If you know your way around the toolbox, you’ve seen many platforms promising to turn your skills into a viable side hustle. Two of the most popular of these sites are Taskrabbit and Handy.
Both promise to connect you with customers who need a wide array of in-person services, from cleaning to electrical work. The sites find the clients, invoice and collect for you. The question is, which is the better site for freelancers to find work? Here’s a side-to-side match-up of Taskrabbit vs. Handy. And one site wins by a mile.
Here’s why.
Similarities: Taskrabbit vs. Handy
Both Taskrabbit and Handy are nationwide platforms that cover every U.S. state. So, you can sign up to work, no matter where you live.
They also provide a similar sign-up mechanism where you create a standard profile and list your skills. On both sites, you’re required to go through a detailed identity and background check to get the necessary clearance.
Once you’re all set up, the site — or the site’s customers — will contact you with job opportunities.
But that’s where the similarities end.
Differences
Taskrabbit and Handy diverge in almost every other way. Most importantly, TaskRabbit gives freelance workers vastly more control over their rates and the type of jobs they take. With Handy, most aspects of the gig are determined by the platform. This includes what you do, how much you’re paid, and when you need to show up for work.
But there’s more. Here are their biggest differences with Taskrabbit vs. Handy:
Scope
Handy connects contractors with a wide range of physical tasks, including cleaning, plumbing, electrical, and painting jobs, as well as landscaping, furniture assembly and moving gigs.
Taskrabbit does too.
But Taskrabbit also allows people to list their availability to shop, deliver, run errands, wait in lines, provide holiday and party help, baby-proofing and personal assisting, among other things. In fact, you have a lot of freedom to list unconventional services — like cooking for dinner parties or making crafts — on Taskrabbit. This flexibility just doesn’t exist on Handy.
Moreover, Taskrabbit allows you to set different hourly rates for each service. So, you might charge $50 an hour for deep cleaning, but just $20 an hour to wait in line.
Transparency and Support
Taskrabbit allows clients and Taskers to message directly about the job. That reduces the chance that you’re blindsided by the amount of work involved or what you’ll be doing. This also allows Taskers to reschedule projects with the client, if the worker is sick or has a car problem.
At Handy, the assignments are handled by the platform with no direct communication between the freelancer and the client. Freelancers frequently complain that they’re given too little information about jobs when they take them. And the platform expects them to handle the work, at the initial pay rate, no matter how much extra time a job entails.
Pay
Pay is another main point of divergence. On Taskrabbit, you set your own rates. The site provides guidance, giving you and idea of what people with your job description and level of experience typically charge, says Tasker Emely Cepeda. However, it does not dictate your rates. Commonly, freelancers charge between $25 and $75 per hour.
With Handy, rates are set by the platform and communicated to potential freelancers with a description of the work. While the pay varies by the type of job, freelancers say rates are stingy — ranging from $14 to $40 per hour. And the $40 per hour jobs are restricted to those requiring serious contracting skills.
Fees and commissions
On Taskrabbit, freelancers are required to pay a $25 set-up fee, but all the other fees are covered by the client.
Handy doesn’t charge anything to set up on the platform. But it imposes a series of fees on contractors who need to cancel a job after they’ve taken it. If you cancel with less than 48 hours notice, you pay $10; with less than 24-hours notice, you pay $20. You pay $40, if you cancel within four hours of the job’s start time. And you pay $50 if you don’t show up at all.
Notably, Handy imposes these fees regardless of the reason for your cancellation. It doesn’t matter whether you cancelled because you discovered the job was misrepresented, or if you cancelled because you came down with the flu.
Cancellation fees are also imposed on a per-job basis. So if you had a car problem on a day when you had multiple jobs lined up, you could owe significant penalties to the platform. Some housekeepers, who earn $15 an hour, say a bout of the flu can cost them $200 because of Handy’s cancellation fees.
As mentioned above, cancelations are not an issue on Taskrabbit because you can reschedule appointments directly with your clients.
Both sites also take a portion of the revenue brought in by each job. But these commissions are paid by the clients, not the freelancers, and are not transparent at either site.
Overall: TaskRabbit vs. Handy
TaskRabbit is not a flawless platform, but it serves freelancers well.
The main complaint we see about Taskrabbit is the lack of steady work, particularly in certain rural regions. The site is trying to address this by working with its algorithms to better mix and match assignments. But no freelance platform promises steady work to everyone.
However, by and large, freelancers say they like the platform and can earn good money here.
Freelancers are far less satisfied with Handy for clear reasons.
They have little control over what they do, when they do it, or how much they charge. The pay is poor. And the inability to reschedule a job without penalty when you’re sick or facing an emergency is ridiculous.
It’s one thing to boot contractors if they’re unreliable. It’s another to fine a consistent worker simply because they caught the flu or had a car problem.
Our advice
If you’re looking for a place to help you find business for in-person services, such as cleaning and contracting, Taskrabbit is the far better choice.
However, there are other sites that can help, as well. Contractors may want to also check out ToolBelt and JiffyOnDemand and cleaners may be able to find additional work through Turno and Nextdoor.
8/12/2024
Leave a Reply