How booking a helper works
Eight steps from choosing a service to paying for it. You can get all the way to a full quote without an account or a card — both are needed only once you want a helper to come.
Choose a service
Pick from the catalogue. Each service page says what it covers, what it does not, and how its price is worked out, so you can decide before giving us anything.
Add your location and details
Where the job is, and the questions that actually matter for it — transmission and where the car is parked for a driver, rooms and focus for a cleaner, crew size and access at both ends for a move. Nothing is asked that does not change the price or who can take the job.
Access codes, keys and where to leave things go in the handover instructions, which are saved with the booking and readable only by the helper who is actually booked.
Review your quote
The full figure: base price, any time or quantity beyond what is included, and the flat $4.50 service fee. No card is needed to get this far, and nothing has been sent to a helper yet.
Send the request
It goes to approved helpers near you who can do that service. More than one can see it; the first to accept becomes yours.
A request can also expire without anyone accepting it, and nothing is charged if that happens. Helper availability is real availability, not a promise.
A helper accepts
Your card is authorised for the total — held, not charged. You get the helper's name and can message them from the booking.
Confirm with your bank, if asked
Sometimes a bank wants you to approve the hold yourself. If that happens the booking shows you a confirm step and walks you through the bank's own check. Most bookings never see this.
Coordinate while the job runs
Message the helper from the booking, and call them if you need to. For services where somebody travels you can see them on the way; for the ones delivered by phone call there is nothing to track, because nobody is travelling.
Completion and payment
The helper marks the job complete and the hold is captured — this is the moment you are charged. You can add a tip afterwards if you want to, and 100% of it goes to the helper.
If something went wrong you have 24 hours to open a dispute, and a person at Helpward reviews it.
What we do and do not check
Every helper is reviewed and approved by a person at Helpward before they can take work, and an unapproved helper is never offered a job. Automated ID verification and background checks are not running yet, and Helpward does not carry platform insurance — we will say so here when that changes, rather than before.