How we differ
A different question from reviews and leads
Most places that list trade businesses answer “what did other customers think?” or “who wants this job?”. We answer a narrower one: what has been independently checked about this business, and when was it last confirmed?
Compared by model, not by name
Services in the same category work differently from one another and change their offering over time, so the middle columns say “varies” where that is the honest answer. Always check a service's own pages for what it does today.
| How it works | Approved Tradesman | Review-led trade directories | Job / lead marketplaces | Ordinary business listings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public live Verification Record | Varies | Varies | ||
| Shows what has been independently checked, and when | Varies | Varies | ||
| Record changes when time-limited information lapses(for example when an insurance document passes its end date) | Varies | Varies | ||
| QR code opens the current record | Varies | Varies | ||
| Customer reviews decide trust(we do not rate workmanship or customer satisfaction) | Varies | |||
| Pay-per-lead marketplace | Varies | |||
| Membership buys approval or ranking | Varies | Varies | Varies | |
| Useful at the point a business sends a quote | Varies | Varies |
None of this is a claim that Approved Tradesman guarantees workmanship, insurance pay-outs or customer outcomes. We check paperwork and publish what we found. The decision about who to hire stays with the customer.
What each model is actually for
Review-led trade directories
Trust is built mainly from customer ratings and written reviews. That tells you how previous jobs felt to the people who paid for them. It is a different question from whether a business's paperwork has been independently checked and are still in date today.
Job and lead marketplaces
A customer posts a job and businesses pay to quote for it, or pay for the introduction. The product being sold is the lead. We do not sell leads, and we take no part in who contacts whom.
Ordinary business listings
A profile with a name, a phone number and a description. Useful for being found, but it does not tell a customer whether anything on the page has been checked by anyone.
Approved Tradesman
One public Verification Record per business, showing what has been independently checked and the date each item was last confirmed. Where a time-limited item lapses, the record stops showing it as current. Membership pays for the checking and the monitoring — never for approval, and never for position in search results.
About named services
Checkatrade, Rated People, MyBuilder and TrustATrader are established services in the UK trade sector. They are independent of Approved Tradesman and we make no claims about their checks, their pricing or their quality. For what any of them offers, read their own pages:
Names and trade marks belong to their respective owners. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by or comparing prices against any of them.
See what a scan opens
Scan to see a live Verification Record.Open a live Verification Record. It shows what has been independently checked, and the date each item was last confirmed.
Open a live recordA real example record — no login, no app. This is what a customer sees before they make contact.
The moment this matters most for a business is when a price lands in a customer's inbox.How your record helps when you send a quote
What membership costs, what it includes, and what it never buys.Pricing and membership
We are not a review site, a lead marketplace or a comparison service, and we do not intend to become one. Approval and ranking are never for sale. Why we work this way
Next step
See a record for yourself
Open an example Verification Record and read it the way a customer would.
Search the directoryRun a business? Pricing and membership