NoCowboys has been part of the NZ trades landscape for years: the place homeowners go to check whether a tradie is any good before they call. If you run a trade business, your name may already be on it whether you signed up or not, and at some point their registered membership pitch will land in front of you. Is it worth paying for?
Same disclosure as always: we’re a marketing agency that builds lead generation for trade businesses, so we’re not neutral about where your marketing dollar goes. The facts below come from NoCowboys’ own pages and are checkable; the opinions are ours, and we’ll tell you plainly when their platform is the right call.
What NoCowboys actually is (and isn’t)
NoCowboys is a ratings directory, not a job marketplace. Homeowners search it by trade and area, read reviews, and contact businesses directly. That makes it a fundamentally different animal from Builderscrack, where homeowners post jobs and tradies pay to connect. On NoCowboys you’re paying for visibility and reputation, not for individual leads.
For tradies there are two tiers:
- Free: a basic business profile. You exist on the platform, customers can rate you, and that’s about it. Unregistered listings sit lower in their search results, and (their own docs say this) registered competitors’ ads can appear on your page.
- Registered: $999 incl. GST per 12 months at the time of writing. That buys a fuller profile (logo, photos, links to your website), bold priority placement in their search results, tools to invite and respond to ratings, and eligibility for their “Customer Preferred” badge, which needs 5 or more reviews, an overall rating of at least 85%, and a review newer than six months.
NoCowboys vs Builderscrack
The comparison tradies actually search for, so here it is straight:
- Builderscrack sells access to jobs: homeowners post work, you pay (in tokens) to connect, and you’re usually quoting against several others. Money flows per opportunity. We’ve broken that model down in our Builderscrack review.
- NoCowboys sells presence: a flat yearly fee for a more prominent, better-dressed profile that customers find when they go looking. Money flows per year, regardless of what work results.
They’re not substitutes. Builderscrack suits filling gaps in the calendar this month; NoCowboys is closer to a reputation billboard that works (or doesn’t) quietly in the background. Plenty of businesses are on both; plenty thrive on neither.
What $999 a year actually buys
Broken down, $999 is about $83 a month. The right way to judge it is the same as any marketing spend: what does it produce, and what else could the same money do?
The case for: NoCowboys’ own category pages often rank well in Google for “your trade, your town” searches, so a prominent profile there puts you inside a page the customer is already reading, with your reviews doing the selling. If your trade and area is one where their page outranks anything you could build soon, you’re effectively renting a spot on page one.
The case against: the same $83 a month, pointed at your own marketing, buys roughly 15 to 30 Google Ads clicks at typical trade rates (our published NZ cost-per-click data has the ranges), landing on a website you own, with enquiries that are exclusively yours. And every review you earn on NoCowboys builds their domain’s authority, not your own map-pack presence.
There’s no universal answer to that trade-off. There is a very specific one for your trade, your area and your current visibility, which is exactly the kind of thing worth checking before renewing.
Reviews: theirs vs Google’s
One structural point matters more than any pricing detail. Reviews on NoCowboys live on NoCowboys. Reviews on your Google Business Profile feed the map pack, where the searcher sees you first, and review count and quality are among the factors Google uses to decide who shows up in those top three spots at all.
So if your customers have one review in them, spend it on Google. We’ve published a complete guide with copy-paste templates for doing exactly that. NoCowboys ratings are a fine second ask for your happiest customers, and if you do pay for registration, their invite tools make that easy.
When NoCowboys is worth it
- Your name is already on there with reviews, customers keep mentioning it, and the free listing is scruffy next to registered competitors. Tidying up where people already check you out is cheap insurance.
- Their category page outranks you for your trade and area, and realistically will for a while. Rent the spot while you build your own.
- Reputation is your whole pitch (server-room-clean trades, high-trust residential work) and you want every checkable channel showing the same 5-star story.
When it stops making sense
- Nobody in your pipeline mentions it and your enquiries come from Google, referrals or your own site. Then it’s $999 of “just in case”.
- You’d be paying for visibility on their domain while your own Google Business Profile sits half-finished and under-reviewed. Fix the free asset first.
- You’re already fully booked from channels you own. Presence you don’t need is the easiest cost to cut.
NoCowboys FAQ
What is NoCowboys and what does it do?
It’s an NZ ratings directory for trade and service businesses. Homeowners search by trade and area, read customer ratings, and contact businesses directly. Businesses can be listed free or pay a yearly registration for priority placement and profile tools.
Is NoCowboys free for businesses?
A basic profile is free, and customers can rate you on it either way. The paid registration ($999 incl. GST per year at the time of writing) buys prominence, profile features, rating tools and eligibility for the Customer Preferred badge.
How do I get the Customer Preferred badge?
Per their criteria: be registered, hold at least 5 reviews, keep your overall rating at 85% or better, and have a review less than six months old. In practice that means a steady habit of asking happy customers to rate you, the same habit that works on Google.
Which is better, NoCowboys or Builderscrack?
Different tools. Builderscrack sells connections to posted jobs (pay per opportunity, compete on quotes); NoCowboys sells a prominent, reviewed presence (flat yearly fee). Gap-filling versus reputation. Our Builderscrack breakdown covers the other half of the question.
Do NoCowboys reviews help my Google ranking?
Not directly. They live on NoCowboys’ domain and build their authority. Reviews on your Google Business Profile are the ones that feed your own map-pack visibility, which is why we tell every client to ask for Google reviews first.
For where directories sit against every other way tradies get work, our complete guide to lead generation for tradies lays the whole landscape out.
Not sure whether your $999 would do more on NoCowboys or in your own pipeline? Get a free game plan: 20 minutes, your actual numbers, no obligation.