Handy is an online platform that connects individuals with independent service professionals to help with all kinds of hands-on tasks around the home.
Formally known as Handybook, the company has been in operation since 2012. Their headquarters are in New York and their service professionals work across the US. (Check the website to see if available in your area.)
Table of Contents
About Handy
Handy was founded by Oisin Hanrahan and Umang Dua while they were both attending Harvard Business School.
They wanted to provide a practical solution to an age-old problem – finding top-rated service professionals to complete common household tasks, quickly, and easily.
The platform acts as an online marketplace connecting professionals with people seeking out their services.
You can find a skilled professional to help with anything around the home really. From a regular house cleaner to a one-off task assembling some furniture or wall mounting a TV.
For each task, you fill out a form with details of the work you want to be done. Their technology then pings the job to service professionals with the skills to do the work, and they then send quotes to you.
Looking at their list of locations, it looks like they have professionals in just about every city across the US. They have also expanded into parts of Canada and the United Kingdom.
My Handy.com Review
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How Handy Works
To get started, select the service you want, such as house cleaning, then type in your zip code, some details about the size of your home, preferred date and time you want a cleaner, and click submit.
You will be emailed details of available cleaners and prices. You can then accept, decline, or change any of your details.
Once you’re happy with the quote and have accepted the price the work will be carried out as per your agreement.
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Services
I think it’s fair to say that you will find someone to help with any job around the home that you’d expect a professional handyman to be able to do.
Some of the core services listed on their website include:
- Home cleaning
- Furniture assembly
- Interior painting
- Moving help
- Handyman services
Plans and Pricing
There are no plans or pricing as no two jobs are the same. You can request a quote for any of their services in a matter of minutes with just some basic details on the job with no obligation to commit.
I tested Handy out for a house cleaner. As you might guess, the prices depend on how big your house is. I found ranges from $80-$200 per cleaning, and you can get lower prices by signing up for a recurring cleaning plan.
Other cleaning services I considered had a lot more “friction” in the process. You had to call them up, ask for a quote, sometimes they wanted to come out and see your house, and in general it was just a big pain. Handy definitely appealed to me not wanting to deal with that — they made it very easy, and offered a nice discount on the first cleaning.
For other services, just use the quick quote tool on the website or app.
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Handy Alternatives
TaskRabbit is probably the best-known company for in-person assistance, and they operate on a very similar business model. With more than 140,000 vetted taskers in their database, you shouldn’t have any problems finding what you’re looking for.
Another company that might be worth looking at is Alfred. They offer a subscription model, and for a monthly fee, you can have your very own “Alfred” visiting your home and helping out with chores.
Not quite the handyman on-demand service, but something to consider for help with ongoing tasks such as cleaning and shopping.
Your Turn
Have you worked with Handy? If so, please leave a brief review to help others with their decision.
Handy is a scam! As a “contractor” they give little to no details about the job. As they don’t do TRUE customer service, they expect us as contractors to do all the face to face interactions. A monkey could do their job. All they do is give jobs. They don’t vet their contractors. Who knows if contractor “A” knows how to wire a light correctly. They may have done it before for their friend, but have they done it every day for the past 10 years? Who would you want installing a light in your bathroom? Handy is after 1 thing only, the customer’s money. They charge anywhere between 3 to 9 times what the “contractor” makes. Don’t lie, MY customer showed me his bank statement.
The easiest thing to do is show up, do exceptional work, and tell the customer what you can do, and to call you next time, and you’ll give them a better rate. Yes, I may agree that it’s a fine line of being ethical, but here’s how I sleep at night, I wish to save the customer the time, frustration and money, not an autonomous engine run by greed. GREED of a CEO that couldn’t care less about his contractors, just the bottom dollar.
Remember, they set the rate, not you. They tell you when to show up, not you. You get a masked number to call the customer, and they give the customer the same. Sounds like an employee to me. You go into most situations, blind. You have no idea what to expect because there is very little in app verbiage of what needs to be done. The customer clicks many circles before they give them a price. It looks a lot like this:
Description
Assembly of “X” light
Notice no indepth description. Well how am I supposed to know if the customer has 8 foot ceilings or 30 foot ceilings? So do I bring a 6 foot ladder or a 24 foot ladder? Wait a second, do I know what “x” light even looks like?
This is not the end of my frustration. It later states in the in the same screen the following:
While the Handy platform will try to estimate how much time is needed to provide a complete service for the customer, sometimes you may run out of time. If you need more time, communicate that with the customer and tell them to email us and we will make sure your paid accordingly.
17 emails later and a threat of suing for theft of services I got paid. It shouldn’t take all of that just to get paid correctly.
The “X” light ended up weighing 105 pounds. Thats a 2 man job and a lift. Not many of us can take 105 pound light fixture up a ladder 20 feet in the air.
Leaky pipe means leaky pipe, not leaky faucet. I show up with a torch and solder, and the real problem is the kitchen faucet drips. Thanks for wasting my time, now I have to look up where the nearest hardware store is, go to the store, purchase a kitchen faucet. Then, hope the customer will like my choice. The real question or answer is NO, I’m not getting paid for going to the store twice.
This program could seek a new level if the CEO would listen to the face of his company, us, not some email customer service center president. I hope you read this and real feel good about yourself. Go ahead continue to HIDE behind your computer screen like an internet bully. Give me a phone number to contact you!
In conclusion, be more open about everything. Ask for pictures and give them to the contractor. Don’t make us do all the work, own up to your 85%. Give a PHONE NUMBER incase of emergency. Don’t make us email you 100 times and threaten with a lawsuit just to get paid. You get paid accordingly, we should too. Hire people that can not only speak the language but UNDERSTAND IT.
Requested sprinkler repair stating that two blowout valved were broken. Asked if that was in their scope. No reply. Received confirmation on app and restated that two valves were broken. No reply. Received name two hours before and texted asking if he had the valves. HE DID NOT. He showed up and told me I had to provide the supplies. I was charged in full. When I complained they gave me a 50% credit on my account WHICH I WILL NEVER USE. TOTAL RIP OFF. FIRST REQUEST SHOULD HAVE SAID MATERIALS NEED TO BE PROVIDED BY THE CUSTOMER. OUT $170!!!!!
My wife has been wanting to hire a house cleaner for years, but for whatever reason I was hesitant to outsource this chore.
Strange, because it checks all the boxes for something we SHOULD delegate:
Our time is better spent elsewhere.
It’s not something we enjoy.
The house is often a mess. (how much that REALLY impacts our quality of life is debatable, though clutter does stress me out.)
With Handy, I just punched in how many bedrooms and bathrooms we had, and it spit out a price. In contrast with all the other mom-and-pop cleaning companies that wanted to make me call for a quote, that was a huge selling point.
They assigned a cleaner, who came out the next day, brought all her own supplies, and was a really hard worker. I definitely didn’t realize how dirty that shower was until I saw it when she was done with it! And when my wife saw it, it made the service even more worthwhile.
All the communication, payment, and tip were done through the app.
Handy appealed to me because it was so seamless and easy to use. It took all the friction out of hiring a cleaning service.
The drawback is you’re probably paying a premium for that technology interface that other cleaning services don’t have. There’s this extra layer of overhead, that you could probably save some money be dealing directly with the people doing the cleaning. So now that our household is on-board with outsourcing this chore, maybe that’s the next step.