Is Hipages Worth It? 10 Marketing Tips For Tradies Who Want Their Own Leads

Is Hipages worth it? For some tradies, some of the time, yes. For a lot of the tradies who end up talking to me, it stopped being worth it a while ago.

Honestly, it depends on four things:

• What each job is worth to you.
• Your margin on that job.
• How much work you can take on right now.
• What other lead sources you already have.

I'm Levi Saunders from The Lead Gen Lab. I talk to trade business owners every week about where their work comes from, and shared-lead apps come up in nearly every conversation.

Is Hipages Worth It? The Short Answer

Hipages, Oneflare and ServiceSeeking all work the same basic way. A homeowner posts a job, and the platform sends it to a handful of local tradies who pay to respond. Hipages tells homeowners they can receive up to 3 free quotes, so when you buy that lead, you're usually one of several businesses chasing it.

That can work when the job is worth a lot, your margins are healthy and you've got room in the diary. It works badly when the jobs are small, the lead goes to several businesses and the customer picks whoever is cheapest.

Either way, it shouldn't be your only source of work. You don't own the platform, and you don't own the relationship with the customer.

What Tradies Are Really Paying For Shared Leads

When tradies tell me what they pay on Hipages, ServiceSeeking or Oneflare, I hear anywhere from about $45 to $300-plus for a single lead. Around $75 is a common figure. These are what business owners report to me, not official platform prices, and they vary a lot by trade and area.

Two things make that number sting:

• It isn't exclusive. The same enquiry goes to other businesses.
• From what tradies tell me, you pay whether or not you win the job.

What Hipages Publishes

Hipages prices its plans in credits. A credit is the platform's own currency, and you spend credits to accept a job lead. These are the plans on Hipages' pricing page when I checked it on 1 October 2026:

Hipages says the number of credits needed to accept a lead "varies by job category, location, size of job, and supply and demand". So the plan price doesn't tell you what a lead costs. Your app does.

Plans start on a 6 month introductory term and then renew on a 12 month term, according to the same page. Read the terms before you sign.

The Number That Actually Matters

What matters is what each job you win costs you, once you count the leads you paid for and didn't win:

Cost per job won = what you paid for your leads ÷ the number of jobs you won from them

If you pay $75 a lead and win one job in four, every job cost you $300 before you've bought a single material. Our lead value calculator runs that sum against your own job value.

When Hipages Makes Sense, And When It Stops

It depends on what the job is worth to you and your margin on it. Every business owner has their own maths on what they can afford to pay for a lead, and that's the right place to start.

When It Can Be Worth It

• You're just starting out and need enquiries this week, with no website or reviews yet.
• The jobs are big enough that one win covers a lot of paid leads.
• You've already used every other channel and want one more line in the water. Some big companies use Hipages for exactly that reason.
• The jobs turn into referrals. If you do great work and that customer sends you three more, the lead was worth a lot more than you paid for it.

When It Stops Being Worth It

• The jobs are small and every lead goes to several other businesses.
• Your own marketing is starting to work, so you're paying for leads you'd have got anyway.
• You've found a more efficient way to generate the same work.
• You want a relationship, not a service. You can't build a real working relationship with a platform. You get a feed of jobs and a support line.

10 Marketing Tips For Tradies Who Want Their Own Leads

Whether you stay on Hipages or not, these are the things that get you more of your own work. Most of them cost time, not money.

1. Get Your Reputation Seen

A lot of tradies have a great reputation that nobody knows about. If you've done a great job, ask for a review, because reviews do a lot of the selling for you.

Google's own local ranking tips say "more reviews and positive ratings can help your business's local ranking". That's a ranking factor you control.

Two rules from Google's review policy to know before you ask:

• No incentives. You can't offer a discount, a freebie or money in exchange for a review.
• Ask everyone, not just the happy ones. Google doesn't allow businesses to only ask customers they expect to leave a good review.

2. Stop Competing On Price

You can't win a race to the bottom, and you shouldn't want to. Position yourself as the higher-end provider, then back it up with reputation and proof on your website.

To win more of the right jobs without being the cheapest, you need:

• The best-looking website in your area.
• A reputation people can check.
• Evidence of past work.
• A clear process the customer can follow from first call to finished job.

Nothing screams one-man band and cheap more than not having a good digital presence.

3. Explain What A Cheap Job Really Costs

A cheap job often ends up being the expensive one. Tell the customer what happens when the job isn't done properly, how the cheap operators cut corners, and what fixing it costs later.

Flooring is a good example. We have equity in the Online Flooring Store, which we built from scratch. If the subfloor, the base the new floor sits on, isn't prepared properly, or the product wears out and needs replacing in a few years, the cheap floor costs more money and, most importantly, more heartache.

EV chargers are another. Charging WA installs electric vehicle chargers and isn't always the cheapest quote, because it's serious work that has to be done properly. A homeowner might only have one EV today, but a system that can handle two may suit them better in a few years. The cheap charger or the cheap install can end up costing more, and it can create safety problems.

4. Be The Face Of Your Business

You can't hide behind a website anymore. You don't have to be loud on social media, but customers want to see the people, the work and how a job goes from start to finish before they ring you.

A faceless business is no good. Put your own photo, your team and your real jobs on the website and on your Google Business Profile.

5. Build A Website That Makes The Phone Ring

The difference between a website that makes the phone ring and one that just sits there is a long list, and it's getting longer. Your site now has to show up in Google and in AI tools like ChatGPT, and it has to be built so both of them can read it.

On the front of the site, the things I look for first:

• Real photos of real jobs. Stock or AI images are fine in places, but if there's no evidence of past work, that's a problem.
• A call button and enquiry form that work on a phone. Most of your visitors are on their phones, so test both there first.
• A form and phone number that actually get answered. More on that in tip 7.
• Pages written around what customers actually ask, not generic content.

Behind the scenes:

• Nothing technical stopping search engines from reading the site.
• Clear headings on every page, so Google can tell what each section is about.
• One page per service, so your own pages aren't competing against each other for the same search. That's called cannibalisation, and it's more common than you'd think.
• No keyword stuffing, which means cramming the same search words into a page over and over.
• Links from other reputable websites. These still matter.

I hear business owners say, "We can build a website in ChatGPT now, anyone can do it." It's the same thing people said when anyone could build a basic site in WordPress or Squarespace. Well done, good luck. Building a basic website isn't the same as making it perform, and that gap has never been bigger. Our tradie website design page shows how we build them.

6. Fix Your Google Business Profile

Your Google Business Profile is the free listing that shows your business on Google Maps and in the local results. The most common mistakes I see:

• Fake reviews, no reviews or not enough reviews.
• An address that doesn't match across the profile, the website and the business directories that list you. Often it's all over the shop.
• Business hours that don't match between the profile and the website.
• No real photos.
• Not replying to reviews, including the bad ones.
• Keyword stuffing, especially in the business name. Google says extra words in the name "could result in the suspension of your Business Profile".
• Not completing verification when Google asks you to verify again.
• Pretending to be somewhere you're not.

That last one is huge. Google's guidelines say a virtual office, an address you rent but don't work from, "isn't eligible for a Business Profile". You might get away with it for a while, but the listing can be suspended. If customers don't come to you, Google says service-area businesses should hide their address. Set your profile up that way.

Location matters too. I think of a profile a bit like an antenna: it's strongest close to home. Google lists distance as one of the three main things behind local ranking, along with relevance and how well-known the business is, so a profile won't reach suburbs a long way from your address just because you add them.

Posting on your profile probably helps a little, but I don't think it's a big factor. Google's own ranking tips don't mention posts at all. Our Google Business Profile optimisation guide and verification guide go through the rest.

7. Answer Within The Hour

Our rule is simple: get back to a missed call or a new enquiry within the hour, at the bare minimum. Straight away is better. The next day is unacceptable. It's something we're strict about with our clients, and our mood sours quickly if it isn't fixed.

There's research behind it. In a Harvard Business Review study of 1.25 million sales leads, firms that tried to contact a lead within an hour were nearly 7 times as likely to have a meaningful conversation with the decision maker as firms that waited even one more hour. They were more than 60 times as likely as firms that waited 24 hours or longer.

That study looked at US businesses in 2011, not Australian trades, so treat the exact numbers carefully. What it shows still holds: an enquiry goes cold fast.

No AI software or receptionist completely replaces getting the customer on the phone with the expert quickly. That call can be the difference between winning the job and losing it.

8. Walk The Customer Through The Quote, Then Follow Up

For a simple job like fixing a leaking tap, maybe just send the quote. For a bigger, more personal job, like a bathroom renovation, the quote should come with a phone call.

1. 1Walk them through it. Some tradies quote supply and installation separately, or costs sit in different parts of the quote. Explain each line.
2. 2Say it plainly. "There are no extras and no hidden costs. This might look higher on the surface, but this is the quality you get."
3. 3Give them time, then follow up a few days or about a week later to show you still want the work.

If the customer is confused, they usually don't go ahead. Something small they don't understand can cost you the job.

9. Show Proof Everywhere

Social media and YouTube can sit alongside your website and give customers more proof that you're real and good at what you do. Video about the business always helps. Customers like to check you out in different ways, so give them more than one place to do it.

We tested where social media shows up in Google for Australian trade searches in our social media SEO research.

10. Know What A Lead Is Worth To You

Every one of these tips comes back to one question: what can you afford to pay for a lead? Work out your average job value, your margin and how many enquiries you win, and you'll know what a lead is worth to you. Then compare every channel on cost per job won, not cost per lead.

Hipages Alternatives: What Exclusive Leads Look Like

Exclusive leads are what we do at The Lead Gen Lab.

We build lead generation websites that we own and operate, and they send exclusive leads to one business in each trade and area. Nobody else gets that enquiry. We also use other channels, including Google Business Profile, and we're careful to keep everything above board, with an agreement between us and the business owner.

Who We Work With

We're selective. First, the trade and area have to suit our way of generating leads. Second, we're looking for a business owner who:

• Answers enquiries quickly.
• Has a good reputation.
• Understands that rewarding us for the leads and jobs we send keeps both sides committed to a fair deal.

How We Get Paid

It's very much "make your own adventure". Depending on the trade and the margins, it can be:

• Pay per lead.
• Pay per job.
• Payment for enquiries and search traffic.
• A flat fee to rent the website.
• A flat fee plus performance bonuses.
• Tiered commission, because profit margins vary with job size.

If there's trust, we can work per job, with you giving us access to your CRM, the system you track customers and jobs in, or us giving you access to ours. That needs transparency on both sides.

How It Starts

My job is to listen and work out fairly whether we're a good fit. If we're not, it's better that we don't work together. If we are, there's a trial period. After that, we might look at the next 10 leads or the next 10 jobs before moving to a longer-term arrangement.

The catch is that we own the websites. But there's no lock-in, so if a website isn't performing, you're not stuck paying for something that isn't working. And if a business owner doesn't pay, is unreasonable or simply doesn't want to work with us, we part ways and send the leads to another business that fits.

You can see how this works for your trade on our job leads for tradies page.

Why Relationships Matter More Than The Platform

Lead generation is based on relationships, like any business. If you don't have good relationships, you don't have anything.

We like to be in regular contact with the businesses we work with. A platform isn't going to build that same relationship or go the extra mile. The way we do it is a lot more work, because a website is never finished. We keep working on it, and the sites generally keep growing for years until they hit a ceiling.

If we work together for a long time, we're happy to go into a long-term agreement. We still own the website, but by then neither of us wants to walk away. We don't want to leave you, and you don't want to leave us.

What Tradies Complain About Most

When a tradie first talks to me about marketing, the biggest complaint is upfront cost. Most business owners who get to me have already tried marketing and more than likely had a bad experience:

• An SEO agency that took the money and delivered little.
• A good agency so busy that a junior ended up running their campaign.
• Organic social media that ate time and brought in nothing.

In my experience, a good SEO campaign, the ongoing work to rank a website in Google, starts at around $2,000 plus GST a month. Below that, an agency may not be motivated to put in the resources it takes to get results. A local business turning over anywhere from a couple of hundred thousand dollars to $10 million can end up tens of thousands of dollars deep, and that hurts at any size.

SEO is generally best left to professionals unless you want to study it for hours every day. The good news is that SEO campaigns are getting more efficient, so business owners get more for what they spend.

An Extra Line In The Water

Working with The Lead Gen Lab gives you an extra line in the water with very little upfront risk:

• No lock-ins. You dip your toe in the water first.
• Exclusive leads, not leads shared with your competitors.
• Someone who listens. You'll learn things that help your own marketing, then you can decide whether to invest in SEO, through us or someone else.

More broadly, look for inexpensive, low-risk ways to grow. When it comes to SEO, money on its own doesn't do it. Money plus experience talks, and even then it takes time. You need all three: money, experience and time.

If you'd like to see what that could look like for your business, get a free lead plan and I'll take you through it.

Questions Tradies Ask About Hipages