AskBaily vs Rated People — 1 live-verified tradesperson, zero lead credits

AskBaily and Rated People both work on the UK homeowner-to-tradesperson problem, but they approach the problem from opposite directions. Rated People, operated by Rated People Ltd and owned by the private-equity firm Permira, runs a lead-credit marketplace with layered subscription tiers — a tradesperson pays £35 to £225 per month for bundled lead credits, then buys additional credits at rack rate to bid on homeowner jobs. AskBaily runs a 1-to-1 AI-scoped matching model: the homeowner has a structured scoping conversation with Baily, one verified contractor is introduced, and zero lead fees are charged to that contractor for the introduction. Both models have been stable in the UK market for years, and Rated People in particular has real scale — but the lead-credit mechanic produces a structural incentive misalignment on renovation-scale work that is worth examining closely.

Rated People's history and ownership

Rated People was founded in London in 2005, one of the earliest UK tradesperson marketplaces. The founding premise was that homeowners needed a way to find reliable tradespeople beyond the yellow-pages-and-word-of-mouth era, and that tradies would pay for qualified introductions. The platform grew steadily through the late 2000s and 2010s, establishing a significant footprint across UK trades — electricians, plumbers, builders, roofers, gas engineers, painters and decorators.

In 2019 Rated People was acquired by the private-equity firm Permira (through a fund structure rather than the main flagship fund), and has operated under PE ownership since. PE ownership has had a visible impact on the platform's commercial aggression: the subscription tier structure was introduced and expanded during the PE-ownership period, funnel optimisation tightened, and the pricing on premium subscription tiers has drifted upward. None of this is unusual for PE-owned marketplaces — it is the textbook playbook — but it is useful context for understanding why the per-lead economics feel increasingly demanding for smaller tradespeople.

Permira's portfolio includes a mix of consumer and B2B marketplaces; Rated People sits in the broader "services marketplace" thesis that PE firms have invested heavily in across Europe and North America. The industry parallel is that Permira's investment thesis is similar to what Apollo Global Management has done with Angi in the US — a consolidation and monetisation play where lead-credit economics become the primary lever.

How Rated People's subscription-plus-credit economics work

Rated People's model has two layered revenue streams. The first is the subscription tier: tradespeople choose Lite (£35/month), Pro (£95/month), or Premium (£225/month), with each tier bundling a monthly credit allowance. The second is per-lead credits: each homeowner job is priced in credits, typically in the £4–£25 range depending on trade, region, and job size. The subscription bundles soften the per-lead cost but do not eliminate it — a Premium-tier tradesperson on £225/month still pays rack-rate credits once they exhaust their bundled allowance.

A concrete worked example makes the economics clearer. A homeowner in Manchester posts a job: "bathroom renovation, £6,000–£8,000 budget, start in 3 weeks". Rated People prices this lead at roughly £18 in credits (based on public pricing guidance and tradesperson disclosures across UK trade forums). The platform surfaces the lead to 3–5 relevant tradespeople, and each tradie who chooses to bid pays £18 to unlock the homeowner's contact details. The homeowner's single job posting generates £54 to £90 of gross credit revenue for Rated People on that one lead.

A Pro-tier tradesperson (£95/month + bundled credits) who closes roughly 1 in 10 leads is paying effective acquisition cost of ~£180 per closed job from credit spend alone, before subscription cost amortisation. Add the £95/month subscription across typical close volume and the effective CAC on Rated People sits in the £250–£400 range per closed job for renovation-scale work. That cost is absorbed into the quote the homeowner eventually receives.

The three-tier subscription structure is deliberately designed for funnel-optimisation: the Lite tier attracts price-sensitive new tradespeople, the Pro tier is the intended sweet-spot commitment, and the Premium tier targets higher-volume tradies whose pipeline justifies the £225 monthly spend. Tradespeople who try the Lite tier and don't see enough lead flow commonly upgrade to Pro, which is where most of Rated People's subscription ARR concentrates.

Where Rated People works

For domestic repair and single-trade work across the UK — a boiler repair in Birmingham, a roof tile replacement in Bristol, a kitchen tap change in Glasgow, a small electrical job in Belfast — Rated People's model is reasonable. The homeowner gets 3–5 competing bids, the lead credit cost for tradespeople is manageable relative to the typical £400–£2,000 job value, and the platform's long-standing UK coverage means most postcodes have decent supply. For a homeowner who wants price competition on a well-defined repair, Rated People is a credible tool.

The platform's review volume is also meaningful — nearly two decades of homeowner reviews across UK trades gives a signal density that newer platforms cannot match on day one. For tradespeople who have been on Rated People for 5+ years with consistent 4.5+ star ratings across hundreds of reviews, the social proof is real and useful to the homeowner evaluating them.

Where Rated People fails for renovation-scale work

Four structural issues emerge the moment the job shifts from repair to renovation:

1. Credit cost scales with perceived job size, not with actual close probability. Rated People prices leads by job category and budget band, which means a "bathroom renovation" lead at £18 is priced identically for a tradesperson in inner-London who closes 1 in 6 such leads and a tradesperson in outer Manchester who closes 1 in 12. The tradie whose geography has lower close rates is subsidising the tradie with better match economics. Over time this pushes away the very tradies who would deliver best for homeowners in lower-density postcodes.

2. Multi-quote fatigue on renovations is the same problem as Oneflare and hipages. A homeowner who posts a bathroom renovation on Rated People gets 3–5 phone calls in the first 24 hours from tradespeople who have each paid £18 to contact them. Each of those tradespeople needs a 20–40 minute scoping conversation, a site visit, and a quote write-up to produce a genuinely competitive bid. The homeowner now runs a parallel sales funnel of five strangers on a renovation they will actually award to one of them. The lead-resale model extracts homeowner time as the hidden cost of "free quotes".

3. Part P and Gas Safe verification is signup-cached, not live-queried. Rated People verifies Gas Safe Register number and Part P competent-person scheme membership (NICEIC / NAPIT / ELECSA) at tradesperson signup, with periodic re-verification. It does not, per public disclosures, hit the Gas Safe Register API or the NICEIC approved-contractor roster at the moment a specific homeowner is being matched with a specific tradesperson. For a renovation involving gas, electrical, or both — which is most UK kitchens and bathrooms — this creates a gap between "vetted at signup" and "currently registered this week for this scope". AskBaily closes that gap by querying the Gas Safe Register at https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk and the NICEIC approved-contractor database live at match time.

4. No structured scope before bidding. Rated People's job-posting form captures trade, postcode, budget band, and free-text job description. It does not walk the homeowner through the Building Regs triggers of their job — Part A structure for wall removal, Part B fire safety, Part E sound transmission for terraced properties, Part G water for unvented cylinders, Part L energy for extensions under the Future Homes Standard trajectory, Part P electrical, Party Wall Act 1996 obligations for any wall or excavation within 3m of a boundary, Article 4 Direction checks in conservation areas, and listed-building consent on Grade II properties. Every bid on a renovation is therefore made on an incomplete scope, and scope discovery happens in expensive site-visit hours rather than cheap AI-conversation minutes.

AskBaily's contrast: live-verified 1-to-1 UK matching

AskBaily's mechanic is structurally different. A UK homeowner opens a conversation with Baily, the Gemini 2.5 Flash-powered AI, who conducts a 12–18 minute structured scope interview. The interview surfaces the specific Building Regs triggers relevant to the job — Part A / B / E / G / L / M / P as applicable — plus Party Wall Act 1996 obligations for terraced and semi-detached properties in London, Article 4 Directions in conservation areas, listed-building consent where the property is Grade I or II, Planning Portal pathways (permitted development versus full planning application), and CDM 2015 duties where the project scale triggers Principal Designer requirements.

The structured scope flows to AskBaily's UK matching engine, which applies four live verification filters. First, Gas Safe Register verification by engineer number at the moment of match. Second, NICEIC / NAPIT / ELECSA approved-contractor status for Part P self-certification. Third, insurance currency — public liability £2m minimum, employer's liability £10m where the contractor has staff, professional indemnity where design is in scope. Fourth, TrustMark registration status where the contractor claims it, queried live at https://www.trustmark.org.uk. A failure on any filter aborts the match; the homeowner is introduced to exactly one contractor whose credentials are confirmed as-of this minute, not as-of last year's signup.

Zero lead credits are paid by the contractor for that introduction. AskBaily's revenue is an 8–15% take-rate on closed job value, paid by the contractor on completion. If the homeowner doesn't proceed, AskBaily earns nothing.

Side-by-side comparison

Regulatory depth in the UK context

UK Building Regulations are genuinely complicated and the penalty for getting them wrong can be severe. The main stack: Part A (Structure), Part B (Fire Safety, materially strengthened post-Grenfell for cladding, compartmentation, and means of escape), Part E (Resistance to Sound, relevant for flat conversions and basement digs), Part F (Ventilation, MVHR or extract after airtightness improvements), Part G (Sanitation, Hot Water and Water Efficiency — unvented cylinders require G3 qualification), Part L (Conservation of Fuel and Power, updated in 2022 with the Future Homes Standard trajectory), Part M (Access to and Use of Buildings, relevant on larger extensions), Part P (Electrical Safety, the self-certification framework that NICEIC/NAPIT/ELECSA membership supports).

Alongside Building Regs are the separately-notified registration stacks: Gas Safe Register (HSE-appointed), Part P competent-person schemes (NICEIC, NAPIT, ELECSA), NIC EIC for fire and emergency lighting, MCS for renewables and heat pumps, TrustMark for government-endorsed trade standards. London layers on Party Wall Act 1996 obligations. Scotland runs a parallel Building Standards regime administered by local-authority Verifiers. Conservation areas impose Article 4 Directions. Listed-building consent sits on top of planning. Rated People records primary registrations at signup; AskBaily's matching engine treats them as live-queried attributes.

Hostility rating and who should use what

We rate Rated People as hostility level 2: the products serve overlapping but non-identical problem spaces. Rated People's strength is small-to-medium repair and single-trade work across broad UK geography; AskBaily's strength is renovation-scale work with regulatory scope complexity in Phase 8 Wave 1 metros (London, Edinburgh, Manchester). The two tools solve different problems well — pretending they are interchangeable would be inaccurate.

Use Rated People when: the job is a repair or single-trade job under £5,000, the homeowner wants 3–5 competing bids, the postcode is outside AskBaily's current coverage, or the job is genuinely price-driven rather than scope-driven. Use AskBaily when: the job is a renovation at £25,000 or above with real Building Regs scope, the property is listed or in a conservation area, a Party Wall Award is in play, the homeowner wants AI-structured scope rather than a free-text posting, or live Gas Safe / Part P / TrustMark verification at match time matters.

Frequently asked questions

Is Rated People free for homeowners? Yes. Posting a job and receiving quotes costs the homeowner nothing. Tradespeople pay subscription (£35–£225/mo) and per-lead credits (£4–£25), and those costs are recovered in the quote the homeowner eventually pays.

What's the best Rated People subscription tier? The Pro tier at £95/month is the most common sweet-spot for active tradespeople — the bundled credits cover most of a moderate pipeline, and the rack-rate top-up costs stay manageable. The Lite tier at £35/month is often too thin to produce enough leads to justify the subscription, and the Premium tier at £225/month only makes sense for high-volume tradespeople closing 4+ jobs per month from the platform.

How does Rated People compare to Checkatrade and MyBuilder? Checkatrade is a vetted-membership directory (tradesperson pays monthly subscription, homeowner browses and picks). MyBuilder is a post-a-job bidding marketplace with per-introduction fees. Rated People sits between them structurally — subscription plus per-lead credits — and tends to be more expensive for tradespeople than Checkatrade's flat subscription and less expensive than MyBuilder's per-introduction rack rates.

Why does AskBaily charge zero lead credits? Because AskBaily's revenue is an 8–15% take-rate on closed jobs, paid on completion. If the match doesn't result in a closed job, AskBaily earns nothing. That structure aligns commercial incentive with match quality rather than with lead volume.

Is AskBaily available across the UK? Not yet. Phase 8 Wave 1 launched in London, Edinburgh, and Manchester. Bristol, Leeds, Birmingham, and Glasgow are in Wave 2 (2026–2027). For postcodes outside current coverage, Rated People, Checkatrade, and MyBuilder remain the primary UK alternatives.

Relevant further reading on AskBaily: /for-pros/london, /for-pros/manchester, /for-pros/edinburgh, /safety/london, /methodology, /regulatory/uk-building-regs.

Sources

1. Rated People Ltd — official tradesperson pricing and subscription tiers: https://www.ratedpeople.com/tradespeople
2. Permira portfolio disclosures on Rated People acquisition and operating thesis: https://www.permira.com
3. MoneySavingExpert forums — long-running UK consumer discussions on Rated People lead-credit economics: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com
4. TrustPilot — Rated People aggregate consumer reviews: https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/ratedpeople.com
5. Gas Safe Register — live engineer verification used by AskBaily at match: https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk
6. NICEIC — approved-contractor register used by AskBaily at match for Part P: https://www.niceic.com
7. TrustMark — government-endorsed trade-standards scheme used by AskBaily at match: https://www.trustmark.org.uk
8. UK Government — Building Regulations approval guidance: https://www.gov.uk/building-regulations-approval