Connecting SA homeowners with trusted local contractors — plumbers, electricians, painters, gardeners, handymen, cleaners — through one rated, reviewed and reliable platform.
Finding a trustworthy contractor in SA is a coin toss. Homeowners ask in WhatsApp groups, get a 'my cousin knows a guy' referral, then wait for quotes that never arrive — or worse, get a contractor who disappears mid-job. Quality tradespeople have the opposite problem: they're great at their craft but can't reliably reach new customers without going on AdWords or door-knocking.
Homeowners ask "anyone know a good plumber in Faerie Glen?" in a suburb WhatsApp group, get 3 "my cousin knows a guy" referrals, message all of them, hear back from one, and three days later still have a leaking tap.
Half the contractors say they'll quote "by end of day" and never do. The ones who do quote arrive at different prices for the same job, with no consistent way to compare scope, parts, callout fees, or VAT inclusion.
"50% upfront for materials" is standard — and most of the time it's fine. But every SA homeowner knows someone whose contractor took the deposit, did half the job, and ghosted. There's no recourse and no escrow.
The other side of the marketplace hurts just as much. Excellent plumbers, electricians and painters can't reliably reach new customers without R10k/month on Google Ads, door-knocking, or relying on word-of-mouth that takes years to build.
LocalHands matches homeowners with vetted local contractors based on job type, suburb, and verified reviews. Homeowners post the job (with a photo of the leaking tap or the wall to paint); contractors in that suburb quote; the homeowner picks by price, rating, and proximity. Payment is held in escrow until the job's done. WhatsApp updates keep both sides in the loop from booking to completion.
Snap a photo, type one line, drop a pin on your suburb. We auto-detect the category and route to verified contractors.
2 minVetted local contractors quote within hours. Compare price, rating, distance, and verified-review count side by side.
< 4h avgPick a contractor, agree the time, pay via Yoco or Payfast. Funds sit in escrow — released only once the job's done.
Same dayWhatsApp updates throughout. On completion, you confirm, funds release, you rate. The contractor's rep grows or shrinks.
< 24h typicalNo more chasing referrals through three different group chats. Post once, get matched to contractors in your actual suburb who've been rated by your actual neighbours.
Every contractor ID-verified, references checked, insurance confirmed before they're allowed to quote.
Funds held in Yoco escrow. Released only when you confirm the job's actually done. Zero deposit-and-vanish risk.
Only contractors who actually did the job can be rated. Every review photo-backed, no fake 5-stars.
Booking confirmed, contractor en route, arrived, job done — every step pushed to your WhatsApp automatically.
Pretoria East jobs go to Pretoria East pros. Sandton to Sandton. Distance is part of the ranking, not just price.
Something's wrong? Sitect's team mediates — refund options, partial release, or a re-do at the contractor's cost.
If you're great at your trade but exhausted from chasing leads, this is for you. We send pre-qualified jobs from your actual suburb directly to your phone — you quote, you win the work, you get paid out fast.
Homeowners must add a photo, description, and confirm budget intent before posting — so you're not quoting tyre-kickers.
Escrow releases to your Yoco / bank account within 24h of job completion. No 30-day payment-terms nonsense.
Every 5-star review boosts your ranking. Better-rated pros get more job notifications — quality compounds.
Set your service area in km. Only jobs inside your radius hit your inbox — no wasted callout time.
Mark slots as booked, set holiday off-time, block out Mondays. Jobs route around your real schedule.
See jobs-this-month, gross / net earnings, win-rate, avg. quote-to-win, average review. Run your business properly.
Mature, mainstream choices the team can actually maintain — Laravel-led, mobile-first, hosted in the SA AWS region for low latency and POPIA-friendly data residency.
LocalHands plays nicely with the payment rails, communication channels and mapping services already used by South African small businesses and households.
Primary card-payment rail and escrow provider. Homeowners pay in, contractors paid out — all on Yoco's SA-licensed infrastructure.
Secondary card + EFT rail for homeowners who prefer Payfast's checkout. Same escrow flow, same release on completion.
All booking updates pushed to WhatsApp via Twilio's WhatsApp Business API — templates for booking, en-route, arrived, completed.
Suburb auto-detect, contractor distance calculation, address autocomplete tuned for SA suburb naming conventions.
For categories where the contractor ships materials or kit (curtains, blinds, fabric, custom orders) — Aramex pickup & tracking.
Mobile push notifications for new jobs, quote received, contractor en route, payment released — across both iOS and Android.
The South African home-services market has been burned by enough cowboy-contractors and disappearing-deposits that "trust" can't be a marketing word — it has to be a system. Here's how we build it in.
ID-verified via Home Affairs database lookup. References checked. Insurance certificate validated. Photo verification of work portfolio before they're allowed to list.
Yoco holds the homeowner's payment in a regulated escrow account. Funds release only after the homeowner confirms — or after a 48h auto-release if no objection. Both sides protected.
Only homeowners who paid for and completed a job can post a review for that contractor. Reviews are photo-backed where applicable. No paid-promotion 5-stars — ever.
Personal info encrypted at rest, data residency in AWS Cape Town, explicit consent for every data point, full export & delete-on-request. Information regulator-compliant from day one.
Not happy with the work? Open a dispute. Sitect's mediation team reviews evidence within 24h and arbitrates — partial release, full refund, or remedial visit at contractor's cost.
Contractors who consistently quote slowly, no-show, or cancel get auto-deprioritised. The marketplace mechanically rewards responsiveness — slow contractors drift to the bottom.
Every message between homeowner and contractor logged. If a dispute starts, the audit trail is already there — no he-said-she-said.
Contractors rate homeowners too — for clear briefs, prompt payment, fair scoping. Difficult homeowners get filtered out of the marketplace as fast as cowboy contractors.
Whether it's a Saturday-morning lightbulb-change or a four-week kitchen remodel — LocalHands covers it. A sampling of the categories live on the platform today:
Homeowners book a quality service in minutes instead of days of WhatsApp messaging. Contractors get a steady, qualified lead pipeline at zero ad-spend. SA's broken tradesperson-search problem — finally productised.
Honest answers — about vetting, escrow, recourse, coverage, and what happens when something goes wrong.
LocalHands is Sitect's flagship South African home-services product. Available now on web, iOS and Android — for both homeowners and contractors. It's free to download, free to post a job, and you only pay when the work's actually done.