hipages vs Airtasker vs ServiceSeeking: What Leads Cost

On their own pages on 1 October 2026: hipages charges a subscription from $139 plus GST a month, with credits to accept leads; Airtasker is free to quote and keeps 12.5% to 20% of each task you win, plus GST; and ServiceSeeking sells memberships from $129 a month including GST. None of those is the cost of a job.

The number that decides which is cheaper is cost per booked job: everything a platform cost you, including the time spent quoting, divided by the jobs that actually booked. This guide sets out how each platform charges, works the sum for each one, and compares them with Google Ads at your trade's click price. It is part of our guide to marketing for tradies.

How do hipages, Airtasker and ServiceSeeking charge tradies?

hipages charges before you quote, Airtasker after you win, and ServiceSeeking up front for the right to quote. The details below come from each platform's own pages on 1 October 2026. Oneflare, once a fourth option, closed on 30 June 2026.

Source: hipages membership costs and lead credits policy pages; Airtasker Support Centre articles on the service fee, Tasker tiers and Pro Pass; ServiceSeeking's how-it-works pages, terms and conditions and June 2025 membership price update. All checked 1 October 2026. Prices change often, so check each platform before you sign.

Why is the price of a lead not the cost of a job?

Because you pay for leads you do not win, and each platform charges in a way that hides some of the cost. Four things sit between the price on the page and the cost of a booked job.

• Competition for each lead. On hipages a lead goes to up to three businesses, which hipages describes as a one in three chance of winning the work. Your own rate depends on how fast you respond and how you quote, and some jobs never go ahead at all.
• The credits a lead costs. hipages says the credits needed for a lead depend on the trade category, location, job size, and supply and demand, and can change at any time until the job is marked as hired. It does not publish a price per lead.
• A fee that grows with the job. Airtasker costs nothing until you are paid, then takes a percentage: a fifth of the task price at the Bronze tier and an eighth at Platinum, plus GST on the fee. A bigger job means a bigger fee in dollars, which a subscription does not.
• Your time. Every lead you chase costs a phone call, often a site visit and a written quote. Price that time at what it costs you or your staff, and add it to every platform.

On ServiceSeeking the membership is a fixed cost, so cost per job falls as you win more and rises in a quiet month. Its prices depend on your category, area and the level of competition in your industry, so two businesses can pay different amounts for the same membership.

How do you work out cost per booked job on each platform?

Add up three months of costs for each platform, including quoting time, and divide by the jobs that platform booked. Tag the source on every job in your job software first, so the counts are real.

1. hipages: subscription fees for the three months, plus any top-up credit packs, plus quoting time, divided by the jobs booked from hipages leads.
2. Airtasker: the service fees and the GST on them (Airtasker shows the breakdown on each offer and in your payment history), plus Pro Pass if you bought it, plus time spent on offers that did not win, divided by the tasks you completed.
3. ServiceSeeking: membership fees for the period, plus quoting time, divided by the jobs booked.
4. Google Ads: ad spend plus any management fee, divided by the jobs booked from your ads. Call tracking and your job software are what make this number honest.

Then compare margin, not just cost. A channel with a low cost per job can still lose money if its jobs are small. Our cost per acquisition calculator does the division and shows what each job leaves after it is paid for.

What does a hipages credit cost on each plan?

Between about 75 and 90 cents before GST, depending on the plan. hipages publishes each plan's price and monthly credits but not the credits a lead costs, so this is the most precise unit price available from its own pages.

Source: hipages membership costs page, checked 1 October 2026. Price per credit is our division of the published price by the published credits, and ignores bonus loyalty credits.

To turn that into a cost per job, ask hipages how many credits a lead in your category and area usually costs before you sign, multiply by the price per credit on your plan, then by the number of leads it takes you to win a job.

When does Airtasker Pro Pass pay for itself?

Once the fees it saves pass its $1,980 price, which happens at about $9,000 of tasks in a year if you would otherwise pay the Bronze rate. Pro Pass removes the service fee on your first $22,500 of gross earnings in its 12-month term, and Gold tier fees apply after that.

Source: Airtasker Support Centre, "What are Tasker tiers?" and "Airtasker Pro Pass Terms and Conditions", checked 1 October 2026. Break-even is our calculation: the Pro Pass price divided by the fee rate including GST. The result is the same before GST, so it holds whether or not you claim GST credits.

Pro Pass is paid up front, is not refundable and has no cooling-off period, according to its terms, so it only makes sense once your Airtasker earnings are steady.

What does a booked job cost on Google Ads at your trade's click price?

It is the click price divided by the share of clicks that become enquiries and the share of enquiries that book. Keyword Planner gives the first number for your trade; your call tracking and job software give the other two.

Source: Google Ads Keyword Planner, Australia, average monthly searches for September 2025 to August 2026, pulled 1 October 2026. Google describes the low and high ends of the top-of-page bid range as approximately the 20th and 80th percentiles of what advertisers have historically bid; they are not a promised cost per click.

Here is the method on real numbers. In our Sydney home services case study, a niche tradie marketplace reported leads at a quarter of the price of the other channels and $94 per booked job. Measured against the business's own booking records, its leads closed at 6%, against 22% for Google leads, and margin per booking was 71% lower. The real cost per booked job was $387. The spend moved to Google search, which booked jobs at $128 each. The case study does not name the marketplace, and one business is not a rule for every trade. The lesson is the method: count jobs, not leads.

For click prices in more trades, see our Google Ads costs for tradies data, and for how the bidding is set up, our page on Google Ads for tradies.

What is better, hipages or Airtasker?

Neither wins for every trade, because they charge at opposite ends of the job. Airtasker costs nothing until you are paid and then takes a percentage, so it is cheapest for small, well-defined tasks and dearest, in dollars, for big ones. hipages costs the same each month however big the job, so it favours larger jobs and businesses that win a good share of the leads they accept.

The audiences differ too. hipages lists only trade and home improvement businesses and checks licences where your trade needs one; Airtasker covers everything from cleaning and handyman work to admin and photography. A quick test: work out Airtasker's fee on your typical job at your tier, then compare it with the credits a hipages lead costs in your category multiplied by the leads it takes you to win one. The lower number is your cheaper platform before quoting time.

How much does hipages charge?

From $139 plus GST a month on Starter to $649 plus GST on Platinum, with a $2,049 plus GST plan for businesses with more than ten employees and a $29 plus GST Essentials plan that includes job management tools but no leads. Each lead plan includes a monthly allowance of credits, and the credits needed to accept a lead vary by job.

Plans start on a six-month introductory term and then renew for 12 months, and paying a year up front saves 5%. There is a seven-day cooling-off period if you have not accepted any leads. Unused credits roll over for one month on Starter and Advanced and two months on Premium and Platinum. If your customers pay through hipages payments, the processing fee is 1.6%.

Do hipages charge a fee or a commission?

A subscription fee, but no commission: hipages says it does not take a percentage of earnings. It is not free for businesses, because accepting leads needs a paid plan. ServiceSeeking also takes no cut of your earnings. Airtasker is the one of the three that charges per job, through its service fee.

Is hipages worth it as a tradie?

It is worth it if your cost per booked job from hipages beats your other channels once quoting time is counted, and only your own records can show that. Test it properly: a full introductory term, every hipages job tagged in your job software, and a monthly sum of fees and quoting time against jobs and margin. A platform can pay on one type of job and lose on another, so trim the categories that do not clear your margin before you decide on the whole account.

Can you trust hipages?

As a business, you can check what it promises. hipages says it verifies ABNs, licences where your trade is regulated, and identity before a business can list, caps each lead at three businesses, and publishes its lead credits policy and business terms. The thing to watch is cost: it says credit amounts on leads may change daily, weekly or monthly, and the six-month term followed by a 12-month renewal is a real commitment. Read the business terms and set a date to review your numbers before the term rolls over.

What is better than hipages?

Often, a channel you own. On your own Google Business Profile and Google Ads, the enquiry comes to you alone and you control the cost, so compare them with hipages on cost per booked job rather than on the price of a lead. ServiceSeeking and Airtasker are the other marketplaces still running in Australia. Oneflare closed on 30 June 2026, and Google's Local Services Ads were not listed for Australia when we checked Google's help centre on 1 October 2026; our post on Google Local Services Ads in Australia explains what that page shows. For the free channel, see local SEO for tradies.

ServiceSeeking vs hipages: what is the difference?

How you pay and how many businesses you compete with. hipages sells credits inside a subscription and caps each lead at three businesses. ServiceSeeking sells a membership priced on the leads expected in your category and area, does not state a cap on quotes, and says its jobs receive 4.6 quotes on average. ServiceSeeking's coverage comes in 10, 20 and 50 kilometre packages; hipages plans list your directory profile in one to ten postcodes and, it says, place no limit on the area you take leads from. Both say they take no commission.

What happened to Oneflare?

It closed. Airtasker retired its sister brand Oneflare on 30 June 2026 to focus on Airtasker, switched off auto-renewals from 1 June 2026, and let existing credits be used until the shutdown. If Oneflare supplied part of your work, the comparison above covers where those enquiries are likely to come from now.

How do you run the comparison in your own business?

1. Tag the source on every job in your job software: hipages, Airtasker, ServiceSeeking, Google Ads, Business Profile, referral or repeat.
2. Record each month's platform costs: subscription and credit top-ups, service fees and their GST, memberships.
3. Log roughly how long each lead takes to quote, for one month.
4. After three months, divide costs and time by jobs booked for each source, and compare the margin each job leaves.
5. Move money toward the cheapest source of profitable jobs, and put a review date in the diary before any term renews.

If you would rather someone else ran the numbers, that is what we do for trade businesses: calls tracked, job software connected, and every channel, marketplaces included, reported on cost per booked job. Read our guide to tradie marketing, see how Google Ads for tradies fits in, or book a free 30-minute profit audit.