Fixed-price jobs online: a website for plumbers, electricians and heating engineers that takes the booking and the payment

This guide is for a plumber, electrician, heating engineer or handyman firm with one van to six, getting work from word of mouth, Checkatrade or MyBuilder, and tired of phone tag over jobs that cost the same every time. It covers which jobs can carry a fixed price, what the marketplaces cost against your own site, the trust facts and consumer law behind a booked job, and how a job becomes a paid booking. We build Orbit Commerce, the platform in the later sections, so weigh those parts knowing that. Every fee and legal fact was checked against its source on 8 November 2026.

Why do most trade websites show no prices?

Because much of the work depends on what the engineer finds, and the marketplaces are built around that: describe the job, wait for prices by text. A boiler service takes about the same hour in every house, yet most trade sites still say “call for a quote”.

The test: can you describe the job in two sentences, time it within half an hour and carry the parts on the van? If it depends on lifting floorboards, it is a quote.

Say what the price covers (labour, the fittings named on the page, the time on site) and what happens if the engineer finds more: they stop, explain and quote.

How a quote request sits beside the price list

The quote form lives on the same site, and a quote request comes in as an enquiry. Orbit’s built-in contact form takes a name, email, phone number, subject and message, which land in your dashboard inbox; relabel the subject “Which job?”. For photos and more questions, the Form Builder plugin adds custom fields and file uploads. Once the price is agreed, raise a draft order and send a payment link that works for seven days, for the whole job or a deposit agreed by hand. Emergency work is a phone number on every page.

What do Checkatrade and MyBuilder cost against your own site?

The costs below were read from their own pages on 8 November 2026.

Checkatrade also lists a free profile for collecting reviews; its blog says VAT is added. MyBuilder publishes no price list: the fee shows on each lead before you accept it, and its terms call it non-refundable. The marketplaces bring demand a new firm does not have yet. Your own site converts the demand you already have, and the booking, the payment and the customer record are yours. The cost is the plan and the card rate, which our guide to payment fees for a UK small business takes apart.

How does a job become a booking on your site?

On Orbit a job is a product with the Service type, and a Service details section adds the clock. A boiler service, field by field:

1. Name, price and description. “Boiler service, £95”.
2. Length: 60 minutes.
3. Places per slot: 1. One engineer, one job.
4. Notice: 24 hours.
5. A gap between bookings: 30 minutes for the drive.
6. A cancellation fee, if you want one: 0 to 100% with your policy in plain words, both shown on the page.
7. Tiers as variants: one socket or two, each with its own price. Variants share the job’s length, so a longer tier is a separate job.
8. Your working week, once: service hours and a time zone, one weekly schedule for the whole shop.

What the customer sees

The customer picks a date and time on the job’s page, presses Book Now and pays the full price at checkout like any order. When the payment goes through, the booking lands on the Bookings calendar in your dashboard as Confirmed, with the customer’s contact details beside it, and they get a confirmation email with a calendar file. In their account, My Bookings gives each job three buttons: Reschedule, offering only free slots for the next 30 days; Download ICS, a calendar file; and Cancel, which shows your policy and the refund before they confirm. See the bookings page.

Engineers, vans and reminders

The customer pays the whole price when they book, and a quoted job or a deposit you agree by hand goes out as a payment link from a draft order. A booking is a job and a time, so with two engineers give each their own set of jobs (boiler service with Dave, boiler service with Sam) and every booking names its engineer. Places are counted per job, so with twelve jobs and one van keep the bookable list short and read the calendar each evening; blocked time is set per job too. The confirmation email carries a calendar file, so the appointment sits in the customer’s calendar with its own reminder.

What trust facts do customers check before they book?

Gas: the Gas Safe Register

Regulation 3 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 allows gas work only by competent people in a class approved by the Health and Safety Executive (legislation.gov.uk). That class is the Gas Safe Register: gov.uk tells tenants to expect a “Gas Safe registered engineer” (gov.uk). For the landlord check, every appliance and flue is checked every 12 months by a Gas Safe registered engineer, and a copy of the record goes to each tenant within 28 days and to new tenants before they move in (HSE landlord FAQs; all checked 8 November 2026).

Electrical: Part P and the competent person schemes

Approved Document P covers electrical safety in homes in England, including when work must be notified (gov.uk). Gov.uk adds: “You do not need to get approval yourself if you use someone registered with a competent person scheme” (gov.uk). The schemes for fixed electrical installations in dwellings are BESCA, Blue Flame Certification, Certsure (trading as NICEIC), NAPIT and OFTEC (gov.uk), and every registered electrician is searchable on the Registered Competent Person Electrical register. A landlord in England must have an EICR at least every five years from a properly qualified person (gov.uk; all checked 8 November 2026).

Insurance, and how to show it all

Public liability insurance is not required by law, but customers ask, so state the cover and the insurer. Employers’ liability insurance is compulsory “as soon as you become an employer”, for at least £5 million (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026). Show it all as text with a link: “Gas Safe registered, number 123456”, linked to your entry on the register, can be checked; a downloaded logo cannot. The schemes issue their marks to registered businesses under their own rules, and the electrical register says its mark is for those “listed and permitted to display” it, so never paste one you have not been given.

What does consumer law say about a job booked online?

This is general information, not legal advice.

14 days to cancel. Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 a customer can cancel a service bought at a distance without a reason, and the period “ends at the end of 14 days after the day on which the contract is entered into” (regulation 30). Before they book, tell them how to cancel and when the right is lost, with a model cancellation form, or they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months (gov.uk; both checked 8 November 2026).

Jobs done inside the 14 days. Regulation 36 says you must not start before the period ends unless the customer “has made an express request”. If they cancel after you started at their request they pay “in proportion to what has been supplied”. Once the job is fully performed at their request, having acknowledged they would lose the right, the right is gone. If you never gave the cancellation information they pay nothing (regulation 36, checked 8 November 2026). Put that in the cancellation policy on the job’s page: by booking a date within 14 days the customer asks you to start and accepts that once the job is complete the right to cancel ends.

Reasonable care and skill. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 reads into every service contract a term that the trader must “perform the service with reasonable care and skill” (section 49). Anything said or written about the trader or the service that the customer relies on is also a term (section 50; both checked 8 November 2026).

Where Orbit’s cancellation fee meets the 14 days. Orbit applies your fee to every customer cancellation, whatever the notice, so a 0% fee and a firm notice period is the simplest way to stay inside the rule. If you do set a fee and a customer cancels within 14 days before any work has started, refund the fee from the order.

A small shop and gift cards beside the jobs

A leak and power-cut kit, a radiator bleed kit and a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm pair are ordinary physical products in the same basket as a job. In England a private landlord must have a smoke alarm on each storey with living accommodation and a carbon monoxide alarm in any such room with a fixed combustion appliance, gas cookers excepted (gov.uk, checked 8 November 2026), so a landlord booking a gas check can add the alarms. Gift cards are a product type too: amounts as variants, the recipient’s email and a message added by the buyer, the code emailed on payment and redeemed at checkout, the balance tracked in your dashboard.

Reviews, live chat, quote forms and calculators

• Google reviews. The Google Reviews plugin shows your Google Business Profile rating on any page as a badge, a carousel or a grid: pick your listing and the rating, the count and up to five reviews appear, refreshed nightly. A paid add-on priced on its listing.
• Live chat. The Live Chat plugin puts a chat button on every page and an inbox in your dashboard, with opening hours; outside them it takes a message and opens a ticket. An add-on with a free plan and paid plans.
• Quote requests. The built-in contact form, or the Form Builder plugin for custom fields and photo uploads.
• Estimates. The Calculator Builder has a free plan: a “how many radiators” calculator gives a visitor an estimate and keeps the firm quote for the survey; its paid plans are priced on its listing.

Where Orbit fits

Everything above runs on the Solo plan at £25 a month, or £19 a month billed yearly, ex VAT. That covers service products and the Bookings calendar, physical products, gift cards, the page builder, a blog on your own domain, and hosting on AWS in London with SSL. Cards cost 2% + 25p for UK personal Visa and Mastercard, with nothing on top and no fee per booking.

Live Chat, the Form Builder and the Calculator Builder are add-ons with a free plan and paid plans; Google Reviews is an add-on priced on its own listing. The theme store lists free and premium themes by industry; pick one for a trades business and change its colours, fonts and logo in the dashboard. Read our guide to selling services online for bookings of every kind, selling digital products, subscriptions, services and gift cards for what booking apps cost elsewhere, and whether you need to register a business if you are new to this.

Read next: Checkatrade or your own website, quote forms and price calculators for a trade website and taking phone orders and deposits with a payment link.

Questions people ask about a trade website that takes bookings

Can a plumber or electrician take bookings and payment on their own website?

Yes, for jobs with a fixed scope. On Orbit a job is a service product; the customer picks a date and time, pays the full price at checkout and manages the booking from their account. Survey jobs stay as quote enquiries.

Which trade jobs can have a fixed price online?

Jobs you can describe in two sentences, time within half an hour and carry the parts for: a boiler service, a landlord gas safety check, an EICR priced by bedrooms, a socket or light fitting, a tap or toilet replacement, flat-pack assembly and handyman hours. New boilers, bathrooms and rewires stay as quotes.

How much does Checkatrade cost a tradesperson?

Checkatrade’s pricing page, read on 8 November 2026, lists a free profile, an Approved plan at £30 a month and a Growth plan from £59 a month, on 12-month memberships; its blog says VAT is added. MyBuilder has no subscription and charges a shortlist fee per lead, set by the job’s size, value and location, win or lose.

Can a customer cancel a job they booked online?

Yes, without a reason, for 14 days after the day the contract is made, under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. If they asked you to start within that period and then cancel, they pay in proportion for the work done, and once the job is fully performed at their request, having acknowledged they would lose the right, it cannot be cancelled.

Do I need to be Gas Safe registered to sell boiler servicing online?

Yes. Regulation 3 of the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 allows gas work only by people in a class approved by the Health and Safety Executive, which is the Gas Safe Register. Put your registration number on the job page as text with a link to your entry on the register.

Put one job online and book it yourself from your phone. Orbit’s 14-day free trial, no card required, is long enough to set up the price list and take your first real booking.