Honest answers,
plainly put.

Yes. No booking fee, no per-enquiry charge, no account fee. The price you see on a local’s profile is the price you pay them directly.

You pay the local directly, by their preferred method. Most take card on the day, bank transfer, or cash; some prefer to invoice afterwards. Their preferred method shows on their profile and on the booking confirmation.

Loacally never holds the money, charges processing fees, or adds anything on top.

They’re the local’s set price for a standard version of that service, with everything that’s included and excluded listed underneath. A leaky tap means a leaky tap; if the back wall’s rotten, the visit becomes a quote for a bigger piece of work and you can walk away if you’d rather.

For larger or open-ended jobs (kitchen retile, a full redecoration), most locals visit first and give a written quote. That visit is usually free; their profile will say.

Not yet. Because payment happens off-platform, there’s no built-in escrow at this stage, and we’re upfront about that. We may add escrow-style payments in future; we’ll share timing when there’s something firm.

Until then, we rely on reviews, ranking, and a fast dispute path (see ‘If something goes wrong’ below) to keep standards high.

Right now, we confirm every local’s email and phone before they can take work, and they give us their trade details, insurance and any registrations themselves. So you’re always dealing with a real, reachable person running a real trade.

We’re building out fuller document checks (photo ID, insurance and trade certifications); as those come in, we’ll show clearly on a profile what’s been confirmed.

Today it means we’ve confirmed their email and phone and they’ve given us their trade details. As we add the fuller document checks, we’ll surface what’s confirmed on the profile.

We keep it simple: where something’s confirmed you’ll see it, and where it isn’t there’s no badge either way, so a missing badge is never a warning.

Every review is tied to a confirmed visit on the platform. We don’t accept imported reviews from elsewhere, and customers can’t review a local they haven’t actually booked through us. Locals can’t edit, hide or remove reviews; we can, and only do it when a review breaks our content rules.

Where a review is disputed, both sides can leave a short response and the moderator’s decision is visible on the profile.

Insurance is something locals declare to us rather than something we audit at this stage, so if you ever have a concern about a local’s cover or paperwork, tell us. Get in touch and we’ll look into it. We take it seriously.

We sort results by distance from your postcode to the local’s base postcode, in miles, as the crow flies.

Locals set their own working radius. A plumber based in Hackney might cover Tower Hamlets and Islington but not Croydon. If a local doesn’t cover your postcode, you won’t see them.

Plumbers, electricians, handypeople, decorators, tilers, builders, bricklayers, plasterers, roofers, and carpenters & joiners. The full set is on the homepage with worked examples of each.

We may add more trades over time. If there’s one you’d like to see, tell us.

London is where we started, not where we’ll stop. We launched here because density is easier to prove in a dense city: a directory with seven plumbers in your postcode is a neighbourhood, while the same seven spread across the country is a search engine. We started narrow so the first version of that is true on day one.

Trades from anywhere can apply now, and their listing goes live as we open their city. If you’d like Loacally where you are, tell us and we’ll prioritise based on demand.

We’re live across all 32 London boroughs plus the City of London. Density varies by borough and by trade.

If your search comes back thin, the results page suggests nearby postcodes and trades with cover.

Talk to the local first. Most disputes are a misread spec or a small remedial and the local would rather sort it than have it raised on us. Give them a clear list of what isn’t right and a reasonable window to come back and put it right.

If that doesn’t work, contact us. Where the case is clear-cut we’ll act on the local’s account; where it isn’t, we mediate.

Speak to the local first. Many locals carry public liability cover and using it is a normal part of how these things get sorted; ask them to put you in touch with their insurer.

For anything serious (water damage to flats below, structural damage, injury), get in touch straight away and we’ll help you route it.

Get in touch through the contact page. Tell us what happened and, if it relates to a visit you’ve booked, include the booking reference. We read every report. If it’s a safety concern, say so in the first line.

No. Every local is an independent business: sole trader, partnership or limited company. They set their own prices, hours and methods, and they’re paid directly by you. Loacally is the platform you find them through, not the firm doing the work.

That matters for liability and tax. Receipts, warranties and invoices come from the local, not from us.

No. Your first enquiry can go as a guest, with just the basics. When the local replies, you’ll be prompted to set a password and claim the conversation, using the same email you sent the enquiry from.

A full account makes return visits faster: saved postcode, saved locals, visit history and message threads in one place.

The minimum we need to run a booking: name, email, mobile, postcode (and the visit address you give us), the description of the work, your messages with the local, and the visit’s status. Nothing else. We don’t buy or sell data, and the only third parties involved are our hosting and email providers.

The full breakdown is in our Privacy notice.

Get in touch and we’ll delete your account. We confirm by email, then remove everything that personally identifies you; anonymous review records we’re legally required to keep stay on file.

Visit history export is coming later. Until then, the visit confirmation emails sent at the time of booking are your record on your side; we don’t delete those. We’ll email when in-app export goes live.

One customer, one trade, per enquiry. Customers see a sorted list of locals in their postcode and send their enquiry to whoever they want. The same job is never auctioned out to a list of five of you, and we don’t sell the same lead twice.

You get the enquiry as a push notification, email, and a row inside your dashboard. You can accept, propose a different slot, or pass.

Yes. You can set or reschedule the visit time and the customer is notified to confirm. Proposing several alternative slots at once for them to choose from is coming soon.

Nothing. Passing is free, has no ranking penalty, and the customer doesn’t see who passed. Tell us why if you’d like (postcode too far, not the work I do, fully booked); we use that to keep your enquiries on-target.

Yes. You can create a job manually for repeat or phone-in customers; it lands in your dashboard alongside platform-booked ones. Inviting past customers to leave a review with a share link is coming soon.

Your customers stay yours. We don’t sell their details or charge you to contact them.

Directly by the customer, by your preferred method. Loacally never holds the money and never processes a payment. Most trades take a deposit when they accept and the balance on completion: bank transfer, card, cash, whatever you usually do.

Your preferred method shows on your profile so the customer knows what to expect before they book.

Not yet. Because payment’s off-platform there’s no built-in escrow at this stage. We may add escrow-style payments as a future opt-in; we’ll share details when there’s something firm.

Until then, take a deposit on accept and use the visit thread to record every change in scope or price in writing.

No. No per-booking commission, no per-lead fee, no payment-processing cut, because we’re not processing it. The flat monthly fee (£0 during the pilot, then £19 a month for founders or £29 standard at launch) is the only money we take.

At this stage, getting listed means confirming your email and phone and giving us your trade details; you self-declare your insurance and any registrations. We keep it tight so it’s achievable in one sitting.

We’re building out document checks (photo ID, insurance and trade certifications) and we’ll tell you exactly what’s needed as those come in.

No. Sole traders, partnerships and limited companies are all welcome. You don’t need a website, a portfolio, or a registered office. Vans optional.

We plan to add gas engineering, with Gas Safe verification as a required step for that trade. We’ll email founders when it opens.

Flag it inside the visit thread and a real person on our team will look at it. Where the dispute is clear-cut, we’ll act on the customer’s account. Where it isn’t, we mediate and try to settle it. We won’t ghost you.

Where there’s a pattern, we act on the customer’s account.

If a customer doesn’t show up, get in touch and we’ll pick it up. We’ll confirm with the customer by email and, where appropriate, log the no-show against their account. Where you charge a callout fee, we’ll help you recover it.

Reviews are tied to a confirmed visit, so only customers who actually booked through us can leave one. If a review is unfair or factually wrong, flag it for moderation; we read every flag and remove genuinely false reviews. You can also leave a short public response that sits underneath the review.

We don’t let locals pay to hide reviews. Doing it that way breaks the whole point of the platform.

For now, you can block out specific dates as time off so customers can’t book you then, and set your base postcode and how far you’ll travel to shape your coverage. A one-switch listing pause is coming soon.

Your reviews stay with you through any time off.

Yes. Your customers stay yours. If you ever leave the platform, we’ll work with you to get your customer list.

Get in touch and we’ll close your account. We confirm by email, then remove everything except what we’re legally required to keep. Any visits already booked, settle with your customers directly. Payment’s off-platform, so there’s nothing for us to refund.