hipages vs Your Own Website: What Each Really Costs Per Job

hipages wins if you need jobs this week or your jobs are worth $2,000 or more, because it can put leads in front of you within days. Your own website and Google profile win if you plan to be in business next year. In our worked example below, each hipages job costs about $240 to $300 in leads. A $100 a week website and Google profile costs less per job than that once it books two jobs a month.

I get asked this a lot, usually by a tradie looking at a year of hipages charges on the card. For the full rundown on hipages itself, read our hipages review.

Cost per booked job: hipages vs your own website

What matters is what you pay for each job you book, not the price of a lead. The job counts below are a worked example, not a promise.

The hipages figures are per job. hipages’ own average subscriber pays about $206 a month, so a tradie buying 24 to 30 leads a month spends far more than average.

Two things to keep in mind. hipages costs go up with every job you win, because you keep buying leads. Your own site costs the same each month whether it books two jobs or twenty. And in the first few months your own site might book very few jobs, so for that stretch hipages can be the cheaper way to get work.

What you pay each month

hipages’ own results for the year to June 2026 show plans from under $69 a month to $499 and up. The average subscribed business paid about $2,475 over the year, or about $206 a month. The plans come with lead credits, and you spend those credits to unlock leads. hipages doesn’t publish a set dollar price per lead. From our own hipages review, the credits a lead uses work out to roughly $30 to $90.

hipages plans can run on a contract and renew on their own, so check the term before you sign.

Your own website has two kinds of cost. If you pay an agency to build it once, a proper site runs about $3,000 to $8,000 up front, then $50 to $300 a month for hosting and upkeep. Our website cost guide breaks that down. Or you pay a flat weekly fee and someone else builds it, hosts it and keeps your Google profile active. Either way, the fee doesn’t change based on how many jobs you win.

Cost per lead vs cost per booked job

A $60 lead sounds cheap. But not every lead hires anyone, and you’re up against up to two others, so tradies tell us they win about one in four or five. That’s how a $60 lead turns into a $240 to $300 job. At $30 a lead it’s about $120 a job. At $90 a lead it’s up to $450.

Now look at what that does to the job. Say a job is worth $600. If it cost you $240 to $300 to win it, close to half the invoice went on getting it. Say the job is worth $6,000 instead. Then the same cost is about 5 percent, which is easy to live with. That’s why hipages suits big-ticket work far better than small call-outs.

Who owns the customer

When a customer finds you through hipages, they found hipages first. Next time their tap leaks or their power trips, they may go back to the app. Then you pay for them again or lose them to someone else.

When a customer finds you on Google and rings you, they have your number. They can call you direct next time, and that repeat work costs you nothing.

Shared leads vs leads that come only to you

Every hipages lead can go to up to three tradies: you and up to two others. You’re quoting against strangers, and the customer knows it. That can push the talk toward who’s cheapest, and it can drag your price down on jobs you do win.

An enquiry from your own website or Google profile came to you alone. The customer read your page, saw your reviews and picked you.

How long each takes to work

hipages is fast. You can be quoting jobs the same week you sign up, with no site needed.

Your own site is slow to start. A build takes a few weeks, and it usually takes a few months before Google sends you steady enquiries. Your Google profile can start getting calls sooner, once it has reviews and regular posts. So if you’re short on work right now, a new website won’t fix this month. It fixes next year.

When hipages is the better choice

I’m not going to tell you hipages is always wrong. It’s the better pick when:

• You’ve just started and your calendar is empty.
• You need cash coming in this week, not in three months.
• Your typical job is worth $2,000 or more, so the lead cost is a small part of the invoice.
• You’ve moved to a new area and need a few jobs to get your first local reviews.

Your own website and Google profile are the better pick when you’re already established, your jobs are smaller, and you’re sick of quoting against up to two other tradies for the same customer.

What to do if you use both

Plenty of tradies run both for a while. Here’s how I’d do it:

• Keep hipages on the smallest plan that keeps your week full while your own site gets going.
• Ask every customer you win, from either source, for a Google review. Reviews help your own profile rank.
• Put your own phone number and website on every quote and invoice, so repeat work comes to you, not the app.
• Once your own site books more jobs than hipages for a few months in a row, step down a plan or cancel before the next renewal date.

If you’d rather hand it over

If you want your own website without building it yourself, that’s what we do. Our Spark plan is $100 a week. We build and host your website with basic SEO set up, set up your Google profile and post to it every week, and send review requests to your customers. There’s no setup fee.

If you want us to keep working on your Google rankings every month, that’s our Growth plan at $275 a week, also with no setup fee. It adds ongoing SEO, one managed ad account and call tracking. Growth comes with a guarantee: if month six doesn’t bring more enquiries than your average month before we started, you get every weekly fee back plus $1,000.

Everything is billed weekly and there’s no lock-in. On Spark and Growth the site stays ours until you’ve made 26 weekly payments. Leave earlier and you can buy it out by paying the weeks left.

See our pricing or read more about our websites for tradies and SEO for tradies.