Cheap marketing deal? Ask these six questions before you sign.

Monthly marketing deals for tradies are everywhere: a website, a review system, something that texts back missed calls, sometimes an AI receptionist, all for less than a tank of diesel a week. The price is the easy part to compare. What it doesn’t tell you takes about ten minutes to check.

Here are six questions to ask before you hand over your card.

1. Is the price the same on every page?

Look at the pricing page, then the product pages, then any calculator on the site. If the same service shows up at three different prices, ask which one goes on your invoice, and get the answer in writing. A price that changes from page to page is a sign of how carefully everything else is set up.

2. Who owns the website if you leave?

Some deals don’t sell you a website. They rent you one. Read the cancellation clause: if it says your licence to use the site ends when you cancel, the site goes dark the day you leave, along with everything it built up on Google. Starting again from scratch is the real cost of leaving.

Ask: if I cancel, do I keep the site, the domain and the content?

3. Are they on the ABN register?

A business trading under a name that isn’t its owner’s own name has to register that business name. Search it at abr.business.gov.au. If you can’t find it, ask who you’re actually paying and whose name goes on the invoice.

4. Can you ring two of their clients?

Testimonials with first names only, no business names and no suburbs are impossible to check. So is a “results” page that says the case studies are coming soon. Ask for two current customers you can ring yourself. Anyone doing good work for tradies will have a couple happy to take the call.

5. Do they only let 5-star reviews through?

This is the trap. Some review systems ask how the job went first, send happy customers to Google, and steer unhappy ones to a private form instead. It’s called review gating, and Google’s own review policy prohibits businesses from selectively asking for positive reviews. Reviews that break the policy can be removed, and repeated breaches can put the account itself at risk.

Your reviews are one of the strongest things you’ve got on Google. Don’t put them on the line for a feature that sounds good on a sales call.

6. What do the terms actually promise?

Read them. If the terms fit in one paragraph and there’s no business name or ABN anywhere in them, ask what they’re committing to do for you each month, and what happens if they don’t.

Cheap isn’t the problem. No commitment is.

A low price can be fine. What matters is whether anyone is on the hook for the work once your card is on file. These six questions take about ten minutes and they’ll tell you most of what you need to know.