Tradespeople: Classified Ads or a Platform — Which Pays Off More?
A tradesperson in Montenegro most often looks for clients in two places: classified ads and platforms. The question "which pays off more" only makes sense if you look at what is on each side. We are one of those sides — Glatko is a platform — so we are writing this on numbers anyone can check, and we say openly what ads do better.
Search confirms it: "oglasi usluge podgorica" (service ads Podgorica), "besplatni oglasi crna gora" (free ads Montenegro) and "oglasi me podgorica" are live Google suggestions (checked 23.09.2026). Clients do look at ads — the question is what they find there.
What we counted in the ads
We went through the "Dom i kancelarija" (home and office) section of oglasi.me — the first three pages, 179 distinct ads for home services, from October 2025 to September 2026. Four numbers matter:
- Only 47 ads (26%) show a price. The rest say "price on request" or "by agreement".
- 103 ads (58%) are from Podgorica. Bar has 14, Budva and Herceg Novi 10 each, Tivat 7, Kotor 3. As many as 17 ads are not from Montenegro — 16 from Serbia and one from Croatia — so even in the local section you compete with outsiders.
- 130 ads (73%) are older than 90 days; the oldest is 351 days old.
- Only 22 ads were posted in the last 30 days.
By trade, the picture looks like this:
| Category on the ads site | Ads | With a price |
|---|---|---|
| Other construction services | 32 | 5 |
| Cleaning and disinfection | 23 | 14 |
| Painting and masonry | 22 | 4 |
| Electrical services | 21 | 4 |
| Tiling services | 20 | 5 |
| Outdoor landscaping | 17 | 8 |
| Other household services | 11 | 1 |
On the first page we also saw two ads marked as paid, featured listings. We could not verify what featuring costs, so we don't quote it here.
What we counted on the platform
From April to June 2026 the platform received 25 requests. Of those, 10 were written in Turkish, 10 in English and only 2 in Montenegrin (for three, the language was not recorded). By town, Budva leads with 13, followed by Herceg Novi, Kotor, Bar and Ulcinj; one came from Podgorica.
In other words, the clients on the ads sites and the clients on the platform are mostly not the same people. Ads are posted mainly by tradespeople from Podgorica and in the local language, so they are read mainly by local clients. The platform draws foreigners and new residents, mostly on the coast, who often don't know the local sites and don't write in Montenegrin.
The comparison, point by point
| Classified ads | Platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Who makes contact | you post, the client calls | the client posts a request, you get a notification |
| Where most activity is | Podgorica (58% of ads) | the coast (Budva, 13 of 25 requests) |
| Clients' language | local | mostly Turkish and English |
| Cost | paid featured ads exist | no membership fee during the soft launch |
| How long it lasts | an ad stays up for months | a request expires in 7 days |
| Price | 26% of ads show a price | the price is given in the quote, per request |
| Trust | advertisers are not checked | profiles are checked before approval |
On the platform: under our terms, there is no membership fee for either clients or professionals during the soft launch, and paid featured placements start in May 2027. That is the situation today, and it is published on the founding-professionals programme page.
What ads do better
Let's be fair:
- The local client is there. If you work in Podgorica and your clients speak Montenegrin, ads are still the first place — 103 of the 179 ads are from the capital for a reason.
- An ad works while you sleep. It stays up for months and doesn't demand a reply within a deadline.
- Less competition among fresh ads than it seems. The section is sorted newest first, and only 22 new ads arrived in a month — a new, well-written ad with a price easily ends up near the top.
What the platform does better
- The client arrives with a job in hand. The request already says what, where and when.
- The coast and foreigners. If you speak Turkish or English, that is 20 of the 25 requests.
- No cost today. Registration is free, and there is no commission.
But one thing is harder: a request lasts 7 days and needs a reply. Among plumbers, for example, seven of the eight who got a notification did not send a single quote. The platform doesn't bring work to someone who doesn't reply.
Our advice: both, with different roles
- An ad for local clients: with a price (three in four ads have none, so a price stands out), your town and a photo of a finished job. Renew it when it gets stale — 73% of the ads in the section are older than three months.
- The platform for the coast and foreign clients: an accurate radius, languages in your profile and a same-day reply in the season.
Foreign clients will also care about a fiscal receipt: Montenegro has electronic fiscalisation, and a client paying for a flat or an apartment from abroad often asks for a receipt.
We describe the whole flow on the platform in the article an app for tradespeople, and the other channels — Viber, Facebook groups, a Google profile — in the guide how to advertise as a tradesperson. You can open a profile on the become a professional page, and see how clients see you in the services overview.
What we could not measure
We don't know how many calls one ad brings, or how much work one request on the platform brings — that would be the real "does it pay off" comparison, and we don't have those numbers. The ads analysis covers one section of one site, three pages. The platform data is three months and 25 requests. And once more: the platform we are writing about is ours.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on your clients. On the ads site 58% of the ads are from Podgorica and the clients are local; on the platform 20 of 25 requests arrived in Turkish or English, mostly from the coast. For most tradespeople it makes sense to use both.