Before we start: We run a competing referral model, judge us by the same five checks. This is an editorial comparison by a competitor, and it says so, what follows is the mechanics, what tradespeople report, and a straight read of who MyBuilder suits.
How MyBuilder works for a trade
MyBuilder is a job board, not a membership directory. The homeowner posts a job; trades in the area see it and express interest; the homeowner shortlists the ones they like; and you pay a shortlist fee when a homeowner picks you to quote. There’s no monthly membership, your cost tracks the jobs you actually chase. Fees typically run £5–35 a lead, £50+ for larger jobs (MyBuilder’s own line is “from £7”), and a posted job is usually shared with 3–5 trades.
Three honest consequences of that design:
- The floor cost is low.Quiet month, chase nothing, pay nothing. That’s genuinely better than paying a membership through January.
- You only pay when the homeowner chooses you, a real filter that pure pay-per-contact models don’t have. A shortlist fee at least means a live human preferred your profile.
- You’re still one of a shortlist.The homeowner is assembling quotes to compare. The job goes to one of the 3–5 shortlisted trades, usually the sharpest price or the fastest response, and every other shortlisted trade paid to lose.
What the reviews and the model tell you about lead quality
MyBuilder doesn’t carry the fury that surrounds Bark’s credit system (we’ve covered that separately in our Bark reviews for tradespeople). The friction tradespeople describe with MyBuilder is quieter and structural: a posted job is a comparison-shopping exercise by design. The homeowner wrote a brief precisely to collect competing quotes, so price pressure isn’t a bug in the enquiry, it’s the reason the enquiry exists. Add the usual shared-model unknowns, has someone already been out? will they answer when you ring?, and your win rate depends heavily on responding first and quoting keen.
A shortlist fee is the fairest way yet invented to charge you for a race. It’s still a race.
Who MyBuilder genuinely suits
- New trades building a review base, pay-as-you-go beats a 12-month directory term while you’re finding your feet, and completed-job reviews compound.
- Small, quick-quote jobs, where quoting costs minutes, losing some shortlists is an acceptable cost of the ones you win.
- Filling gaps on your terms, because there’s no retainer, it works as an occasional top-up tool rather than a standing cost.
Who it suits least: established trades with high-value work. A bathroom or roof quote is a site visit and an evening of pricing; do that maths across a shortlist you mostly won’t win, and the “cheap” platform stops being cheap, the same arithmetic we walk through in is Checkatrade worth it for tradespeople.
MyBuilder shortlist vs a checked referral
| What matters | MyBuilder shortlist | One-partner referral |
|---|---|---|
| Homeowner’s intent | Collect competing quotes | Take the one name they were given |
| Competition | 3–5 shortlisted trades | One buyer only, 1 of 1 |
| You pay | Per shortlist, win or lose | Per referral that passed five checks |
| Job description | A posted brief written for everyone | Their own words over SMS, sent to you alone |
| A dud | Fee usually spent regardless | Fails a check → not sent, not billed |
The alternatives
If you’re weighing MyBuilder against the rest of the field, TrustATrader, Bark, Rated People, doing your own marketing, the full scored comparison lives in Checkatrade alternatives for tradespeople. If what you actually want is the job without the race, that’s a different product category, not a different platform: the difference between shared enquiries, exclusive enquiries and warm referrals is laid out in shared vs exclusive leads vs referrals. What separates a referral from any lead at all is in referral vs lead, and the dated fee table for every platform on this page is in lead prices UK and US. Ours is the referral kind, exclusive trade leads, one company per area for trades and home services, every job checked against The Referral Standardbefore it reaches the partner. Hold us to that in exactly the way you’d hold MyBuilder to its shortlist promise.
Published 11 August 2026. MyBuilder mechanics described are the platform’s publicly documented model as of August 2026. Fee ranges are from the UK Trade Lead Cost Tracker (22 July 2026) and MyBuilder’s published pricing; fees vary by trade and job, confirm current rates with MyBuilder directly. Observations about shared-model economics are structural, not measured statistics.