Disclosure first: South London Trades is itself a trade directory, and therefore a competitor to MyBuilder. That is the reason to be sceptical of this page, so it belongs at the top rather than in a footer. Everything below is either from MyBuilder's own published material or a verified matter of public record, and where MyBuilder does something well we say so.
The model is different from a paid listing
MyBuilder is a job-posting and matching platform rather than a directory of paid listings. You post a job, its matching system alerts relevant tradespeople, interested ones express interest and quote, and you review profiles and work history before shortlisting.
Contact details are exchanged when you shortlist, not before. So posting a job does not release your phone number to everyone in the trade, which is a meaningful design decision.
Commercially it works the other way round from a subscription directory. MyBuilder says a tradesperson pays only when both sides want to get in touch: no membership fee, no subscription, pay as you go. The fee falls at the point of contact, not on winning the work.
What that model means for you
The no-subscription structure has a real consequence worth naming: the pool is not filtered by ability to pay a monthly membership. A new, small or part-time business can appear alongside an established one, which widens choice and removes a barrier that has nothing to do with competence.
The competitive quoting also disciplines price. Seeing several quotes side by side does more for price fairness than any listing format.
The trade-off is on the other side. Because the tradesperson pays per contact whether or not they win the job, lead cost is the recurring complaint from tradespeople about the model, and per-lead pricing pushes some of them towards volume.
The vetting, stated as MyBuilder states it
At registration MyBuilder says it asks for valid identification, company details, and either certifications for regulated work or an online skills assessment for each trade selected. It aims to approve applications within 48 hours on weekdays.
MyBuilder also describes its tradespeople as subject to continuous vetting by homeowners through the feedback system. That is a deliberate design choice rather than an oversight: the model leans on post-job review pressure rather than heavy checks at the front door. It is a legitimate approach, and it means the review system carries more weight here than it would on a platform with heavier pre-vetting. That is what makes the next section the crux.
The review gating is strong
This is the strongest thing in MyBuilder's favour and it deserves saying plainly.
Under MyBuilder's published reviews policy, a review can generally only be submitted where all of the following hold: it is linked to a job posted on the platform, the tradesperson was hired for that job through the platform, and the homeowner is logged into their account. Work must have started or a deposit been paid before a review can be left.
That is structural gating rather than a policy promise. It means a review has to have a real transaction behind it. A trader cannot import testimonials from off-platform, write their own, or ask friends who were never customers to post. Compared with an open review box, it is a materially higher bar.
On negative reviews, MyBuilder says it does not remove them unless they contravene its terms or policy, and that tradespeople may object and have the objection investigated. There is no documented window during which a negative review is held before publication.
What is not established
We could not establish that MyBuilder offers a consumer guarantee or compensation scheme equivalent to those some directories publish. If that matters to you, ask, rather than assuming either way.
More generally: there is no independent, systematic audit of review integrity across UK trade directories. Claims about how well any platform polices its reviews, ours included, largely rest on what the platforms say about themselves. That applies to this page too.
Regulatory position
No CMA enforcement action has been taken against MyBuilder. It is not among the businesses the Competition and Markets Authority named when it opened its first consumer law investigations into fake and misleading reviews on 27 March 2026. Those five were Autotrader, Feefo, Dignity, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists.
The wider point matters more than the narrow one, because clearing one platform on its own invites the reader to assume the others were caught. No trade directory is among the businesses named. Neither MyBuilder nor Checkatrade nor TrustATrader nor Which? Trusted Traders has been the subject of that enforcement. That is a fact in MyBuilder's favour and it would be misleading to raise the crackdown next to a named competitor without saying so.
Where we differ
We are a curated directory for South London rather than a national bidding platform. You browse listed businesses instead of posting a job and receiving quotes, so no lead is sold on the strength of your enquiry and nobody bids for it.
The checking happens before a business is listed rather than through feedback afterwards. Whether that suits you depends on what you want: a bidding platform gives you competitive quotes and breadth, and a vetted local directory gives you a shorter list that has been checked first.
Both models are defensible and neither is universally better.