Basics:
GreenPal connects lawn and garden professionals with clients needing work
Expected pay: You set it
Husl$core: $$$$
Commissions & fees: 5%
Where: Nationwide
Requirements: Appropriate skills and licenses to operate a lawn care business
What is GreenPal?
GreenPal is a marketing platform that connects homeowners in need of yard work with the contractors willing to do it.
How it works
Contractors sign up and create a profile of their business, which includes photographs of the yards they service.
When customers list jobs on the platform, contractors in the same geographic area are invited to bid on the job. This gives customers several landscapers to choose from.
The customer chooses his or her preferred contractor based on the bids they receive. Contractors send a photograph when the job is complete, which sets the billing process in motion. Contractors are encouraged to text their customers to tell them when a the job is complete. Customers are also encouraged to review the contractor.
Photos of finished jobs are added to contractor profiles, giving potential customers a more complete view of your work.
Getting paid
GreenPal deducts a 5% commission from each contractor payment to pay for the platform’s marketing expenses. There’s also a payment processing fee of roughly 3% from Stripe.
Contractors get their pay via direct deposit as soon as they clear GreenPal’s account.
Fines for shoddy work
However, if the site receives more than three customer complaints about a contractor in any given month, GreenPal can fine that contractor $30. (It was unclear if that amount went back to the customers or if it went to the platform to compensate them for apologizing for your sorry job performance.)
If the customer demands a refund, it’s paid by the contractor.
One worry
What concerns us a bit about GreenPal isn’t in the terms. It was from our test of the platform. When we posed as a customer to view local contractor profiles, the site immediately jumped to booking a service. We stopped mid-booking, not wanting to mislead contractors about our intentions. But the request, which lacked all detail, apparently was delivered to contractors, who attempted to bid on the job anyway.
To be fair, two of the three bids stipulated that they were only interested in regular weekly work. (The site promises to book one-time mow and edge jobs to start.) But the notion that anyone would bid on an incomplete and non-existent job was a little disconcerting.
Recommendations
That said, GreenPal’s terms and fees are far more contractor-friendly than sites like Thumbtack and HomeAdvisor that ask contractors to pay for often worthless leads.
With this site, you don’t pay anything unless you get work. That’s attractive. And the site commission is low, too. You can sign up with GreenPal here.
Other places to find lawn care work are Nextdoor and JiffyOnDemand.
What their lawn care providers say:
We have yet to find reviews from contractors. If you have worked through this platform, please contact us or submit a comment to let others know how well it worked out.
*Updated 1/17/2023
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