HourForHire

What it does

Anyone can be on either side, and most people end up on both. A profile carries a photo, a line about what you do, the trade you work in, an hourly rate, how far you travel, photos of real jobs, and the shape of your usual week. Visitors search by trade, by town, or just describe the job in their own words.

Booking is a request, not a purchase. A client picks a time and says what they need; the worker accepts or declines; either side can cancel before it starts. When the work is done it gets marked complete, and only then do reviews open — to both of them. A worker's rating is built from clients, and a client's rating is built from workers, because being easy to work for matters as much as being good at the job.

Money is deliberately not in version one. The two people settle it however they already would. That keeps the platform out of the way while the thing that actually matters — trust between strangers — gets built.

Any trade, no gatekeeping

The category list ships with twenty-six trades, from plumbing and childcare to tutoring, catering, snow clearing and tech support — and ends with "Other", which is not an afterthought. A platform that only lists the jobs someone thought of in advance is a platform that turns away the next good idea.

How it is built

One Python service on the standard library with a SQLite database, behind nginx on the same droplet as everything else here. The website and the phone apps call the same JSON API with the same bearer token, so no rule is ever implemented twice and the apps cannot drift from the site.

Release history

Milestones for HourForHire. Followers get an email whenever a new entry lands here.

• 1.20.0 · Oct 2026 — Hire and Work, side by side: find people by several trades, ZIP code, price and rating, or browse open jobs for today or this week; post a job and compare bids. Messaging with blocking and reporting, a bookings calendar, profile sharing with a QR code, and an iPhone app in testing with instant notifications. Collects as little personal data as possible. (web + iPhone)
• Oct 2026 — First build: accounts with email sign-in and password reset, provider profiles with photo galleries and weekly availability, search by trade and town, booking requests with accept / decline / complete, and two-way reviews that open only after a completed job. (web)

What is next

Native iOS and Android apps against the same API, then in-app messaging and payments. Identity checks and dispute handling come with payments, not before — they are the part that has to be right rather than fast.