How Much Is TrustATrader? Every Price on Record for 2026

TrustATrader does not publish a price. Every TrustATrader cost figure I can find on record runs from £150 to £1,200 a year. The highest come from members who say they paid about £1,200, and the one specific quote is £699 plus VAT: £838.80 if you can’t reclaim the VAT.

Whatever the number, you pay the whole year up front.

This page puts every TrustATrader price on the record with its source and date, the same way I did for the Checkatrade cost breakdown and the MyBuilder cost guide. Whether the listing is worth having at all, and what members say about it, is in my TrustATrader review.

Where I stand. I run Local Ladder, which builds websites and local SEO for UK trades, so I earn money when tradespeople stop renting their leads from directories. TrustATrader has not paid for or seen this page. I checked its join page and FAQ on 7 November 2026 and its member reviews on 8 November 2026, and the figures here also feed my UK Trade Lead Cost Tracker, updated quarterly.

How Much Is TrustATrader?

TrustATrader charges one flat annual membership, paid in advance, with no per-lead fees and no commission. It publishes no price. Third-party estimates and member reviews from 2025 and 2026 run from £150 to £1,200 a year, the only specific sales quote on record is £699 plus VAT, and the real price depends on your trade and area.

The official line is short. The FAQ answer to “Is there a charge for a tradesperson to join?” reads: “Yes there is. We charge a yearly fee for membership.”

The join page adds what you don’t pay for: “No commission rates” and “Never pay for your leads”. It gives no number, just an application form and a sales line, 01438 870097.

The only pound figure anywhere on trustatrader.com is the £50 cheque the FAQ promises when a trader you recommend signs up.

Every TrustATrader Price on Record

Every figure I could find, labelled by evidence. “Official” means TrustATrader published it. “Third-party estimate” is another firm’s research, and “member-reported” is a tradesperson describing their own quote. Where sources disagree, all of them stay in the table.

What	Figure	Evidence	Source
Published price	None, quote by callback only	Official	TrustATrader join page and FAQ, checked 7 Nov 2026
Per-lead fees and commission	£0	Official	Same join page, checked 7 Nov 2026
Referral reward	£50 cheque per trader you recommend	Official	TrustATrader FAQ, checked 7 Nov 2026
Annual membership	£150–£300/year	Third-party estimate	Sleepless Tradesman, 2026 guide
Annual membership, year one	£240–£660/year	Third-party estimate	Local Search North, 3 Apr 2026
Annual membership	£360–£750/year	Third-party estimate	Unavoidable Marketing, 17 Jul 2026
Annual membership	£600–£1,000/year, “plus VAT”	Third-party estimate	Trade Pixels, 15 Mar 2026, updated 29 Mar 2026
Paid for one year	About £1,200, taken up front	Member-reported	At least five one-star Trustpilot reviews from members, read 8 Nov 2026
Paid per year	”£1,200 a year”	Member-reported	App Store review, 31 Oct 2022
Cost to join	£699 plus VAT	Third-party report	Electrician Courses 4U, updated 8 Apr 2025
Historic press figure	”typically pay from £958.80 a year”	Journalist-reported	This is Money, 24 Oct 2020
Historic quotes to members	£495–£830/year	Member-reported	ElectriciansForums and other trade forums, 2012–2017

The lowest figure, £150 to £300, is also the one I could find the least evidence behind. Local Search North says its range comes from quotes shared by tradespeople in northern England. Trade Pixels works an example at £800 a year.

The top of the range is the best evidence here, because it comes from people who paid. At least five members on Trustpilot and one on the App Store report about £1,200 for the year. One wrote that TrustATrader “immediately took £ 1200”. That is exactly £1,000 plus VAT, but none of them says whether VAT was in it.

The live version of this table, with every other big directory beside it, is in the UK Trade Lead Cost Tracker.

Why the Quotes Range From £150 to £1,200

Three things move the number.

Your trade and your area

Trade Pixels puts it plainly: “Where you are based will determine how much you pay.” Local Search North says its figures “may vary by trade and region”.

That fits how TrustATrader sells. Its FAQ says membership numbers “are limited for each trade within an area, and in many areas we have waiting lists”. Clause 6(a) of the trader terms caps it at ten members per trade category per area.

A capped slot in a busy town is a scarcer thing to sell than one in a quiet village, so expect the quote to follow the postcode.

Whether VAT is in the figure

Most quotes leave VAT out. Electrician Courses 4U says £699 plus VAT, and Trade Pixels says up to £1,000 “plus VAT”.

The 2020 This is Money figure gives the game away. £958.80 is exactly £799 plus 20% VAT, so even the press figure was an ex-VAT price with the tax added on.

If you are VAT registered you can reclaim it. If you are a sole trader under the £90,000 registration threshold (HMRC, from 1 April 2024), you can’t, and the total including VAT is your real cost.

Quoted price	VAT at 20%	What you pay if you can’t reclaim it
£240	£48	£288
£699	£139.80	£838.80
£799	£159.80	£958.80
£1,000	£200	£1,200

How old the figure is

The 2020 press figure was £958.80 and forum quotes from 2012 to 2017 ran from £495 to £830. Most of the 2026 estimates sit below the press figure, yet members on Trustpilot were still reporting £1,200 in 2026.

Either the estimates describe a cheaper entry tier or they are too low. Nobody outside TrustATrader’s sales team can tell you which, so treat every figure here as something to test on the sales call.

How Much Is TrustATrader Per Month?

It isn’t billed monthly. Clause 5(a) of the trader terms says the fee is “calculated and payable annually… in advance”.

Two 2026 articles say otherwise. BookaBuilderUK wrote on 24 September 2026 that membership is “a rolling monthly subscription rather than a fixed-term contract”, at £20 to £55 a month. TrustATrader’s own terms say the opposite, and where a third party and the terms disagree, I go with the terms.

The monthly figure is still useful for comparing against Checkatrade, which does bill monthly.

Annual figure	Monthly equivalent
£240 (lowest 2026 estimate with a stated source)	£20
£660 (top of Local Search North’s range)	£55
£838.80 (£699 plus VAT)	£69.90
£1,200 (what members report paying, and £1,000 plus VAT)	£100

Budget for the left-hand column. That is what leaves your account on day one.

What You Pay Before You Get a Single Enquiry

The joining process, from TrustATrader’s FAQ: a sales call, then a minimum of five references, a signed copy of the terms, your insurance documents and an information form. It aims to have your profile live within two to three weeks.

Clause 5(a) says TrustATrader is under no obligation to provide the service until the fee is paid. So the sequence is: pay for twelve months, wait up to three weeks, then find out whether your phone rings.

Once you are live, clause 5(d) applies: “you cannot cancel the membership agreement prior to the expiry of the 12 month membership period. Any fees paid are non-refundable.”

The only refund the FAQ mentions is a pro-rata one when TrustATrader removes a member after an unresolved complaint about substandard work. Getting thrown off is the only way to get money back.

Compare that with Checkatrade, where you pay as you go but are tied to 12 months anyway, or MyBuilder, where a quiet month costs nothing. TrustATrader is the only big directory where the whole year’s risk is paid before month one.

How Many Jobs Pay the Fee Back?

With no per-lead fee and no commission, the maths is one division. Take the gross profit you make on a typical job (what is left after materials and labour, not the invoice total) and divide the annual fee by it.

Annual fee	Jobs needed at £100 gross profit	At £250	At £500	At £1,000
£288 (£240 plus VAT)	3	2	1	1
£838.80 (£699 plus VAT)	9	4	2	1
£1,200 (£1,000 plus VAT)	12	5	3	2

Read it against your own work. A roofer or builder with £1,000 left on an average job clears even the top quote with two jobs a year. A handyman clearing £100 a visit needs three to twelve jobs from the listing, depending on the quote, before it has earned a penny.

The trap is attribution. TrustATrader’s FAQ tells members to hand review cards and their profile link to every customer, not just TrustATrader ones. Do that and some of the “TrustATrader” enquiries will really be your own word of mouth. Ask every new customer where they found you and write it down.

TrustATrader’s FAQ claims “700,000+ searches on TrustATrader.com each month” and says members get “detailed stats” on their adverts. Before you pay, ask sales for those stats for a current member in your trade and area. That is the number that tells you whether nine jobs a year is realistic.

TrustATrader Cost Compared With the Other Directories

Cost only. Lead sharing, traffic and contract terms are compared in the TrustATrader review and the Checkatrade alternatives guide.

Platform	How it bills	Price on record	Year-one cost
TrustATrader	One annual fee, in advance	No published price; £150–£1,200/year reported	£288–£1,200 including VAT
Checkatrade	Monthly, 12-month contract	£30/month +VAT Approved, from £59/month Growth (official, 30 Sep 2026); £80–£500/month member-reported	£432 (Approved with VAT) to £6,000
Which? Trusted Traders	Monthly or annual	£69/month or £828/year for 0–3 employees, plus a £248 assessment fee (official, join page, 7 Nov 2026)	£1,076
MyBuilder	Per shortlist, no subscription	From £7 per shortlist (official); £5–£35 typical	Depends entirely on leads taken

Which? Trusted Traders is the only directory here that prints its full price. On most figures on record, TrustATrader costs less than Which? Trusted Traders. At the £1,200 members report, it costs more. It won’t put a number in writing until you’ve rung it.

The Costs That Aren’t on the Quote

VAT, covered above. It is 20% on top for most sole traders, and the quote often leaves it out.

Year two. Clause 5(b) says “We do not operate an automatic renewal system, we will contact you at the end of each year”. That is fair, but it also means the second year’s price is a fresh negotiation. Ask for it before you sign the first.

The badge comes off. Clause 13 says that when you leave you must remove the TrustATrader name and logo from your “paperwork, vehicles, website and so on”. If you signwrite it on the van, price in the removal.

Your reviews stay behind. The reviews you collect live on trustatrader.com. Leave, and they stop working for you, while Google reviews and the ones on your own site don’t.

The £50 offset. If a trader you recommend joins, TrustATrader sends you £50. The FAQ says 70% of new members come through recommendations, which tells you how much of its growth runs on that cheque.

How to Get Your Actual TrustATrader Price

Ring 01438 870097 or fill in the form on the join page. Before the call, search your own postcode on trustatrader.com for your trade and count the members already listed, because the cap is ten.

Then get three numbers in an email before you pay anything:

1. The total for year one, including VAT.
2. The price for year two, if you renew.
3. Last year’s profile views and enquiries for a current member in your trade and area.

If sales won’t put the third one in writing, you have your answer about what the listing is likely to send you. My TrustATrader review has the full list of questions for the call, and the break-even calculator on the lead cost tracker will run the quote against your own margins.

The other option is spending that £838.80 on something you keep. My own price, a website and local SEO, is on the pricing page, and unlike a directory badge the rankings are still yours when you stop paying.

If you’d like a second opinion on the quote, book a free 20 minute call and I’ll ring you to go through what you spend now and the jobs you want more of. I’ll tell you straight whether I can get you found for them.