The Checkatrade alternative that publishes its pricing
OptiTech Automation vs Checkatrade. Checkatrade is a lead marketplace. You pay to compete for enquiries. OptiTech Automation is the Checkatrade alternative where customers book you directly, pay a deposit at booking, and stay yours. Different products, different economics.
| Feature | Checkatrade | OptiTech Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Owns the customer | No, the lead marketplace does | Yes, your booking page, your contract |
| Pricing | No simple public price list, quoted for your trade and area (Verified August 2026) | Published: £599 a month up to fifteen on the tools, £1,749 to thirty |
| Data export | Your profile and reviews live on their platform | One click, CSV/PDF, all data |
| Worker app | Not what a directory is for | Yes, offline-first |
| Xero sync | Not part of the marketplace model | Yes, two-way, draft invoices on completion |
The price, in the open
Checkatrade
Checkatrade does not publish a simple public price list for membership. What you pay is quoted for your trade and your area, and you find the real number by talking to them. Checked July 2026.
That is not an attack, it is how marketplaces price access. But it does mean you cannot compare costs from your kitchen table, and the cost of competing for each enquiry sits on top of whatever you agree.
OptiTech Automation
Standard is £599 a month plus a £249 one-off onboarding investment and covers up to fifteen on the tools. Growth is £1,749 a month and takes you to thirty. Hiring inside your band does not move the bill, there is no per-lead or per-enquiry meter, and both are published on the pricing page in pounds, with no call required.
If the numbers do not work for your business, we would rather you found that out in two minutes on the pricing page than after a sales call.
A lead marketplace and a booking platform are different machines
Checkatrade exists to introduce you to homeowners. You pay to be visible, the enquiry arrives, and you chase it alongside other trades who received the same kind of enquiry. When the job ends, the profile, the reviews and the relationship largely live on their platform, not yours.
OptiTech Automation is the other machine. It assumes the customer has already found you, through your reputation, your van, your referrals or your own site. Its job is to turn that attention into a confirmed, deposit-paid booking without you touching the phone. We are not a lead marketplace, and we never promise leads or rankings. We are the system that runs the work you win.
What booking-first means in practice
On a lead marketplace, and on most trade software, work arrives as an enquiry. Someone fills a form or rings, you call back, you quote, you wait, you invoice, you chase. Every step is a place where the job can die or the deposit can go unasked for.
On OptiTech Automation the customer picks a real slot on your booking page and pays a deposit at that exact moment. The deposit is taken automatically, by card, into your own Stripe account. The money never touches OptiTech Automation. By the time you hear about the job it is already booked, already part-paid, and already offered to the right member of your team.
The cost that never appears on an invoice
The marketplace model carries a quiet cost: the enquiries you pay to compete for and do not win. Every owner who has used a lead marketplace knows the feeling of paying for an enquiry that other firms are chasing at the same time.
We charge one plan fee, £599 a month on Standard, whatever your enquiry volume does. A busy month does not cost more. A quiet month does not punish you twice. And a customer who books through your own page this year can book again next year without anyone paying for the introduction a second time. That repeat booking is the whole point of owning the page.
Built for the owner with a team
Our centre is the UK trade business of any size up to 90 workers. The owner who is still quoting at nine at night because the office work never made it off their shoulders.
That is why the price is a plan, not a meter on every hire. Within Standard, up to fifteen on the tools, adding a van or an apprentice does not raise the bill, and the step to Growth at £1,749 for bigger teams is published like everything else. The worker app, the auto-dispatch engine and the two-way Xero sync are all in the plan — features are never sold back to you one by one.
What the plan fee actually buys
Everything in this paragraph is included in Standard at £599 a month. The booking page your customers book real slots on. The deposit engine that takes a card payment at the moment of booking, into your own Stripe account. The auto-dispatch engine that offers each job to the right worker while you keep final say. The offline-first worker app your team runs the day from. The two-way Xero sync that raises a draft invoice when a job completes. And the record of every customer, job and payment in one place, exportable in one click.
There is no per-lead meter running underneath any of it. The bill in month twelve is the bill from month one, whatever your enquiry volume did in between. And if the team grows past fifteen on the tools, the step to Growth at £1,749 is published too, so even the growth path holds no surprise.
Run them side by side before you decide
You do not have to cancel anything to try this. Plenty of owners keep a marketplace membership while their own booking page takes over the repeat and referral work. Watch where the profitable jobs come from for a couple of months, then decide with your own numbers, not ours.
For the record: we are UK GDPR compliant, ICO registered and EU-hosted, and the whole platform is run by one accountable UK founder. When you email, the person who built it answers.
Who should stay where
Stay with Checkatrade if
- You are new to the trade with an empty diary and no customer base yet. A marketplace fills empty weeks faster than operations software can.
- Nearly all of your work is one-off jobs for new customers you will never see again.
- You are a one-person band and a monthly software bill matters more than the admin hours it would save.
Move to OptiTech Automation if
- Work is coming in and the bottleneck is running it: quoting, scheduling, taking deposits, dispatching the team.
- You want the reviews, the rebookings and the customer relationship on your own page rather than on a marketplace profile.
- You employ people and want jobs offered to the right worker automatically instead of living in your head.
Questions owners ask about switching from Checkatrade
Checkatrade is a lead marketplace. You pay to be visible and you compete for enquiries. OptiTech Automation is a booking platform you own. Customers book directly with you, pay a deposit at booking into your own Stripe account, and stay your customers.
Yes. OptiTech Automation publishes its pricing in full: Standard is £599 a month plus £249 setup covering up to fifteen on the tools — hiring within your plan does not move the bill — with no per-lead fees, and Growth at £1,749 covers up to thirty. Checkatrade does not publish a simple public price list for membership (Verified August 2026).
Checkatrade membership is quoted for your trade and area rather than published as a single price list, so the honest answer is that it depends. OptiTech Automation is published: £599 a month plus £249 setup on Standard, with no per-lead fees on top.
Check the notice terms in your membership agreement first, and export your reviews and contact list before you cancel anything. Then set up your own booking page. Most owners run both for a while and let the numbers decide.
Yes, and we recommend it. Keep the marketplace membership while your booking page takes over the repeat and referral work. Your card is authorised at signup, but your subscription is not charged until you go live.
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. We are not a lead marketplace and we never promise leads or rankings. We turn the attention you already earn into deposit-paid bookings and give you back the hours the admin was taking.
See the numbers for yourself
Our pricing is public, the worth-it calculator does your own sums in about two minutes, and the call is 15 minutes with the founder, not a sales team.