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Tradesperson marketplace development

For founders, trade associations and regional networks launching a platform where homeowners post jobs and vetted trades compete for them, and who need onboarding, matching, quoting, lead credits, reviews and disputes designed around their own rules rather than copied from a national player.

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The problem

What goes wrong today

Where it usually starts

A tradesperson marketplace usually starts as a directory with a contact form and a spreadsheet of trades somebody rang up.

  • The founder checks a plumber's gas registration by looking at a photo in a WhatsApp message, writes "ok" in a column and moves on; six months later nobody can say when that photo was seen or whether it has expired.
  • Jobs arrive as free-text emails with no postcode and no photos, so the first hour of every job is spent asking the homeowner what they actually need.
  • The founder forwards each job to five trades by hand, three reply, the homeowner picks one by phone, and the platform never finds out whether the work happened.

Where it gets harder

Money is the next thing to break.

  • Trades are charged for leads through a card link sent by hand; some pay, some do not, and some argue that the lead was a duplicate or a time-waster, with no record to settle it.
  • Reviews come in through a form and are pasted onto profiles, including a few from people who were never customers.
  • When a homeowner complains about a bodged job, the platform has no timeline of what was posted, quoted, agreed and said, so every dispute becomes a judgement call made from memory.
  • The directory grows, the admin burden grows faster, and the trades who paid for leads drift away because they cannot see what they got for their money.

Scope of the service

What the build covers

A custom tradesperson marketplace build normally covers:

  • Trade onboarding with a category-specific qualifications checklist Where each item is recorded as supplied by the trade with a document and a date, or as returned by a third-party check integration, and shown on the public profile as a badge with the recording date
  • A job post flow for homeowners with category Postcode, photos, a description and an urgency level
  • Matching rules that notify trades by category and distance
  • An interest step Where trades register interest against lead credits set by you
  • A shortlist the homeowner builds With quotes submitted in the platform and messaging that masks phone numbers until the homeowner chooses
  • A hire step with completion confirmation from both sides
  • Reviews that only a confirmed hire can leave
  • A dispute queue with the full job timeline attached

How discovery works

Discovery walks through one job from posting to review with you: which trades you admit and what their checklist contains, whether the homeowner chooses from a shortlist or the platform auto-matches, whether trades buy lead credits in bundles or pay commission on completion, what counts as a bad lead and when a credit is returned, and who on your team handles verification queues and disputes. Each answer becomes a named stage in the scope document: onboard, post, match, interest, shortlist, quote, hire, complete, review.

Deliberately out of scope

  • Performing the background or qualification checks themselves, insurance underwriting, and job management for the trade once hired, such as their invoicing and scheduling. The platform records what trades supply and what check providers return
  • It does not vouch for them

When the scope grows

Scoping scenario

A regional trade association wants a members-only marketplace where membership status replaces lead credits, the association's own verifier approves every profile, and homeowners can only post in categories the association covers. That is a different build from a national open marketplace selling credit bundles to any trade, and the scope document says which one is being built.

Deliverables

What you receive

  • Discovery notes from following one job from post to review, including the verification queue
  • A written scope document naming each stage from onboarding to review, with what is out of scope
  • Design of the trade onboarding flow, the job post flow, the shortlist and quote screens and the verifier queue, on mobile for trades and homeowners and desktop for the admin
  • The build, deployed to your hosting or ours
  • Migration of existing trade profiles and their recorded checks from your directory or spreadsheet, where relevant
  • Training for the admin, verifier and support roles, with a short written guide for disputes
  • Handover material and full ownership of the source code and your data

Process

How a project runs

Each stage maps onto the project view in your client panel. Durations are set in your proposal, never on this page.

  1. Onboarding

    Access, contacts, your category list, your current trade spreadsheet or directory and the rules you apply today when admitting a trade.

    Project stage: Onboarding

  2. Planning

    Discovery with the founder and whoever verifies trades and handles complaints; the scope document, the lead-credit or commission model and the milestone plan are agreed.

    Project stage: Planning

  3. Design

    Clickable designs of the job post, the trade profile with badges, the shortlist and quote screens and the verifier queue, reviewed with two or three friendly trades.

    Project stage: Design

  4. Development

    Built in stages: onboarding and verification records first, then job posts and matching, then interest, quotes, lead credits and messaging, then reviews and disputes.

    Project stage: Development

  5. Client review

    Your team posts real test jobs, trades you invite express interest and quote, and the verifier works a queue of real applications under test.

    Project stage: Client review

  6. Revisions

    Matching distances, credit rules, badge wording and dispute steps are adjusted from the review and re-checked against the scope.

    Project stage: Revisions

  7. Ready for launch

    Trade profiles migrated, check-provider connection tested on accounts you control, payment callbacks for credits tested, checklist signed off.

    Project stage: Ready for launch

  8. Delivered

    The marketplace runs on the new platform; optional maintenance and hosting continue under their own agreement.

    Project stage: Delivered

Integrations

Commonly integrated

Systems this kind of business usually asks us to connect. Each integration is confirmed during discovery; none is assumed.

  • Card payment providers for lead credit bundles or completion commission
  • Identity, right-to-work and background check providers, recorded as a result and date against the trade
  • Trade register look-ups for gas, electrical and similar schemes, recorded as supplied or returned
  • Email, SMS and push notification providers for job alerts and shortlist updates
  • Mapping and postcode services for distance-based matching
  • Accounting software for credit sales, commission and refunds
  • Insurance document storage where trades upload their own certificates

How we would approach it

Worked example

Concept demo

A regional network with an association verifier

The situation

A trade association covering four counties wanted a marketplace for its members where the association itself approves every profile.

Why it is a custom build

This needs a custom build because the association's membership replaces the lead-credit economy a generic marketplace script assumes, and because the verifier's checklist differs by trade category rather than being a single upload box.

The scope we would propose

  • A verifier role inside the association that works a queue of applications, each showing the checklist for that trade category with documents as supplied by the member and the result returned from a register look-up
  • A badge on the public profile that names what was recorded and when, not a general "verified" stamp
  • Job alerts limited to members within a drive-time band
  • Interest capped at five trades per job with the homeowner choosing the shortlist
  • A dispute queue where the association sees the job post, every quote, the messages and the completion confirmation on one timeline

Concept demo: a scoping scenario written to show how we would approach the work. It is not a delivered client project.

Pricing

What affects the price

Every proposal is priced on scope. These are the factors that move it most for this kind of build.

  • Number of trade categories and how different their qualification checklists are
  • Lead credits, commission on completion or membership, and the payment provider involved
  • Whether homeowners choose from a shortlist or the platform auto-matches
  • Check-provider and register look-up integrations and how results are displayed
  • In-platform messaging with contact masking and its moderation
  • Dispute handling depth and the roles involved
  • Volume of existing trade profiles and recorded checks to migrate
  • Native app for trades alongside the mobile web platform
  • Hosting choice: your own hosting or ours

Start from a package

Tradesperson marketplace package

Trade onboarding with a per-category checklist, homeowner job posts with photos and urgency, interest and shortlist, in-platform quotes and masked messaging, lead credits, completion confirmation, reviews and a dispute queue.

Custom build
View the package

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Would the package do, or do we need a custom build?

A marketplace with a shortlist-and-quote flow, lead credits and a verifier queue is usually covered by the tradesperson marketplace package through configuration. A custom build is the honest answer when membership replaces credits, when matching rules depend on something other than category and distance, or when a check provider must be wired in deeply. Discovery is where we tell you which.

Does the platform verify the trades?

No, and we design the wording to say so. The platform records documents as supplied by the trade and results returned by a connected check or register provider, each with a date, and shows that on the profile. Deciding who to admit remains your decision, and the terms your users agree to should say so.

How are bad leads handled?

You set what counts as a disputed lead, for example a duplicate post or a homeowner who never replied. A trade flags the lead from the job, your admin sees the timeline and returns the credit or declines, and the outcome is recorded against both the trade and the job so patterns are visible.

Can we take commission instead of selling credits?

Yes. The model is chosen in discovery: credit bundles bought up front, commission recorded at completion confirmation, or membership. Collecting that money from trades is a function of your platform and runs through your own payment provider, separate from anything you pay us.

Who owns the platform afterwards?

You do. Source code and your data, including trade profiles, recorded checks, jobs and reviews, are handed over at delivery; hosting and maintenance are optional and separately agreed.

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