Most bathroom fitters start with Checkatrade. It makes sense — you sign up, get listed, and leads come in. But as the monthly fees stack up, a lot of fitters start wondering: would I be better off with my own website?
The honest answer is that both have a role to play. But they work very differently, and understanding the difference will help you spend your money where it actually gets results.
How Checkatrade Works for Bathroom Fitters
Checkatrade is a directory. You pay a monthly fee, fill in your profile, and homeowners browsing the platform can find you. It's straightforward, and it works — to a point.
What's good:
- Instant visibility to people looking for bathroom fitters
- The Checkatrade name carries trust with homeowners
- Reviews and vetting badges build credibility
- No technical skills needed to set up
What's not so good:
- You're listed alongside every other bathroom fitter in your area
- Customers can compare you with competitors on the same page
- You pay every month whether you get leads or not
- Limited control over how your work is displayed
- Checkatrade can change pricing or rules at any time
That last point about displaying your work is a big deal for bathroom fitters specifically. Bathroom fitting is a visual trade — the quality of your finished work is your biggest selling point. Checkatrade gives you a photo gallery, but it's small, generic, and identical in format to everyone else's.
How Your Own Website Works
Your website is a piece of the internet that belongs to you. When someone searches "bathroom fitter in Sheffield" on Google, a well-optimised website can appear in the results. When they click through, they land on your site — where there are no competitors, no distractions, and your work speaks for itself.
What's good:
- Complete control over how your work is presented
- Full-screen before-and-after portfolios that sell the job for you
- No competitors on the same page
- SEO builds compound traffic over time
- One-time cost with no ongoing platform fees
- Works as a landing page for Google Ads, social media, and Checkatrade itself
What's not so good:
- Takes time to rank on Google (typically 3-6 months for local searches)
- Requires an upfront investment
- Needs the occasional update to stay current
Why Presentation Matters More for Bathroom Fitters
Here's the thing that separates bathroom fitting from a lot of other trades: your work is visual. A plumber fixes a leak and the evidence is hidden behind a wall. You transform an entire room, and the result is something people can see and feel.
That means how you showcase your work directly affects how many enquiries you get. A stunning before-and-after gallery on your own website — full-width images, multiple angles, perhaps a short description of what was done — is infinitely more powerful than a small thumbnail on Checkatrade.
When a homeowner is deciding who to trust with their bathroom renovation, they're spending thousands of pounds. They're going to look at your previous work carefully. A dedicated bathroom fitter website with a proper portfolio gives them the confidence to pick up the phone.
The Cost Comparison
Let's look at what you're actually spending over a year.
Checkatrade:
- Monthly membership: approximately £60-120/month depending on your area
- Annual cost: £720-£1,440/year
- You're competing for every lead with other fitters on the platform
- Leads can be price-sensitive — they've seen your competitors' prices right next to yours
Your own website:
- One-time build cost: £497 (hand-coded, SEO optimised, with portfolio)
- Annual domain renewal: £10-15/year
- First year total: approximately £510
- Ongoing years: approximately £15/year
After year one, your website costs practically nothing to maintain. Checkatrade keeps charging. Over three years, that's potentially over £4,000 spent on Checkatrade versus roughly £540 total for a website.
Lead Quality: Shared vs Exclusive
This is the real difference, and it matters.
Checkatrade leads are shared. A homeowner requests quotes from multiple fitters simultaneously. You're in a race — whoever responds fastest or quotes cheapest often wins. That drives prices down and puts pressure on your margins.
Website leads are yours alone. Someone has found your site, browsed your portfolio, read about your services, and decided to contact you. They're not comparing you side-by-side with three other fitters. They've already made a decision — they just need to confirm the details. These leads convert better and are less price-sensitive.
For bathroom fitting especially, where jobs are high-value (typically £3,000-£10,000+), the quality of your leads matters enormously. One good website lead that converts into a full bathroom renovation pays for the website many times over.
The Long Game
Checkatrade is like renting a shop on someone else's high street. You pay monthly, and when you stop paying, you vanish. Nothing compounds. Day one is the same as day 500.
A website is like owning the building. You invest once, and it appreciates over time. Every month your site is live, Google trusts it more. Blog posts you write today can bring in enquiries for years. Your portfolio grows with every completed job, making the site more impressive over time.
The Smart Approach: Use Both
The best strategy for most bathroom fitters is this:
- Get a website first — it's the foundation that everything else builds on
- Link it from your Checkatrade profile — profiles with websites get more clicks and more trust
- Use your website for Google Ads — send paid traffic to your site where there's no competition
- Let SEO compound — within 6-12 months, organic traffic may reduce your need for Checkatrade
- Keep Checkatrade as a supplement — useful for extra visibility, but not your only source of work
The Verdict
For bathroom fitters specifically, a website is the better investment. Your trade is visual, your work sells itself when presented properly, and a Checkatrade listing simply cannot showcase bathroom transformations the way a dedicated website can.
Checkatrade is a useful tool, especially when starting out. But your own bathroom fitter website is the asset that keeps working for you long after the initial investment.
If you want a professional website that puts your bathroom work front and centre, we build websites specifically for bathroom fitters — hand-coded, SEO optimised, with a portfolio that does your craftsmanship justice. One-time payment of £497, no monthly fees, and live within 7 days.
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