Checkatrade is a homeowner directory: people post a job, and you pay a monthly membership (widely reported at £50 to £100+ a month) plus a fee for many leads to quote for it. SiteLens watches the UK planning register and surfaces new projects the day the council publishes them, classified by trade and value, from £0. They win work in two different ways, and this page helps you pick.
Try Pro free for 7 days, no card and no sales call.
Claim it from your dashboard as soon as you sign up. It ends on its own and drops back to the free forever plan, so there is nothing to cancel.
Checkatrade waits for a homeowner to post a job, then sells you the enquiry alongside other trades. SiteLens tells you about projects at planning stage, often weeks or months before they become a competitive job, so you can be the first to approach them.
Checkatrade is pay-to-quote: a monthly membership plus a fee on many leads, competing against several trades for the same homeowner. SiteLens is a flat £29/mo billed annually (£39 monthly), with a free-forever tier, unlimited application views and no per-lead charge.
Checkatrade is built for domestic jobs. SiteLens classifies every application by trade, project type and estimated value, surfacing residential, commercial and infrastructure schemes, including the larger work that never appears as a homeowner enquiry.
Feature-for-feature, based on publicly available information.
| Feature | SiteLens | Checkatrade |
|---|---|---|
| Core function | Planning-stage project alerts and AI classification | Homeowner enquiry directory and leads |
| Built for | Trades, suppliers and developers chasing projects | Domestic trades wanting homeowner jobs |
| Public, transparent pricing | Included | Varies by trade and area (quote-based) |
| Free forever tier | Included | Not included |
| Starting price | £0 · Pro £29/mo billed annually (£39 monthly) | ~£50-£100+/mo membership |
| Per-lead fees | Not included | Yes (~£20-£40 on bigger jobs) |
| Reach projects before the quote stage | Included | Not included |
| AI classification by trade and value | Included | Not included |
| Commercial and infrastructure work | Included | Mostly domestic |
| Homeowner reviews and public profile | Not included | Included |
| Daily alerts filtered to your trade and area | Included | Job enquiries when a homeowner posts |
| Map-based search | Included | Not included |
| Contract | Monthly or annual | Membership term varies |
Plenty of domestic trades will run both. Checkatrade brings in ready-now homeowner jobs and a public review profile that wins trust. SiteLens finds the larger and earlier projects, residential through commercial, so you can approach the developer or main contractor before the work is a competitive job. One feeds today’s diary, the other builds next year’s pipeline.
Checkatrade does not publish a single flat price, it varies by trade and area. Independent breakdowns widely report a membership of roughly £50 to £100+ a month, often rising with featured placements, plus per-lead fees of around £20 to £40 for bigger jobs. SiteLens gives unlimited application views on every plan, including free, with no per-lead charge. Pro is £29/mo billed annually, or £39 monthly. Reported Checkatrade figures are as at August 2026.
Not exactly, and it is honest to say so. Checkatrade generates homeowner enquiries for domestic jobs and hosts your reviews. SiteLens finds new projects at planning stage, classified by trade and value, so you can approach them early. They win work in different ways, and many trades use both.
A Checkatrade lead is a homeowner who has posted a specific job and wants it done now, and you usually pay to quote for it against other trades. A SiteLens lead is a new planning application, residential through commercial, that you see in the next morning's alert once the council publishes it, classified by trade and estimated value, with no per-lead fee, so you can be first to the project.
If your work is domestic jobs and you want homeowners who are ready to hire today, Checkatrade is built for exactly that. It puts you in front of people actively looking for a trade, collects reviews that build trust, and handles the enquiry flow. SiteLens does none of that, it does not generate homeowner enquiries or host a reviews profile, so for reactive domestic work Checkatrade is the better fit.
SiteLens is the tool for the other half of the job: finding projects early, especially the commercial and larger residential work that never shows up as a homeowner enquiry. If your growth depends on getting to projects before they are a competitive quote, that is what SiteLens is for, and the two can sit side by side.
Try Pro free for 7 days, no card needed. Then a free forever tier, no sales call.
Weekly: top councils by activity, the biggest projects, and where the market is moving. Free.
We’ll only use your email to send the weekly roundup. No spam, unsubscribe with one click.
The £5,000/yr enterprise platform, without the sales call.
Read →Same daily UK planning feed, without the daily phone call.
Read →Whole-UK coverage from £29/mo billed annually, plus the map and classification.
Read →Planning data for the supply chain, not letter campaigns.
Read →Live planning leads for the supply chain, where SearchLand does land sourcing.
Read →Unlimited application views on every plan, not 25 at £60.
Read →Planning leads for the trades, not site sourcing.
Read →Every council included, classified by trade and value.
Read →Leads for your trade, not alerts about your neighbours.
Read →Find the work worth chasing, where BuildAlert posts letters.
Read →Construction leads from planning, not investment data.
Read →Projects at planning stage, not pay-per-lead homeowner jobs.
Read →Reach the project before it reaches a tender list.
Read →The 2026 NPPF reforms commit to 1.5 million new homes, mandatory targets and faster decisions. That widens the pipeline for every trade.
Read: What the 2026 NPPF reforms mean for SME construction →