Home Improvement Lead Generation: Where UK Installers Get Leads in 2026

UK home improvement businesses get most of their leads from six places: Google Ads, Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram, trade platforms such as Checkatrade, Bark, Rated People and MyBuilder, home shows such as the Ideal Home Show, referrals and reviews, and SEO. Each has a different cost model and suits a different stage of business. The cheapest leads of all, though, are usually the ones already sitting in your CRM.

This guide covers each channel in turn, with published and reported costs where they exist, a pros and cons table, and what to do with the enquiries that do not buy first time.

At a glance

• Paid search catches homeowners who are searching now. One UK benchmark puts the average home services click at around £3.20
• Trade platforms give quick visibility and reviews, but many leads are shared with other firms
• Meta ads create demand rather than catch it, so follow-up speed matters even more
• Shows, referrals and SEO take longer but bring warmer enquiries
• Every channel leaves behind enquiries that did not buy. Reactivating them is the cheapest lead source you have

Where do UK home improvement businesses get leads?

Most UK installers use a mix of paid and earned channels. Paid channels give you control and speed. Earned channels take longer but cost less per enquiry once they are running.

• Paid search: Google Ads, and to a lesser extent Microsoft Ads
• Paid social: Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram, sometimes TikTok
• Trade platforms: Checkatrade, Bark, Rated People, MyBuilder, TrustATrader and Yell
• Shows and events: national shows such as the Ideal Home Show, plus county shows and local events
• Referrals and reviews: past customers, Google reviews and word of mouth
• SEO: your own website and Google Business Profile ranking for local searches
• Lead suppliers: firms that sell leads or booked appointments in your trade

The right mix depends on your job value, your area and how quickly you can respond. A £15,000 kitchen supports a very different cost per lead from a £900 repair.

Is Google Ads worth it for home improvement leads?

Google Ads is usually worth it for home improvement when your job values are high and you can answer enquiries quickly, because it reaches people who are actively searching. You pay per click, and the cost per lead depends on your click cost and how well your landing page converts.

One UK benchmark puts the average cost per click for home services at about £3.20, with a typical range of £1.50 to £5.50, based on Q1 2026 data. The publisher describes these as indicative estimates rather than a UK-wide survey. Competitive trades in big cities will sit at the top of that range or above it.

US data gives a sense of cost per lead in similar trades. Webtonic reports an average Google Ads cost per lead of around $124 for roofing and around $104 for HVAC in the US. US markets differ from the UK, so treat those as a rough reference, not a UK price.

Strengths: high intent, fast to start and stop, precise control over postcodes and products, leads are yours alone. Weaknesses: costs rise with competition, poor landing pages waste spend, and leads go cold fast if nobody answers.

How do Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram compare?

Meta ads generate demand rather than capture it. They put your product in front of homeowners who were not searching, which can produce a high volume of cheaper enquiries, but those people are often earlier in their decision.

Lead forms inside Facebook and Instagram make it very easy to enquire. That is good for volume and a challenge for intent. Some of the people who fill them in are curious, not ready. The businesses that do well with Meta usually respond within minutes, qualify in the first conversation and keep following up for weeks, because many of those leads will buy later rather than now.

If your Meta leads are not turning into appointments, the problem is often follow-up rather than the ads. Our guide to Facebook leads not converting covers the checks to run before you switch them off.

Strengths: strong visual products such as kitchens, conservatories and garden rooms do well, large reach, good for building a database. Weaknesses: lower intent, high volume to work through, and creative needs regular refreshing.

Are Checkatrade, Bark, Rated People and MyBuilder worth paying for?

Trade platforms can be worth it, especially for newer businesses that need reviews and visibility quickly, but the cost model and the number of competitors per lead vary a lot. Each platform charges differently, and few publish full price lists.

Reported and published costs, as collected by Whito in mid 2026 and a 2026 Trade2Base guide:

• Checkatrade: a name-search listing from £30 plus VAT a month (published). Active members report £100 to £300 a month all in, with lead fees of around £5 to £40 depending on job type. Leads are reportedly shared with 3 to 4 trades in busy areas, with a 12-month minimum term.
• Bark: £1.80 plus VAT per credit (published). Third-party reports put leads at roughly £7 to £40+ depending on job size, with up to five professionals per lead. No minimum term, and credits expire three months after purchase.
• Rated People: a maximum of three tradespeople per lead (published). Historical reports put it at around £35 plus VAT a month plus an average of £15 plus VAT per lead, and a newer unlimited plan is priced on application.
• MyBuilder: free to join, with a non-refundable fee when a homeowner shortlists you, reported at roughly £2 to £35 for typical jobs, £50+ for bathrooms and around £100 for extensions.

Whito notes that no UK platform publishes win rates or leads-per-job figures, so the true cost per customer cannot be worked out from public data. You have to track it yourself. We compare these platforms with reactivating your own old leads in Checkatrade, Bark or your own old leads, and there is more on whether bought leads pay in are Checkatrade, Bark and Rated People leads worth it.

Do home shows like the Ideal Home Show produce good leads?

Home shows produce fewer leads than digital channels, but they are often warmer, because the homeowner has met you, seen the product and had a conversation. The trade-off is a large upfront cost for the stand, the staff and the travel, with no certainty of what it will bring in.

Shows work best for products people want to see and touch: kitchens, bathrooms, windows and doors, conservatories, garden rooms, hot tubs and stairlifts. They also produce a burst of enquiries in a single week, which can swamp a small sales team.

The common mistake is treating show leads as a one-week project. Many visitors are planning work for next season, not next week. A show list that is called once and then filed is one of the best reactivation lists a business can have.

How much do referrals and reviews matter?

Referrals and reviews are the cheapest source of new enquiries, and they make every other channel work better. Whito's research on trades lead generation notes that a Google Business Profile, reviews and referrals cost nothing beyond your time.

A homeowner who was referred by a neighbour has usually decided to use you before they call. And reviews on your Google profile and directory listings raise the conversion rate of every paid lead, because people check them before they reply to you.

The limit is volume. Referrals grow with the number of customers you have already served, so they rarely fill a diary on their own for a growing business.

Is SEO worth it for installers?

SEO is worth it for installers who plan to be around for years, because organic enquiries cost nothing per click once you rank. It is slow, though, and it rarely fixes a short-term shortage of leads.

The basics for a local home improvement business are a well-kept Google Business Profile, a page for each service and each main area you cover, real photos of real jobs, and a steady flow of reviews. Content that answers the questions homeowners actually ask, such as prices, lead times and finance, helps too.

Strengths: compounding, no cost per click, trusted by homeowners. Weaknesses: takes months, needs ongoing effort, and rankings can move with Google updates.

What about lead suppliers that sell booked appointments?

Some suppliers sell pre-qualified leads or booked appointments in a specific trade, usually windows and doors, solar or heating. The appeal is that someone else does the first call. The questions to ask are how many other firms receive the same appointment, and what happens when it does not go ahead.

Glass Times reported in 2023 that one window and door lead supplier said a large regional installer generated £188,118 of business in a month from £16,329 spent on leads, a 9% cost of sale. Those are the supplier's own figures for one customer, so treat them as a vendor claim rather than an industry average. The same article said the supplier's booked appointment leads went to only one other firm.

Home improvement lead generation channels compared

Here is how the main channels stack up for a typical UK installer.

Why is home improvement lead generation getting harder?

Lead generation is getting harder because more firms are competing for the same homeowners, and consumer confidence has been patchy. Click and lead costs rise when competition rises, and more of each budget is spent on people who do not buy.

kbbreview's retailer survey found that 53% of kitchen, bedroom and bathroom retailers reported a drop in enquiries and footfall, and nearly two-thirds were worried about consumer confidence. When enquiries are scarcer, what you do with each one matters more.

The biggest leak is follow-up. A 2011 Harvard Business Review study, reported by SmartCompany, found that 23% of companies never responded to web leads at all, and that firms which replied within an hour were around seven times more likely to qualify the lead. A US vendor, Pipelineon, says 44% of salespeople give up after one call. Every enquiry that is dropped early is a lead you paid for and never fully used. Our lead follow-up statistics collect more of the research.

The cheapest leads are the ones already in your CRM

The cheapest home improvement leads are the ones you have already paid for. Every channel above leaves behind enquiries and quotes that did not buy, and most of them were never told no. They were contacted once or twice at the wrong time, then filed.

Going back to them is called lead reactivation. You send a short, personal message about what they originally asked for, hold a real conversation with everyone who replies, and book the ones who are ready. Because they are the same leads your own marketing generated, their quality is whatever your lead generation produced. The difference is that the acquisition cost is already spent.

Home improvement businesses have used this alongside their new lead generation, not instead of it:

Pipeline means appointments booked multiplied by the client's average order value. Cloudy2Clear also closed £107,000+ from its campaign, written up in the Cloudy2Clear case study. These are past results from specific campaigns, not a forecast for any other business.

With Setterly, reactivation is free to start: you pay per booked appointment, with no setup fee and no retainer, and CRM integration is optional for a one-off fee. See how it works on our lead reactivation for home improvement page, read the step-by-step home improvement lead reactivation guide, or look at your trade on the windows and doors, kitchens, solar and home services pages.

Keep generating new leads. They grow your database and catch homeowners who are ready now. Then make sure every one of them gets a second chance before it is written off. If you want to talk it through, book a call.