We're the homeowner's side of the trade conversation. Not the marketplace. Not the lead-gen funnel. The reference.

Hiring a tradie in Australia is one of the highest-stakes consumer decisions most households ever make, and one of the least supported by independent reference material.

The information landscape is dominated by three things that aren't designed to help you:

• · Marketplaces that monetise lead introductions and have a structural incentive to keep the trade selection process opaque.
• · Tradie websites that say "fully licensed and insured" without ever telling you what evidence to ask for.
• · Forum threads that contain enormous amounts of real homeowner pain, but no synthesis — you read 200 posts to discover what someone could have told you in 200 words.

NeedATrade is the synthesis. We've read those 200 posts (and 1,800 more) so you don't have to, then cross-referenced what we found with the actual standards, licensing rules, and regulator data that determine whether the work you're commissioning is going to last, be legal, or be worth the money.

For each of 33 trade categories, we publish a structured guide answering the 10 questions homeowners actually ask before hiring — with answers grounded in current standards, state licensing, and verified pricing.

NeedATrade is published by Social Solutions Group Pty Ltd, an Australian company that operates a small set of editorial and infrastructure properties for the residential trades sector.

The consumer guide is editorially separate from the operator-facing platforms that exist on different subdomains. The same publisher runs both, but the editorial guide does not promote, list, or recommend the operators who use the operator-facing platforms — that's the structural separation that makes the editorial honest.

The editorial integrity of the consumer guide depends on a clean funding model. Here it is, on the record.

If any element of the funding model changes, it will be disclosed on this page and in the corrections log before it takes effect. See the full funding section of the disclaimer for the operational commitment.

The short version of the methodology — the long version lives on the /methods page.

1. · Collect. Read forums (Reddit, Whirlpool, ProductReview, trade-specific groups) for the verbatim experience of buyers in each trade category. Catalogue 2,037 quotes across 33 trades.
2. · Cluster. Group findings by question type — pricing, trust, licensing, timing, process, materials, warranty, location, edges, aftercare.
3. · Verify regulation. Cross-check every licensing, standards, and contract claim against the relevant state regulator and the published Australian Standard.
4. · Verify pricing. Cross-check every price band against three operator quotes per state, dated within the rolling 12 months.
5. · Write. Translate into the locked 10-cluster template that runs the same structure across every trade guide.
6. · Review. Editorial read for accuracy, voice, and structural consistency before publishing.
7. · Correct. Maintain an open corrections process. Verified errors get fixed and logged.

We're strict about what this site is for. It is not:

• · A directory or marketplace. We don't list, rank, score, or recommend specific tradies. The operator-facing platform is separate and editorially excluded.
• · Legal, financial, structural, or trade-professional advice. The guides are general information. Engage the relevant licensed professional for site-specific advice — see the full disclaimer.
• · An emergency service. If something is leaking, sparking, smoking, or falling — close the tab and call a licensed trade or emergency service.
• · A complaints platform. If you have a dispute with a tradie, the path runs through the relevant state regulator (we link each one in the licence-check directory) or your state's civil tribunal.

The v1 release covers 33 trades, the 12 cross-cutting questions, the glossary with licence-check directory, the methodology and source pages, the disclaimer, the privacy policy, and the corrections log. The next research waves on the roadmap:

• · State-specific variants for the 10 trades where state regulation diverges meaningfully (builders, plumbers, electricians, demolition contractors, scaffold companies, pool builders, waterproofers, solar installers, asbestos removalists, roof plumbers).
• · Quote anatomy visual components — teaching homeowners what a real quote looks like, line by line.
• · Decision trees for repair-vs-replace, renovate-vs-demolish, DIY-vs-licensed.
• · Cost guide hub — project-level pricing pages, not just trade-level (e.g. "what does a bathroom waterproof cost" as its own page).
• · Expanded source corpus — growing the verbatim base beyond the current 2,037 with each annual update cycle.

The reader-funded model means each expansion is funded by demonstrated value, not advertiser commitment. If a section earns enough reader engagement, it gets the next research cycle.