the enquiry
BuildAlert tracks planning applications for extensions, loft conversions and re-roofs, and posts a letter for you at £2 each. It says scaffolding is "one of the last trades booked on most residential jobs", so the aim is to write before the builder rings the scaffolder they used last time. Nobody has asked for you yet, and the same list is open to every firm in the area.
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.
Rather have scaffolding 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 scaffolding customers straight to you, in an ad account in your name that stays yours if you ever leave.
See pricingBuying the click yourself
The commercial searches cost most, and they're the ones worth having.
"scaffolding near me" is the biggest search at 6,600 a month and £6.55 a click. The dearest are "scaffolding contractors" at £10.77 and "commercial scaffolding" at £9.57, and chimney scaffolding is the cheapest at £0.98. The last column turns clicks into leads with WordStream's 7.33% conversion rate for home improvement search ads. That is US data, so treat it as a rough guide.
| Search | Searches a month | Per click | Per lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| scaffolding contractors | 320 | £10.77 | £147 |
| commercial scaffolding | 260 | £9.57 | £131 |
| scaffolding services | 480 | £9.34 | £127 |
| scaffolding quote | 260 | £8.57 | £117 |
| scaffolding company | 1,600 | £7.86 | £107 |
| scaffolding companies near me | 3,600 | £7.63 | £104 |
| scaffolding near me | 6,600 | £6.55 | £89 |
| local scaffolders | 210 | £6.34 | £86 |
| temporary roof scaffolding | 390 | £5.82 | £79 |
| scaffolders | 2,900 | £5.33 | £73 |
| scaffolding hire near me | 1,300 | £4.74 | £65 |
| roof scaffolding | 480 | £1.96 | £27 |
| chimney scaffolding | 210 | £0.98 | £13 |
Google Ads data for the UK, pulled 23 September 2026. Click prices are bid estimates, and most advertisers pay less.
From £13 to £147 a lead, and £89 on the busiest search, your own ads usually cost more per enquiry than a £18 shared one. The difference is who you get and whether anyone else rings them:
- Bid on whole houses, skip tower hire
- Chase contractors and commercial work
- Nobody else was sold the enquiry
- Turn it down in December
- Pay Google direct, no markup
- The account stays yours
A single month of whole-house scaffold at £800 to £1,200 pays for a lot of clicks, and a job that runs over its period earns more again. A scaffolder's first test month still needs a ceiling, and how much to spend on Google Ads sets one.
Google Local Services Ads
Google's UK category list for Local Services Ads has "Roofers" and "General contractor services" but nothing for scaffolding, so a scaffolder can't buy those pay-per-call ads under their own trade. Search ads and a Google Maps listing are the routes that exist.
What customers check
gov.uk tells your customer to check your licence.
The gov.uk scaffolding rules put the licence on you: it is "the responsibility of the builder or scaffolding company to get a licence for any scaffolding they put up on the highway (this includes the pavement)". The next line hands the homeowner a job too, checking that the licence exists and "does not run out before the building work is finished". Any customer can read that page, so answer it on your quote before they ask.
The law behind it is section 169 of the Highways Act 1980. Putting up or keeping a scaffold on or over a highway without the council's written licence is an offence, with a fine up to level 5. The licence holder must keep it lit from half an hour after sunset to half an hour before sunrise, and a refusal can be appealed to a magistrates' court.
Every scaffold, or only the pavement?
Checkatrade's cost guide tells homeowners "all scaffolding projects require a permit before installation" and to budget about £140 a month. gov.uk ties the licence to the highway. A scaffold kept wholly on private land isn't on the highway, so tell the customer which kind theirs is before they read the wrong page.
Seven days, then check again
gov.uk says a scaffold must be checked before first use, "every 7 days while it's up", and after alterations, damage or extreme weather. Tell the customer who inspects it and how they will see the record. It is a question a careful homeowner asks.
Then there are the cards. CISRS, the Construction Industry Scaffolders Record Scheme, grades scaffolders from trainee to advanced, with separate inspection cards. Even a lead seller tells scaffolders that customers "and other trades actively look for" valid CISRS cards and NASC membership. Put them where a customer sees them:
- Your CISRS card grades, by crew
- Who applies for the highway licence
- How the 7-day inspection is logged
- Your insurance, in writing
The other customer
The roofer on the next street is a customer too.
A homeowner lead is only part of a scaffolding business. A re-roof, a render job or an extension can't start until the scaffold is up, and the trade doing that work is often the one who books it. Leads Do Work puts it in one line: other trades value "clear communication about erection and strike dates" as much as price when giving repeat work. BuildAlert's pitch rests on the same point, that by the time a builder asks for quotes, access has often been agreed with whoever they used last time.
The two dearest searches on the table, "scaffolding contractors" and "commercial scaffolding", read like a site manager typing, not a homeowner. Your website has to speak to both.
For the homeowner
Weekly prices, who handles the licence, how long it stays up, and photos of scaffolds on houses like theirs.
For the roofer or builder
Card grades, insurance, lead times for erection and strike, and a number that gets answered on site.
The roofers you want to work with face their own lead market, laid out in our roofing leads guide, and every trade we have covered is compared in trade leads by trade. If you write to planning applicants, the ICO still counts a posted letter as direct marketing: tell people you have their details and what you want to do with them, and stop if they object.
Through the year
Scaffolding searches hold flat, then fall in December.
"scaffolding near me" sat at 6,600 searches a month in 10 of the last 12 months. Only November and December came in lower, and December dropped to 3,600.
UK searches for "scaffolding near me", by month
September 2025 to August 2026. Google Ads keyword data, rounded bands.
No summer rush in the data
Demand in January matched July. A seller pitching a spring surge for scaffolders should show you where the figure came from.
One month to ease off
December runs about 1.8 times quieter. A weekly lead quota carries on regardless, while an ad budget can drop for those weeks.
Before you pay
A shared scaffolding lead goes to whoever rings first.
With up to 3 other firms on one enquiry, the scaffolder still up a lift at four o'clock is the one who loses it. If your crews are out all day, someone has to answer leads in hours, not evenings. The research on how fast a reply decays is in the roofing guide.
A bought lead also brings its consent history with it. The ICO expects the buyer to make "proportionate checks and due diligence", and a seller's promise isn't enough. We found no fine naming a scaffolding firm. Ask each seller:
- Which website did the customer use?
- Does the consent name my business?
- Is it a scaffold or a tower hire?
- How many other firms got it?
One more for domestic work. A scaffold agreed in the customer's home falls under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, so they have 14 days to cancel. If the scaffold is going up sooner than that, get their request to start in writing first.
Which way to go
Buy leads for the gaps, build the trade work yourself.
Buy per lead if
- Big scaffolds are your trade
- Someone answers in the day
- A gap needs filling now
- You check where it came from
Think twice if
- You mostly do single lifts
- Crews are up all day
- A weekly quota is fixed
- Each lead goes to several firms
Run your own if
- You want contractor work
- You want whole houses
- You want to set the pace
- Your account, kept if you leave
Plenty of scaffolders run both: a few bought leads when the yard is full of tube, and their own ads and website bringing in the contractors who book every month. If a directory listing is on the table as well, read is Checkatrade worth it before you sign.
Our sources
Where these figures come from.
We sell websites and Google Ads to trades, so read this knowing that. Where a shared lead is the cheaper enquiry, the page says so.
Seller pages, prices and terms were read on their own sites on 23 September 2026. Click prices and search volumes are Google Ads data for the UK, pulled the same day. Scaffold prices are from Checkatrade, whose table and text disagree on whether a two-storey semi is priced by the week or the month. The rules come from gov.uk, legislation.gov.uk and CISRS. Section 169 and the gov.uk licence page cover England and Wales only.
Questions scaffolders ask
Scaffolding leads, answered.
- How much do scaffolding leads cost in the UK?
- Leads Do Work lists scaffolding at £18 a lead from a homeowner and £21 from a business, plus VAT and an £11 weekly fee. Zapo, formerly Get Work, sells managed search ads for scaffolders from £400 to £1,600 a month plus VAT, which on its cheapest plan comes to about £40 per estimated lead. BuildAlert charges £2 a letter to write to planning applicants. Leads Everyday and Geordie Leads publish no price. A click on a scaffolding search in Google costs £0.98 to £10.77.
- Are scaffolding leads shared with other scaffolders?
- It depends who you buy from. Leads Do Work says its customers compete with 1 to 3 other tradesmen for each job, and never more than 5. Leads Everyday and Zapo describe their leads as exclusive. With BuildAlert the planning application is public, and it says itself that other scaffolders could spot the same project.
- Is every scaffolding lead a real scaffold job?
- No. The scaffolding feed Leads Do Work shows on its own site listed a chimney liner job and a gable end repair, but also a homeowner wanting to hire a mobile tower to paint a wall themselves, and a housing association maintenance contract over five floors. Ask any seller what it counts as a scaffolding lead, and whether tower hire and tenders are filtered out.
- Who needs the licence for scaffolding on a pavement?
- The scaffolder. gov.uk says it is the builder or scaffolding company's job to get a licence for scaffolding on the highway, pavement included, and the homeowner's job to check it exists and lasts until the work is done. The licence comes from the council under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980, and putting a scaffold up without one is an offence.
- When do people search for scaffolders least?
- UK searches for "scaffolding near me" held at 6,600 a month for 10 months of the year, dipped in November and bottomed out in December at 3,600, about 1.8 times lower.
- Can I get scaffolding work from roofers and builders instead?
- Yes. BuildAlert tracks planning applications for extensions, loft conversions and re-roofs so you can write to the homeowner, developer or main contractor before access is booked. Leads Do Work notes that trades who rely on a scaffold being ready on time value reliability as much as price. The dearest searches on Google are the commercial ones, which is where a trade customer shows up.
- Is it legal to buy scaffolding leads?
- Yes, if you check where each one came from. The ICO expects any business buying marketing data to carry out proportionate checks and due diligence rather than take the seller's word for it. We found no ICO fine naming a scaffolding firm; the home improvement cases are set out in our roofing leads guide.
Keep reading
More straight answers for trades.
Win scaffolds from customers who found you, not a lead list.
We build the website and run the Google Ads in an account in your name, aimed at the homeowners and contractors you want to scaffold for. See what it costs, then tell us about your trade and we'll set the ads up around the jobs worth putting tube up for.