Most tradies land on hipages the same way: work goes quiet, you sign up, and for a while it works — there are leads. Then the maths starts to bite. You're paying for leads that three or four other tradies also paid for, racing to call first, quoting against people who price to lose money. And the moment you stop paying, the leads stop dead.

That last part is the real problem. Directory platforms rent you demand — they never build you anything. Here are the actual alternatives in 2026, with honest costs, from someone who ran a building company for 12 years before running ad accounts for tradies.

What hipages really costs

Between the subscription and per-lead credits, most active users spend $300–$1,000+/mo. That's comparable to a self-owned Google Ads budget — except the hipages lead is shared, price-driven, and owned by the platform. When you leave, you take nothing with you: no rankings, no reviews momentum, no data. Ten years of hipages spend leaves you exactly where you started.

Alternative 1: Google Local Service Ads — the closest like-for-like

If you like paying per lead, Google's Local Service Ads (LSA) is the direct swap, and it's better on every axis: the lead is exclusive to you, you can dispute junk leads for credit, and the "Google Guaranteed" badge does real work on trust. Setup requires licence and insurance verification — an afternoon of admin that permanently filters out the cowboys you're used to competing with.

Alternative 2: Google Ads — own the demand

Search ads catch the homeowner at the exact moment they need your trade. The clicks cost money, but everything the spend builds — the conversion data, the negative keywords, the landing pages — is an asset in your account. Budgets run $800–$1,500/mo for a sole operator; see our full budget guide at how much should a tradie spend on Google Ads.

Alternative 3: Google Business Profile + reviews — the free one

The local map pack is where "[trade] near me" searches actually convert, and ranking there costs nothing but effort: a complete profile, photos of real jobs, and a steady flow of genuine reviews. If you do only one thing after cancelling hipages, do this. Score yourself with our free 12-point GBP audit.

Alternative 4: your own website + SEO — the compounding one

Suburb pages, service pages, and reviews compound month after month. It's the slowest option — expect 3–6 months to meaningful movement — but it's the only one where the cost per lead falls every quarter. A lean job-booking site starts around $1,500; see websites for tradies.

The transition plan (don't cancel everything at once)

  • Month 1: set up LSA and fix your Google Business Profile while hipages still feeds you work.
  • Month 2: start Google Ads on a modest budget; get review requests automated so every finished job builds the asset.
  • Month 3: compare cost per booked job (not per lead) across channels. For most trades, hipages loses this comparison badly — cancel or cut it to the bone.

The takeaway

hipages isn't evil — it's a landlord. Every dollar you give a directory rents you a lead; every dollar you put into your own Google presence buys you one. If you want a written plan for making the switch, that's literally what our free audit is.