Checkatrade

Unfortunately I can't give a lower rating, checkatrade is modern day snake oil for trades. Promising the earth and delivering very little. Most leads are either false or rarely coming and any customer support is nil.

As a Checkatrade member for nearly 5 years I was proud to advertise and use their services. That is until I had my membership revoked due to falsify reviews. I collected genuine reviews from my customers after each job sending them a direct link when I sent my invoices. I have never falsified any reviews and now extremely upset due to this being my only form of advertising. I wasn’t sent any warning emails to say my account was being closed.

A Disappointing Experience with Checkatrade - Beware!

I recently had the displeasure of using Checkatrade, and I feel compelled to warn others about my experience with this company. What initially seemed like a promising platform turned out to be nothing more than a scam.

Despite their assurances of providing numerous job opportunities and a valuable service, I quickly discovered that Checkatrade is owned by Homeserve, and it appears that they reserve the best jobs for themselves. The jobs I was offered through the platform were low-quality and undesirable. It became evident that many large businesses using Checkatrade only pay for the lowest membership tier to have their name listed, rather than utilizing the platform for actual job opportunities.

When I realized I wasn't getting value for my money, I encountered further issues. Even if Checkatrade is in default of the agreement, they will aggressively pursue any outstanding payments, resorting to underhanded tactics like sending letters to the wrong address to secure a default court win. They employ an unscrupulous company called Shoosmiths to carry out these actions, and you may even face high court enforcement officers. The entire ordeal is incredibly stressful.

Moreover, if you miss payments or have a paperwork query due to their own administrative errors, Checkatrade will freeze your account but still continue to charge you monthly fees. In my case, when I initially signed up and tried to go live on the platform, they took my money but failed to activate my account for weeks, citing a clerical error.

Communication with their customer service was a nightmare; the representatives were unhelpful and seemingly uninformed. Overall, I would advise against using Checkatrade. There are better alternatives out there, such as Yell, that offer a more reliable and professional service. Save your time, money, and sanity by avoiding this company

There management team are top class professionals had a problem they sorted and gave me a free month. The platform works if you put the work in also

The worse trade platform for tradesman. Do not be tricked into signing up with them. I signed up after being promised the world but got absolutely nothing in return and now I'm looking at legal action against them. I got job leads that were not even relevant to my trade to I guess just pass off as the 2 leads you get. For the first month they had my post code 30 miles from my home after saying there was no work in my area. They lies and deceive to get you to sign up. They encourage you to get family and frineds to leave reviews on ypur acount to build reviews which basically is fake reviews. I've been a tradesman for 20 years and never have a I met a more awful company, please please stay away from checkatrade.

Is just a marketing company dont provide any good service to the sole trader. 2 days cooling periods is a scam. they ask me to ask my free to get more start to boost my business their dont care about the quality

Whatever to say is nothing compare on what I feel. First they do automatically renew 12 months without to get in touch, second they do get as navy possible trades people, for example on KT6 6, even with a second number, 20 or more people doing removals. If u lucky even with my 9.92 rtg you will get 2,3 jobs monthly, if you lucky again. Rubbish on all levels

Used to be useful for promoting my business but recently checkatrade are only interested in signing up new accounts. My area is oversaturated with plumbing companies. Checkatrade restrict leads to 10 leads per month, when you hit these so called leads your profile moves down or disappears from the search pages. Very poor customer service do not sign with them very negative experience

This company are the worst I’ve ever dealt with. I’m a tradesman and as the other reviews have mentioned it’s about the hard sell. Be very careful as they try hard to not contact you before your renewal date. You you guys know in the trade we are always busy and check a trade will automatically renew your contract. I feel it’s a unfair contract as nothing is signed and they can automatically renew. Be careful stay well clear

Since checkatrade has been bought out by homeserve is has become a rogue outfit.
Just interested in money.
The customer service it terrible.
Surely it is a conflict of interest being owned by homeserve.
Should get Matt Allwright to give
them a visit .

Was contacted by my "local" rep who told me how good it would be to use them. I thought I might but when I asked for the cancellation policy in writing he told me they had already filled the slot.
Think I dodged a bullet!!

I have been a member for over 5 years and amassed over 160 quality reviews.
I used to get a lot of enquiries daily and weekly but when the company was taken over the number has declined.
Recently I have not had one enquiry in over a month despite paying my monthly membership and getting reviews.
I finally had enough of being taking advantage of and hoping it was going to get better.
Today I took decisive action and cancelled my membership.
As I had previously been unhappy with the service (The price had doubled since being taken over) I moved over to a rolling contract where I only have to give 30 days notice.
Luckily I got out of the fixed contract when I did.
Anyway onwards and upwards.
#kennaplumbing

They do not support local business paying to be under their wings. The company has changed and does not not stand for what it did.
I had an wrong review published against my company and they have no interest of finding out the truth or getting to the bottom of the issue.

I’m new to checkatrade. I got the first month free and made double the amount of the monthly fee in the first month.

Second month had nothing so broke even in theory.

Third month made the monthly fee within days and that’s where I’m at now.

It’s very hard to gauge whether it’s worth it but what I have found is you HAVE to jump straight on leads otherwise you have no chance. I do like the system but I was sold by there registration team a lot higher average paying job than what I’m getting. However I’m meeting new customers and leaving cards which lead to further contacts so IMO I do think it’s worth it looking at the bigger picture.

Very good service to get you jobs but I just found them well too expensive. You are better off joining local heros which is part of british gas and they just take a percentage off your wages after you get the job done and paid.

Waste of time and money. Paying 3 months Pro Package to get two leads. Mucked around when I phoned them, passed from pillar to post with clear lies. Avoid

After being a member for 6 years with a perfect reviews score someone left me a bad review that I have never worked for or even met but checkatrade published it how can this be right

I always recommend checkatrade to friends or newly tradesman. I started off with Checkatrade and got so many jobs from there ranging from little jobs to big jobs. Customer service is great, very helpful. Some guys I know complain about the price but I think the monthly price is good! Especially if you are going to the jobs and undertaking them. Just one job for me would get me the monthly payment for checkatrade, or even more than a months payment, meaning it would tick over to next month

I was a valued customer if Checkatrade for years when they were privately owned since being purchase by Homeserve the prices very quickly went up and found work areas were flooded with repeated trades, not only did this effect calls for customers but also made it more difficult for customers to decide who to call. After soaking to many customers since leaving they explained they would never use Checkatrade and had problems with their contractors a few times, though I am not saying its full of rogue traders it appears to me the standards are the same as when it first started

Why do these people not leave you alone? I was interested, but when they couldn't answer how much it would cost I couldn't help but think this may be a hoax on a very large scale!

Been hounded with a few phone calls to sign up to checkatrade
Offering 3 months free trial and keep telling them
I am not interested.

I have heard a lot of bad reviews about them from the trades mans point of view. The idea seems a good concept from the consumers side but it just seems like a middle man between the consumer and tradesman that doesn’t need to be there.

Don’t normally do bad reviews, been with Checkatrade for a few years now, the idea is great but does requires a lot of back ground paperwork keeping reviews uptodate, if you don’t you fall lower down the list

please do not join checkatrade, they offered me the free trial period for 3 months. I decided during the first month to cancel it. they advised me that I am in a contract. I gave them 30days notice well within the first month of signing up. they now advise me I have to pay the month's fee, before I can leave. so it's not a free trial.

I joined checkatrade on a free trail 3 month basis, I explained that I never wanted to pay anything until I saw the service was worth it.
I gave them a 30 day notice that I didn’t want to be charged and yet I still got charged £150 for a months subscription.
I never got one job from checkatrade
Checkatrade never explained that I would be charged this and have changed reasons for why I was charged.
I feel cheated.

Was sent to price up a job when roofing when the company was fairly new to the scene. The family opened door and walked me into a room with a dying old man who wanted a skylight fitted in the room above the bed he was in.

They had 7 other people round to price that one job.

Will not use then again

Have been offered this many times and the prices keep to differentiate. Unsure as to why there seems to be a different price from the last time. They’re not what they used to be

Absolute awful. Anyone can post a review, fake or otherwise. They say they can’t check if they are real because they don’t check the good ones either. Had loads of people getting bad reviews from rivals to push score down.
Once they have the money they could care less

Was looking into joining but having read the reviews on here, I’m not going to bother! Sounds like it’s overpriced and costs more every year for little in return.

They put the price up every year and penalise you for being a long standing member, leads are few and far between although much better than yell

Have been a full member for nearly 2 years and can count on 1 hand the number of phone calls I received from prospective customers. Originally I thought being a member was the holly grail to picking up new business but how wrong was I. Money, money, money and new member pushes are what they are going around doing now. Won’t be continuing after the next 2 months.

Was a happy user of Checkatrade for a couple of years. Unfortunately they are now money and new member orientated. No matter how often you have reviews left a new member always gets preferential ranking over you

I have been a member for over 10yrs now. My overall impression is that it is much less useful than it used to be & much more expensive as well. It has too many of a particular trade in each area & an unfair method of prioritising members (although they are trying to combat this)

I have only used them for requesting jobs before I started out on my own. At my parents property! The service was good and had so many trades man ready to give quotes.

Really good all round products my college used them back when I was in training and I liked them a lot good quality but not as good as other power tool brands

To be fair my first 12 months were great, made my money back with ease, after that it wasn’t great and the customer service was poor. Over subscribed and for me I would only recommend them if your starting out. Don’t expect long term results.

I think CheckaTrade has got too big now to be able to provide the service to businesses that they were first there to provide, great for customers looking for tradesmen but so many businesses undercut everyone to get the work it’s hard to compete

I have been a member of checkatrade for over two years now and it's the best thing I've ever done as 80% of my business comes from checkatrade enquiry.

I’ve been with this company and joined them shortly after it was founded. I honestly think now they’ve got too big and they’re taking on too many trades people within the same areas thus making it a great deal harder to compete .... not all bad for impending customers. However not so good for us the client.

Checkatrade used to be a good way to find work. They have made changes where even if you have great reviews, trades people from other areas are showing up in searches for your area. You may not even show up in local searches. Checkatrade have done this to make things fairer apparently.
There are people who have been with Checkatrade for many years who are cancelling their membership due to these changes.

Checkatrade been with them for 5 years good company they really help you with your page to get started and it does really work to get new business

It’s a con. Checks aren’t done on tradesmen/businesses. If you pay your money, you make the cut. If they can confirm a company exists then that’s enough. Dangerous really

Tried free trial didn’t like it - no work.
No getting hounded for a payment which we tried to leave the company
Not too much money but liberty to ask for months membership when didn’t get anything from them whatsoever!!

Checker trade is one of the most unreliable and awful companies out there, they call and email asking if you want to sign up and when you say no they blacklist your company

Nothing but bad experience with check a trade don’t know one tradesperson with good experience waste of money and time I just wish the general public would see this

This company is supposed to be the best , what a joke they are.
Any tradespeople should give these a miss big time.
Only bonus is they sponsored Cowboy Builders when that Melinda Messenger was in it

Where do I start ? I am a member but not for much longer gone down hill big time used to be a honest well run organisation but now unfortunately only about the money our business on a search term is below companies that are 50 miles away yes 50 miles I have complained but on deaf ears I have been a member for over 10 years but because they want more companies on board they now cold call and promise them higher positions leaving the companies that have been loyal left out in the cold I was paying over 800£ a month but now it does not work so will be leaving word of warning to trades thinking of joining DONT!! put your well earned money into something that will be more honest and work for you..

I’ve been with Checkatrade since 2003 and have spent a future with them, it started off with the right intention and was a great name/product to use when pricing unfortunately over the last few years it has become more about the money for them then it is about giving people good tradesmen that can be trusted, anybody can get on Checkatrade now especially the rough traders which I’ve seen plenty of them on there which is a big shame, This has now bought us as a company to the point of do we want to associate ourselves with an organisation like this where anyone can get in, our reputation is worth more to us then being in Checkatrade and I think next year we won’t be carrying on with them.
Terry

Why pay a 3rd party company for a 10 minute job each day you can do to promote your business. Since being taken over all the company wants is your payments. Checks are not undertaken properly, it’s false advertising and money you can use in your business, empty promises.

Used Checkatrade for 3 years before they got taken over & it worked well but when I first joined it was £850 a year, 3 years later they wanted £2500 a year which is a complete rip off as was only just about worth it at £850.
Also they bought in managed contacts which really didn’t work so I ended up leaving & invested some money in getting expert trades to do my website which has been great & couldn’t be busy so glad I left.

Known friends who have traded with Checkstrade for 12+ months. Say that they’re great value for money, best on the market, best for securing custom and their customer service is by far the best. Would recommend.

We have been with Checkatrade for well over a year.

Prior to this we used mybuilder and Rated People.

Even though Rated People helped us with our initial customers and mybuilder had only 2 leads that came to fruition.

Checkatrade has been by far the best value for money and helped our company build to a better platform.

I see checkatrade got a lot of negative reviews but despite this I decided to try it for myself and can confirm it paid for itself in the first 2months. If you keep on top of the reviews you will get multiple calls a week if not a daym

Checkatrade constantly mither me to join up, personally I think anyone that needs to buy work isn’t worthy of their trade , word of mouth is ledgendary

Don’t waste your time with it completely misleading and unless you throw lots of money to them
You won’t get the work you are promised.
As a sole trader it’s hard enough competing for work as it is

I've been on checkatrade for just under a year and wouldn't recommend joining. After the first 2 months I didn't receive any leads even after collecting alot of reviews. The price also went up without notification and finally after numerous calls the cost went down but still no leads. Better off spending your money on a website or advertising etc.

Never been a fan of check a trade and only heard horror stories about them. We’re good back in the day when they just started but now they want a huge amount of money for everything now it’s not worth have it.

Been on there two years now and honestly a waste of money, soo many timewasters and so many people wanting jobs done for nothing. Yet every year there membership costs seem to rise

Stick mybuilder for myself as i win 9/10 jobs.

Bit of a waste of time joined these but ends up costing you more than you end up making just use Facebook dont waste money on these they don't post bad reviews so cowboys get the jobs over you

Went with these a little while back, can't say they where all that good. Had a problem with a bullshit review and they wouldn't do anything about it. I'm not a great believer, surely if you were ood, you wouldn't need companies like this, making money from you

tried these a few years back after being harassed by their promotional emails, to be fair got a couple of jobs via them but unless your going in silly cheap with minimum margins its really not worth it.

They used to be a good company to deal with. After being taking over by whoever, they are a nightmare to deal with. They don’t return calls or call you back on a day they agree, also they want to put up their charges but nearly £40 a month for the same service in the next membership year.

We have been offered checkatrade a few times now and honestly people just need to realise that checkatrade and company’s like them just take the cream from the job and have you fighting for jobs that 9/10 times are just not worth it, if everybody charged a decent base rate and held themselves to a high moral standing company’s like checkatrade would not be needed. When we did look at checkatrade the prices were just to high and everyone I’ve asked who use them say the fee is not worth it.

I was with checkatrade for a number of years and began to notice how the price initially crept up. Then all over a sudden the price shot up then you realise that the number of jobs you have got have dropped to a insignificant amount. When you call customer service they like a debtor promise the world but you end up with nothing. Avoid at all costs before it costs you

I have been using checkatrade for three years now and they have always kept me notified of any changes customer callbacks and have always kept me in work

Been on CAT two years, started off well for the cost but now leads are getting less and less and costs are going up.
Also the lead quality I feel has significantly reduced.

After being with Checkatrade for 5 very good years, i have left, since HomeServe have taken over, the price has increaded, so much, for so little in return. My phone used to ring constantly, and i had so much work, before i left, i had 2 calls from timewasters in 5 moths, Their attitude towards their loyal customers has taken a dramitic hit, they just no longer care, they just want the cash squeeded out of you, and give you nothing in return.

Once an excellect platform for work, has now been buried deep by Harpins mob, to extract the cash from you, and leave you high and dry.
Checkatrade doesnt listen, will not listen and dont care about you, its money grabbing ways, and the absense of care has gone now, managed numbers does not work, people still get spam calls and even a youtuber has found a way to get everyones number, you only have to look to see how easy it is, yet the staff "apparently" tell the management this and still, but still, nothing is done, its their way or nothing,

They removed the "How long you been a member" too, this to me would only make the customer more happy, to know a tradesmen has been with a company for so long with good reviews, mindless actions like this, has caused droves of people to leave, including myself to leave, the yearly subscription has gone ( for me) from £89 to a massive £175 a month (£2100) plus, i had to remove 2 added sections, checkatrade kept telling to have to get more work, removed, as each is another whooping £50 each!!, enough is enough, i left and sad to say, what a perfect working platform it was for years, has been medled with, by people who havent a clue, only in extracting the cash from you, and what a great job they did their, it has turned in to a just scam now, in the 2 years Home Serve has taken over, its gone from great to utter rubbish, you only got to search the bad reviews homeserve have, to see why they failed miserably at chechatrade.

Checkatrade has really changed prices has gone from approx £85 to £140 per month
Call leads have dropped to one or two a week , A customer can just ruin your good reviews, by writing rubbish about you , checkatrade won’t do anything, rumours that prices are now going to rocket now homeserve own it

Do not under any circumstances get checkatrade they are now owned buy home serve and your contact detail are no longer shown on the site it’s a contact number that goes straight to checkatrade,
I have heard from a couple of company’s how they where getting 6 calls a day from checkatrade, then when homeserve took over that dropped to 1 a week and checkatrade then put the price up to over £100 a month
Stay away

This is such a rip off. It's not a waste of money if you don't mind throwing your hard earned money away on nothing every month and get nothing in return. It is expensive when you get nothing of equal value in return every month. I would not recommend Checkatrade to anybody else in the trades.

I’ve been with checkatrade since 2009. I feel it plays an important role for reviews and my landscape business. With paving related works there’s not a huge amount of places set up for reviews other than Facebook or google reviews so this is an addition which I feel is good for me. I will probably stay with them for the future to improve my profile but for me it’s a good thing to have. Never had any issues really apart from the price they want to charge yearly!

I have been a member since 2014. One man band and did very very well for around 3 -4 years. Same old story now, they want more money and youbet less calls. Keep taking in more tradesman and keep putting the price up. When you question it, some wet behind the ears worker will attempt to feed you BS. Homeserve took over the company and everyone knew where that would end up. They even direct customers calls now via their own number. I guarantee half go to their own members like dyno Plumbing “by mistake” Overall, a load of rubbish. You’d be better off spending your money on FB. Coming from a member of 6 years with over 400 reviews

I have been with checkatrade for 5 years now. I used to pay 6 monthly payments of £120 per month per year. Without telling me, checkatrade switched to 12 monthly payments of £120. This doubled my yearly subscriptions to £1440. I didn't realised that they had done this for over a year. I noticed while going through my books. When I asked them last September what the he'll they were thinking of, they just said there is nothing we can do about it and by the way, your locked in until next April and there's nothing you can do about it. I'm glad I've found this site to say my piece. Checkatrade are a bunch of crooks!

Really shocked and disappointed how Checkatrade has treated its loyal customer’s.
I have been with Checkatrade for over 10 years .
It was a great way to get work,excellent service at a reasonable price.
Since Homeserve have taken over they have ripped us all off massive increase in price and within the last 12 months I have had no more than 10 calls none have given me work.
I have been ripped off as we all have the ethics of Checkatrade has gone when they do this to us good trusted tradesmen and then rip us off when preaching how us the traders should be and treat our customers.
Nothing more than Greed.
Harpin cares about lining his pockets and so did Kevin.

I was a big supporter of checkatrade for the first few years I had membership but year on year my good opinion of the service is lowered by their constant increase in cost and lack of a better service for the money the charge. The phone used to ring non stop and now it's very rare I get call through checkatrade.

I’ve just received a letter from Checkatrade telling me my membership cost will be going from £1000 per year, up to £4000 per year!!!!! Even at £1000 a year I felt I was paying too much, at least 50% of calls were from time wasters. Called checkatrade about the price rise, they did nothing for me. I’ve had to lose all but 1 work category to keep the price at £1200 a year. I’ll give it 1 more year to see what I get out of it. Better off spending money on other advertising and the sites that you purchase job leads from, which have given me higher returns on investment in the past.

I have been with checkatrade for 2 years. When I joined my monthly installments were £82 for the 1st year, reasonable enough. However the second year went up to £108, which is slightly more than I would of liked to have been paying but still went with them. My term finishes on the 28 of March this year, now I've just had a letter stating that my payments will go up from the 28th of March to £149.99 VAT.
Errrrrhmmm no thanks checkatrade, I will certainly not be paying £180 pounds a month to stay with you. I can't believe how greedy they are being. If this is how they treat there loyal customers, then I'm afraid they are going to lose thousands of trades. No one in the right mind will pay those sorts of prices!!!!

keep away!! I have just finished my membership after 8 years. The last 3 years my membership fees have doubled form £1000 to £2000. They think you will not leave after having over 250 reviews but I have heard that a lot of one man bands are leaving. just as I was leaving they offered me a 10% discount but it is still a rip off with that been offered . don`t get locked in to this system of advertising. THEY SAID IF I DID NOT LIKE THE PRICE INCREASE THEN LEAVE, Thanks for the advise checkatrade!! and thanks for wasting my time and money£££££

I have been recently contacted by Checkatrade and have tried getting me to sign me up with a free two month trial, the rep has constantly been ringing me even after i said i was too busy to have a look at the offer. After speaking to numerous people who have used them i haven't been told one good thing so will be staying clear.

It was good for the first 5 years, then 2 years ago the takeover happened and its gone down hill. Not what it used to be. A waste of money, expensive and no work in return. I had to leave in the end like many other tradesman that were with them for years.

Waste of money from my point of view been on for about 8 months had 2 jobs off it but loads of calls from my ‘energy supplier who will cut me off if I don’t pay £xx!

They could be better I think we wasting time and money for it haha I spent over 2000 and no more work anyway I think better spend more money on marketing

I have recently found out that after last years membership of £800 this year they want £1440 nearly double. They have informed me that there is £10 that they can negotiate with...so insulted! I have had no follow up calls for the last 9 mths from them, shocking and greedy.

Checkatrade may be good if you live in an area where it's popular. I've found that it pays for itself (just about) but there are better returns available using other forms of marketting.

Was with this lot from 2015 had just under 200 reviews , it’s been bought out I saw my fees rise by 200 % and calls drop using their figures by 30%
They don’t care just want your money

I feel Checkatrade has gone downhill drastically in the past few years. It seems more about money and numbers these days instead of connecting customers to good trades. Massively over priced.

I point blank refuse to use checkatrade. The ever lasting price increase for lower call rates is the main factor. They call me 2 times a week and never seem to have records of any previous calls. There website is flooded with tradesmen and the no regulations on there have proved to be there downfall

I have been a member off checkatrade.com for about 5 months it is a little bit expensive every month but I do quite well from it . It's important to make sure you get reviews in because that keeps you at the top off the list

I have used checkatrade now for 3 years and have to say it is alot of money to pay every month but I always make that back with the amount of work I get from it. you do have to get your reviews from every job or you will go down the list. other tha that I highly recommend it.

It’s a real shame, a few years back it really did work! Unfortunate since Homeserve have taken over every aspect of this great platform has gone downhill and fast! CEO gone back on his words and bring in a system no one wants! The website/trade search constantly fails to work, seems only advertising they are currently driving is to get more trades on board. Customer service is shocking, gone are the friendly helpful staff, (account manager/team) now there’s call centre staff that know very Little and are unable to help in anyway.

I paid for a years membership and never received one single lead. I had customers post reviews but made no difference. Just one big scam where other members post fake reviews of themselves every night to stay top. Scams the trades and scams the public. Real bunch of leeches.

Didn’t really get as many calls as hoped, but we took advantage of a £30 two month no obligation trial. Really don’t like not having our number on the listing, only our managed contacts. Not writing off this product, will look in the furture

Since been taken over by HomeServe gone downhill no enquiries managed to contact not living up to expectations cost doubling
Concentrating on new membership

Was great at the beginning but since homeserve took over enquiries have gone down hill even with getting lots of reviews. They have over saturated my area so I'm competing with 100's of other companies so customers are getting loads of quotes and driving quotes down to where there is no profit to it. Need to focus on advertising Instead of advertising for new trades and overloading areas. Should be quality not quantity which they have forgotten.

Since been bought out by homeserve they have really gone downhill. To busy trying to get new tradesmen on board than getting work for the ones already members. Totally a waste of money

I get loads of quality leads from checkatrade, definitely worth the £1,000 per year fee. Plus they are really helpful via email, phone or Facebook. The positioning system is good as well.

I’ve been a member for a few months now. I found that it’s definitely worth the money, the application process is easy. I’ve found that 90% plus of the quotes turn into jobs, due to people already have confidence in you having seen your reviews.

I have been member since 2014 with mixed review value for money. Allays looked at it as advertisement expense rather than core source of business.
Last year got hit with massive incise in fees. I have questioned justification to 300% incrise as it is not normal business practise only to be told that has been massivley underpriced for years, so more of plie of horse manure from them if I may say so.
Since then I have been following financila and investors news with particular aim at Home Serve and Checkatrade.
As it turns out Home Serve has been downgraded May 2019 from low to reduce, with Checkatrade part of company showing healthy 33% rise in profits year on year.
They have poured massive amount of money into advertisement which had to be reclaimed via new membership or rise in fees.
According to article plan is to invest even more money into adverts which will probably result in more rise in fees.
I believe Checkatrade worked great as it was originally set up and help customers find reputable local small professionals like myself. It work for a decade so not sure why mess up something good for contractors and clients.
Unfortunately I believe that small firms like myself are unable to sustain this rapid rise in fees and will be force to make room for larger companies that can afford it making it a bit discriminatory towards small firms.

https://www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk/companies/news/220675/homeserve-pours-money-into-chekatrade-as-us-profits-soar-220675.html

Didn't work out for me. I joined and was told less trades men in the area and a few weeks later it tripled. Plus to stay top of the list you need to be getting loads of reviews. But some customers say they will but never do.

As with most things it’s the most well known so that comes with extra costs. Still as it’s so well known and advertised it does go in your favour when customers see your in it.