Checkatrade, Facebook or your own website: where Wrexham work comes from
What Checkatrade, the Facebook groups and your own site each send a Wrexham business, what each costs, and how to stop renting your customers.
By Daniel Stoychev, Webso Digital · 30 August 2026 · 8 min read
Checkatrade and MyBuilder send leads today and take a fee on each; the Wrexham Facebook groups send recommendations and arguments; your own profile and website send work for free once they are built, and keep sending it. The busiest businesses in Wrexham use all three and depend on none. This guide is what each one actually sends here, what it costs, and how to move from renting your customers to owning them.
The platforms
Checkatrade, MyBuilder, Rated People and Bark work the same way: the homeowner posts a job or searches a trade, the platform shows several businesses, and you pay per lead or per month whether or not you win. In Wrexham the platform listings often rank above the first real business for trade searches, because the platforms have thousands of pages and years of links. They are useful for a new business with no reviews, and expensive for an established one: a builder paying for twenty leads a month to win three is paying the platform more than a retainer would cost.
| Channel | What it sends in Wrexham | What it costs | Who owns the customer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkatrade / MyBuilder | Leads from people who searched the platform; shared with competitors | Per lead or per month | The platform |
| Facebook groups | Recommendations, questions, occasional pile-ons | Time | Nobody |
| Google profile | The map pack: urgent and routine work near the searcher | Nothing but care | You |
| Your website | The considered work: people who read before they ring | A build, then hosting | You |
The Facebook groups
Wrexham's community groups are where a lot of local recommendation happens, and a business that is recommended there gets a name search within the hour. That is the point: the group sends the name, and the profile and the site decide whether the name converts. A business with no profile and a Facebook page as its only website loses the recommendation to the one with forty reviews and a site that loads.
The profile and the site
The map pack sends the urgent and routine work near the searcher for free, decided by the profile. The site sends the considered work: the extension, the wedding, the accountant, the kitchen. Both take months to build and neither charges per lead. The businesses in Wrexham whose diaries are full a season ahead have both, and they use the platforms as a tap they can turn down.
The move
- Keep the platform listing, and make sure its name, address and phone match the profile exactly; inconsistent details hurt the profile.
- Finish the profile and start the review routine. The platform reviews stay on the platform; Google reviews build the map.
- Build the site with a page per service and the areas page. Point the platform listing's website link at it.
- Watch Search Console for the searches the site starts to win. When the map and the site send more than the platform, reduce the platform tier or leave.
- Keep one platform if your trade's customers genuinely search there first; some do.
A platform review cannot be moved. Every review you send to Checkatrade instead of Google is a review that builds their map presence instead of yours.
Questions on this topic
Should I leave Checkatrade?
Not on day one. Leave when your own profile and site send more than it does, which for most Wrexham trades is six to twelve months into the work. Some trades keep a listing because their customers search the platform first.
Are the Facebook groups worth the time?
Answering questions in your trade, yes; arguing, no. The value is the name search that follows a recommendation, which the profile and the site must be ready for.
What about Yell and the Leader's listings?
A free listing on each, with the details matching the profile, is a citation that helps the map. Paid upgrades rarely pay in a town this size.