Website vs Checkatrade for Kitchen Fitters — Which Gets You More Work?

As a kitchen fitter, your work speaks for itself — when people see it. The question is: where are potential customers seeing your work, and is that platform doing you justice?

Most kitchen fitters start with Checkatrade. It gets leads in the door. But it also puts you in direct competition with every other fitter in your area, on a page you don't control, with a tiny photo gallery that doesn't do your kitchens justice.

Let's compare the two properly and figure out which actually gets you more — and better — work.

Checkatrade: What You Get

Checkatrade is a lead generation directory. You pay monthly, fill in a profile, and homeowners searching the platform can find and contact you. For kitchen fitters, it looks like this:

The good:

• Immediate visibility to homeowners looking for kitchen fitters
• Checkatrade's brand recognition builds instant trust
• Vetting and review badges add credibility
• Simple to set up — no technical skills needed

The not so good:

• You appear alongside every other kitchen fitter in your area
• Homeowners typically contact 3-4 fitters at once for quotes
• Limited photo gallery — small thumbnails that don't showcase detailed kitchen work
• You pay the same monthly fee regardless of how many leads you get
• Platform rules and pricing can change without notice
• Leads tend to be price-focused — customers are comparison shopping

That last point is particularly important for kitchen fitters. Kitchen fitting is premium work. Your customers are spending £5,000 to £20,000 or more. They're not looking for the cheapest option — they're looking for the best. A platform that puts you side-by-side with budget operators doesn't serve you well.

Your Own Website: What You Get

A website is your own corner of the internet. When someone searches "kitchen fitter in Leeds" on Google, a well-built website can appear in the results. When they click through, they land on a page that shows only your work, your reviews, and your services.

The good:

• Complete control over presentation — full-size portfolio images, case studies, video walkthroughs
• No competitors on the same page
• SEO compounds over time — your site gets stronger every month
• Rank for specific searches like "bespoke kitchen fitter" or "kitchen installation near me"
• One-time cost with minimal ongoing expenses
• Works as a landing page for ads, social media, and even Checkatrade

The not so good:

• Takes 3-6 months to rank well on Google for competitive local searches
• Requires an upfront investment
• Needs occasional updates

Why Presentation Matters More for Kitchen Fitters

Kitchen fitting is different from most trades in one crucial way: customers research heavily before choosing.

Nobody impulse-buys a kitchen. They spend weeks — sometimes months — browsing options, comparing styles, and researching fitters. During that research phase, they're looking at photos. Lots of photos. They want to see your style, your attention to detail, your range of work.

On Checkatrade, your photos are small thumbnails in a standardised layout. On your own website, you can showcase each kitchen as a full case study: before-and-after images at full width, descriptions of the work done, materials used, challenges overcome. You can tell the story of each project.

This is what converts a browser into a customer. When someone is about to spend £10,000 on a kitchen, they want to feel confident. A dedicated kitchen fitter website with a rich portfolio provides that confidence in a way Checkatrade simply cannot.

Cost Comparison

Here's what the numbers look like over a typical year.

Checkatrade:

• Monthly membership: approximately £60-120/month depending on area and categories
• Annual cost: £720-£1,440/year
• Every lead is shared — you're competing on price with other fitters
• Pricing can increase at any time

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

Over three years, Checkatrade costs you somewhere between £2,160 and £4,320. A website costs approximately £540 total. And the website keeps getting more valuable as it ages and builds authority on Google.

Lead Quality: This Is Where It Really Matters

For kitchen fitters, lead quality is everything. A kitchen fit is a big job — you want customers who value quality, not ones who are shopping for the lowest quote.

Checkatrade leads are shared. The customer has contacted multiple fitters. They're comparing prices. You're in a race to the bottom before you've even walked through the door. Many of these leads are looking for the cheapest option, which isn't where you want to compete.

Website leads come to you and only you. The customer has found your site, browsed your portfolio of completed kitchens, read your case studies, and decided you're the fitter they want. By the time they fill in your contact form, they've already chosen you. These leads close at a much higher rate and at better margins.

One kitchen fitting job from a website lead — let's say a £7,000 job — pays for the website fourteen times over. That's the kind of ROI that makes the decision obvious.

The Compound Effect

Checkatrade is a subscription. You pay, you get listed, you stop paying, you disappear. There's no lasting benefit. Year three is identical to year one in terms of what the platform offers you.

A website is an asset. It grows in value over time. Google trusts older sites more. Blog posts you write today bring in traffic for years. Your portfolio grows with every completed kitchen, making the site more impressive. After a year, your site is significantly stronger than it was on day one. After two years, it's stronger still.

This compounding effect is particularly valuable for kitchen fitters. Kitchen-related search terms are competitive, and the fitters who've had well-optimised websites for the longest tend to dominate local results.

The Smart Strategy

For most kitchen fitters, the ideal approach is:

1. Build a website first — it's the foundation for everything else
2. Link it from your Checkatrade profile — this makes your Checkatrade listing more credible and drives traffic to your site
3. Use the website for Google Ads — send paid traffic to a page where there's no competition
4. Invest in content — blog posts about kitchen styles, costs, and trends bring in organic traffic
5. Let SEO build — within 6-12 months, organic leads from your site may reduce your reliance on Checkatrade

The Verdict

For kitchen fitters specifically, a website is the better investment — and it's not even close. Kitchen fitting is premium, visual work. Customers do extensive research. They need to see your work properly presented. Checkatrade's standardised format cannot do your kitchens justice.

Checkatrade has its place as a supplementary lead source, especially when you're starting out. But your own kitchen fitter website is the asset that establishes you as a premium fitter, showcases your craftsmanship, and generates exclusive, high-quality leads.

If you want a professional website that presents your kitchen work the way it deserves, we build websites specifically for kitchen fitters — hand-coded, SEO optimised, and designed to win premium work. One-time payment of £497, no monthly fees, and live within 7 days.

Axel

Full-stack developer specializing in Shopify and Django. Building automated e-commerce solutions.