hipages vs Your Own Website

You've probably had the call. A rep from a lead site, telling you they've got people in your area right now who need a plumber, a sparky, a chippie. And they have. That's the part that makes it hard to say no to.

Lead sites can work. The bigger question is what you own at the end of it. Here's the honest comparison, from someone who builds websites for a living and has no way to sell you a lead.

What you're actually buying with a lead site

Lead platforms like hipages, Oneflare and Airtasker all work roughly the same way. Someone posts a job. The platform sells that job to tradies (usually several of you at once), and you pay for the chance to quote. Whether you pay per lead, buy credits, or sit on a monthly plan, the shape is the same: you're renting access to somebody else's customers.

That buys you three real things:

• Jobs when you need them. A quiet fortnight can be filled in a couple of days.
• No setup. You don't have to build anything or wait for Google.
• Someone else's marketing budget. They run the ads. You just turn up.

That's genuinely useful when you're starting out, moving to a new area, or staring at an empty diary. Nobody should pretend otherwise.

What it costs you that isn't on the invoice

The money is the obvious cost, and it changes, so check their current pricing rather than whatever you heard at the pub. The costs that hurt are the ones that don't show up on the bill.

You're quoting against three other blokes. The same job usually goes to several tradies. That drags every quote toward the cheapest price, because price is the only thing the customer can easily compare. You end up competing on being cheap instead of being good.

The customer is theirs, not yours. Next time that person needs work done, they go back to the app. Not to you. You paid to do the job and the platform kept the relationship.

You can't be looked up. Plenty of people who find you through a lead site will still search your business name before they let you into their house. If nothing comes up, some of them quietly go elsewhere, and you never hear about it.

The tap can be turned off. Your prices go up, the rules change, a competitor buys more visibility, and there's nothing you can do about it. You don't own the pipe.

What your own website actually does

A website doesn't hand you a job tomorrow the way a bought lead does. It does something slower and, over time, cheaper.

• It's the one people check. Whether a mate recommended you, they saw the ute or they found you on Google, most people end up looking you up. That's the moment a website earns its keep.
• It's yours. Nobody can raise the price of your own address or sell it to a competitor.
• Nobody else is quoting on it. Someone ringing your number isn't ringing three others at the same moment. So you're judged on your work and your reviews, with price only part of it.
• It feeds Google. Your Business Profile, Maps, your suburbs, your trade. The site is what makes all of that make sense to Google.
• It doesn't stop. You pay the same whether it's a busy month or a quiet one.

The honest downside: it takes time. A new website isn't on page one next week. The "looked you up and rang" calls tend to come first. Showing up for people who don't know you yet on Google usually takes longer, and there are no guarantees.

The maths that matters

Don't compare a website's monthly cost with the price of one lead. Compare what a year of each gives you.

A year of bought leads is a year of quotes you split with other tradies, and at the end you own nothing. A year on a website is a year of having your own place online where people can check you out and ring only you, and an address that keeps working the following year too. On our Sorted plan that's $49 a month plus your domain name, which you buy yourself for about $20–$50 so it's in your name.

Work out your own number. Take what you've spent on leads in the last 12 months. Then ask how many of those customers you could ring today for repeat work. If the answer is "not many", you've been renting.

So which one?

The honest answer is that they're not really opposites. A sensible order for most tradies looks like this:

1. Get the website sorted first, so anyone who hears your name can find you and see real work.
2. Sort out your Google Business Profile, because that's where "plumber near me" gets answered. We'll help you do it.
3. Use lead sites as a tap, not a foundation. Turn them on when it's quiet and off when you're booked, rather than relying on them to keep the lights on.

The test is simple: if the lead site disappeared tomorrow, would customers still be able to find you? If the answer's no, that's the thing to fix. Lead sites aren't evil, but being findable shouldn't be something you rent by the month from someone else.

The short version

• Lead sites buy you jobs now, at the cost of competing on price and never owning the customer.
• Your own website is slower to get going, and the customer, the reputation and the Google presence are yours.
• Start with the website, keep the leads as a tap, and stop paying to quote against three other tradies on every job.