Two ways to get leads online
If you're a tradie looking to get more work, you've probably considered two options:
- Hipages (or similar lead platforms like Oneflare, Airtasker)
- Your own website
Both can get you leads. But they work very differently — and the costs add up in very different ways.
How Hipages works
Hipages connects customers with tradies. When a customer posts a job, multiple tradies receive the lead and compete for it.
The catch:
- You pay per lead — whether you win the job or not
- You're competing with 2-3 other tradies on every lead
- The customer is price-shopping — they're comparing quotes
- You have no control over your profile or branding
- Hipages owns the customer relationship, not you
Lead costs vary, but tradies commonly report paying $15-50+ per lead. If you win 1 in 3 leads, your actual cost per customer is 3x that.
How your own website works
With your own website, customers find you through Google search, referrals, or social media. When they land on your site, you're the only tradie they're looking at.
The difference:
- You pay a flat monthly fee — not per lead
- There's no competition on your own site
- Customers arrive pre-sold on you (they found you, read your reviews, saw your work)
- You own the relationship and your brand
- Leads are free once the site is up and ranking
Cost comparison
Let's do the maths for a typical tradie:
Hipages
- 20 leads per month × $30 average = $600/month
- Win rate: ~30% = 6 customers
- Cost per customer: $100
Your own website
- Monthly cost: $99/month
- Leads from Google: grows over time (5-20+ per month after 6 months)
- Cost per lead: $0 (after the monthly fee)
- As leads grow, cost per customer drops to under $10
After 12 months, your website pays for itself many times over. Hipages costs stay the same (or increase).
They're not mutually exclusive
Here's the smart play: use both, but shift your budget over time.
- Start with Hipages for immediate leads while your website is new
- Build your website's Google presence (this takes 3-6 months)
- As organic leads grow, reduce Hipages spend
- Eventually, your website becomes your primary lead source
What about Hipages' "website" feature?
Some platforms offer basic profile pages. These are not real websites:
- You don't own the domain
- You can't customise the design
- It lives on their platform, not yours
- If you stop paying, it disappears
- No SEO benefit for your own brand
Your own website on your own domain is an asset you control. A platform profile is renting space on someone else's property.
The verdict
Hipages is like renting leads. Useful for getting started, but expensive long-term and you never build equity.
Your own website is like owning your shopfront. It takes a bit longer to get going, but every month it gets stronger, generates more leads, and costs less per customer.
For $99/month, a professionally built tradie website is the best investment you can make in your business.