What: Handy promises to connect customers with people wanting to work as housekeepers, handymen, plumbers, electricians and gardeners.
Expected pay: $14 – $62 per hour, depending on the job. (Housekeepers earn between $14 and $24; skilled plumbers earn up to $45; lawn maintenance people earn up to $62.)
Husl$core: $$
Where: Most major cities nationwide, Canada and the UK
Requirements: 18+; Able to sign a binding contract; experience in the field; legally able to work; background check; smart phone
(Handy is a SideHusl.com affiliate. This does not impact our review. However, SideHusl may earn a small referral fee from links in this post.)
Want to try Handy?
- Click here to join
- Apply to become a Handy pro
- Start Earning
Or…Need help?
- Click here to book a helper
Handy Review:
Handy promises to connect clients with people looking for work as cleaners and contractors. However, the site has an obtuse pay structure that appears to pass on only a fraction of the customer’s charges to the person doing the work.
Worse, even though the site requires you to have paid experience in whatever work category you apply to, nearly everyone starts at a low wage — from $14 to about $35, depending on what you do. Notably, the $35 hourly rates are for skilled contractors, such as electricians and plumbers.
Late fees
But the biggest drawback is the fee schedule that dings workers $15 for showing up late and anywhere from $10 to $50 for having to cancel or reschedule a job. These fees apply even if you cancel because the job was not as advertised — or, as some workers claim, when the app gives them a job that they didn’t accept.
Recommendations:
We think your chance of finding work as a handyman or cleaner are equally good on neighborhood sites, such as Nextdoor. And Nextdoor won’t penalize you if you get hung up in traffic.
Better sites for contractors include ToolBelt and TaskRabbit. If you are looking for jobs as a gardener or landscaper, you’d do better with GreenPal or JiffyOnDemand.
If you prefer to sign up for Handy, you can sign up here.
What their workers say: From Glassdoor
“The app and technology has a lot of bugs. I get random messages or removed from jobs and added to ones I did not choose. You may go to a job and it was an error which wastes your time. Customers can cancel up to the last minute and leave you without new jobs to choose; decreasing your planned income for the week. You pay $90 for the bag and equipment from them. When it breaks there is no support.
From Indeed.com
“No help whatsoever for pros completing the jobs and all the jobs are super low paying. I would never recommend this company to anyone.”
“I love cleaning and love making my clients happy. With Handy you end up hating what you do. You have no idea what you’re getting into cleaning wise. You can walk into the biggest most disgusting home or apt and expected to clean in 2-3 hrs. I walked into a hoarders home once and was shocked. Thousands of flies and feces on the floor. Garbage everywhere. Impossible to clean. Pay could be better and sometimes they drop your rate depending on what the median is. So you could be making $22 an hour. Then out of nowhere drop to $16. It’s crazy. No matter how high your rating was.”
“They charge the customer triple what they pay you as a contractor here and make it impossible to actually talk to your customer about what they need. Handy charges you huge fees if you cancel jobs. They screw over customers and contractors. RUN AWAY AS FAST AS YOU CAN!!!!”
Rescheduling charges
“My van broke down and I was one of the top cleaners at the company I had a 10 rating across the board. Well when my van broke down, I couldn’t work. The company charged me $50 per job and I was working 5 jobs a day 7 days a week. Even though all my clients had no problem rescheduling with me, Handy still charged me so you do the math. I don’t work for free. I work hard and I was so unappreciated.”
“The late fees and cancellation fees are outrageous”
“In case of any emergency there is no number to call. I once had to leave a job site because a client left open drugs in the house and I had to email them and wait 15 mins for a response, then fight for myself not to be charged for the job being incomplete.”
Customers can cancel the day before with no repercussions. If you do that, $10 charge. Do it on the day of it can be as high as $50 whether you have an emergency or not. Need to speak to a live person? Good luck with that. You have no idea exactly where you are going until the night before and have no idea what the client expects from you until you are literally walking in their home! They want to charge you for access to a listing to more jobs. Really?!?? Then will cancel at last minute. Try it out and then come back to this post and see if everything said isn’t the truth.”
Updated 1/8/2022
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[…] start with working in office maintenance directly for the site. Unlike working through Handy or Takl, Managed by Q actually hires its cleaners and makes a point of paying them a bit more than […]
The best advice is to do a quick online search and just see the overwhelming majority of current and former “pros” yelling to stay away.
The complete lack of pro support before, during and after a job, the constant fight to get paid on time and the sudden changes in pay and setup without anything more than the fine print on the app update makes this frustrating. The 60-65% split they take makes it not worth it.
You might be able to make some money if you have absolutely nothing else but eventually you will feel what all the other people are saying online.
I got fined. No notice, no nothing, and still don’t know why or even the amount. Bad part is when you end up finishing a job and see that you didn’t make any money and can’t cancel the rest of your bookings because you get fined for those. So you end up working for free. WTF
I think handy is highway robbers they charge me like $95 for being late for a job that the people canceled a week before in other words you better run don’t go to work for these scam artist that takes hard working. People money shouldn’t that be the other way around there suppose to pay after finishing a job these handy pro are not right I don’t care what you say they are shady business please listen to me don’t tell me I didn’t warned you.i have no reasons to lie.Godhonest truth..
Beware if you are trying to make extra money look elsewhere Handy charges fee on top of fees they do not support you if you feel unsafe or the job isn’t as described they will pay you pennies it’s no way to contact them they take your money if the customer is dissatisfied they allow the costumer to treat you any way they like talk to you any way demand things that weren’t in the job description they harass you to keep good ratings no matter what it takes they charge you for cancellation even if it’s out of your control a majority of your money is taken when you supply the products and your own transportation
Handy will take all your earnings away and there is nothing you can do about it. They offer no way to see what complaints were made or for what jobs. 5 star reviews hardly move your rating but one bad review massively drops it. You will never be able to talk to anyone at Handy but just emails from people in India. They will not show any fees until you already finish the job and then they take the money you made away. If you clean a house and finish early, they will fine most of your earnings away for leaving, because they track you.
This platform is cut throat and I am surprised they have not been sued yet. You will lose time and money if you do business with them.
I know they did this to me and I don’t know how they get away with stealing people money
I have done 2 jobs for them, and went above and beyond hoping to secure the clients. The third one I marked as unavailable 5 days prior and the system gliched and showed the job as mine. I kept hitting thr app but it would not update. So I canceled in time but the system didn’t let me cancel and kept the appointment. It seems they don’t have enough workers so jobs sit they are not being claimed for days sometimes weeks.
I used to be a fitness center owner in DC and work fast and efficient and also had to oversee cleaning teams. Both clients gave me wrong address so i was a few min late. I stayed an hour extra UNPAID bc I clocked out. I was trying to make sure to get 5 stars and the clients were demanding.
They gave me a bad review – it’s not clear why. Or what for. That family never had a cleaner before. Toilets with deep urine stains, dirty base boards and mold overgrown showers. I scrubbed and scrubbed and they gave me bad review for making the toilet and shower look like new. They also have no idea how to remove or get rid of any of these stains so I have to tell them how to do that but why they gave me bad reviews for an impeccable appointment that I left behind is beyond me. I was also penalized for the mishap with the reassignment. $50 penalty. I stayed an hour extra to go over and it all no pay.
Horrible experience with this company. 3 different times they cancelled my job, 2 hours before my reserved appointment. Took days off to accommodate them. This cost me money and time. Still didn’t show up even after I spoke to them about my concerns. Would NOT USE this COMPANY at all. Jiffy is much better and they get the job done!
Very bad company to work for they took $90 out of my hard working money.
Yes I took a 450 hit because handy was supposed to supply 2 other guys fir a job. They never did, I continue to work and the homeowner was getting mad because all I could do was email.well eventually I left and told the homeowner I’m loosing money abs if your going to talk to me like I have something to do with this I’ll just leave abs you can keep my gas, toll money, and 3.5 hrs. Then handy charged me 150 fee for not finishing, they said I should got 2 guys myself when they where supposed to supply, I let almost 459 worth of fee under the rugs and started over working for free or actually really paying them to work intil that money was paid, well guess what now sane thing, I owe 500 for being over paid, it’s a complete scam run run run
Do any one have a number because they stole my whole check
This place is horrible I worked my ass off, the lady loved my work. She tipped me 50 bucks. Handy never psid me ,they kept my tip and now they even say I owe them. I only did one job it was big snd I bought all new cleaning supplies. I want to sue this company. Im do sngry and I csnt even get a person to talk too or an email explaining how/why they kept every cent and claim I owe them 50 bucks. so angry
Their cleaning service is nothing but a huge JOKE!!!!! I would book someone to come out to clean my 1 bedroom 1 bath Apt. and I was lucky if I got somebody out 3 times in over a 11/2 year period. Handy house cleaning SUCKS.
I was charged $817.32 for a job that didn’t get done. My checking account is now in the negative and I don’t know why,??
Will someone please reply?
I’m glad I check these reviews!!😩😳 🏃♀️🏃♀️
Have done numerous jobs through Handy. There are real problems with reaching support or them handling things in a timely fashion. The platform misleads as to distance to get vendors to take assignments. Customer’s can cancel at any time — including after your arrival — without repercussions. But you get charged if you cancel. The last straw for me was getting two Charge backs that basically wiped out Three jobs I had done without warning or explanation so I cancelled the rest of the jobs for the week and deleted the app as I will never take any work from this ripoff company ! If you try working with them you will be treated the same way. Oh forgot to mention that they charge the customer 2 or 3 times what you get and provide the worst customer service and support to both customers and the vendors. They also grossly underestimate the time a job will take leaving it up to you to get the customer to approve additional hours.
They owe me $360 for approved extra hours. They told me it had to be manually processed. Then they deactivated me and will not reply to my emails.
In the process of filing a lein on the customer and taking both of them to small claims court