Public disclosure
How we make money.
In one document.
The marketplaces that dominate the Australian trades category mostly fund themselves in ways that warp the answers homeowners get. We've built Need A Trade to avoid that — and the only way to prove it is to write down exactly how the lights stay on.
Where the money comes from
Flyer runs first.
Member subscriptions after.
We vet the trades first — through Code-signing, credential verification, and a real walked letterbox flyer in their suburb. That flyer run is the publisher's current revenue source. When members.needatrade.com.au opens to publish the founding directory, member subscriptions become a second revenue source.
- · Now: per-run flyer pricing — quoted, agreed, printed, invoiced once. Pricing on the tradies site.
- · After members. opens: a single Member Profile subscription tier — no premium upgrades, no "verified expert" tier, no surprise billing.
- · No card required to apply — first invoice issues only after vetting passes and the run is agreed.
- · Pause, cancel, or delete the Member Profile at any time, on member request.
Where the money does not come from
The things we don't sell.
- ×Paid placement in the guides. No tradie has ever paid — or ever can pay — to be mentioned, linked, or favoured inside a homeowner guide.
- ×Referral fees. We don't pass homeowner enquiries to members. We don't get paid when a homeowner contacts a member.
- ×Lead resale. Homeowner queries that come to @needatrade.com.au addresses are not resold to anyone.
- ×Sponsored answers in the guides. The guides have no advertisers. Day one until forever.
- ×Paid ranking. Members are not ordered by who pays more. Order is alphabetical, geographic, or randomised — never auction-style.
- ×"Best tradie" badges. We do not sell tier badges, gold-member icons, top-of-suburb placements, or featured-expert status.
- ×Homeowner data. We do not sell, swap, or share homeowner data with marketers, insurers, or any third party. The guides take no signup.
The structural constraint
The reason the guides answer to nobody on the tradie side is that no tradie pays the guides anything. The reason member subscriptions don't bleed into the guides is that the two sides have separate ledgers and the guides have no editorial inputs from the membership side. Both of those statements are easy to make and only mean something if we publish them in writing and let people hold us to them.
This page is that document.