Getting work done

Sign up with an email and password or with Google. It takes a minute and costs nothing, ever.

You need an account to post a job or message anyone, but you can browse trades and read profiles without one.

Post a job is the fastest route — describe what you need, add your postcode, roughly when you want it done and a budget if you have one in mind. It goes out to trades in your area who do that kind of work.

Add photos. A picture of the leak, the wall or the fusebox gets you accurate answers instead of "I'd need to come and look".

Your full address and phone number are never shown publicly. Trades see the area, not your door number, until you've hired someone.

Prefer to choose first? Find a trade lists local tradespeople by trade and area, and Search covers trades, jobs, ads and people at once.

On a profile you'll find their work photos, their reviews, the area they cover and their rate.

• The verified badge means we've checked photo ID by hand. Many will also have uploaded a trade certificate and insurance.
• Reviews are left by customers who actually completed a job through the site — they can't be bought or posted by strangers.
• Their photos tell you more than their write-up. Look for work like yours.
• Ask. Message two or three before you commit. It's normal and nobody minds.

Two ways, and they end up in the same place:

• From your job. Trades apply, you compare them in My posted jobs, and you pick one.
• Straight from a profile or an ad. The Hire button sends one of your open jobs directly to that trade.

Either way it's a request. They accept or decline, and until they accept the job stays yours to give to someone else. If you change your mind first, you can withdraw the offer and the job reopens.

Agree the price and what's included before work starts, in the message thread. An estimate through the site is the cleanest way to do it.

Every job has its own message thread. Arrange access, send extra photos, confirm changes — all of it in one place you can scroll back through, rather than scattered across texts and voicemails.

When a trade sends you an estimate or an invoice it appears under Invoices & estimates, with their business details, a line-by-line breakdown and a PDF you can download or forward.

Read it before you agree. If something doesn't match what you discussed, say so in the thread — that's exactly what it's there for.

Payment happens directly between you and the trade, however you both prefer. Plug a' Trade doesn't handle your money and takes no cut of the job.

Once you're happy, mark the job complete and leave a review. Be honest and be specific — "turned up when he said he would and cleaned up after himself" is worth more to the next person than five stars and nothing else.

Good trades live on their reviews, and it's the one thing you can do that costs you nothing and matters to them enormously.

You can cancel a job, and you can report a profile, post or comment from the menu on it. Reports come to us, not to the person reported, and we look at every one.

For anything else, message us. Bad experiences are worth telling us about even when you've sorted it yourself.

There's no App Store download — the website installs itself. You get an icon like any other app, it opens full screen without the browser bars, and on an iPhone it's the only way to receive alerts. Takes about ten seconds.

Installing doesn't take up much room — it's the same website, just wrapped in an icon. You can drag it off your home screen any time and nothing is lost.

Push notifications land on your phone or desktop the moment something happens — a job offer, a message, a booking reminder — even with the site closed. Without them you only find out next time you open the app.

Your browser will ask you to allow them. Say yes — if you say no by mistake, you'll have to re-allow Plug a' Trade in your browser's site settings before the button works again.

iPhone: add the app to your home screen first (the step above), then open it from that icon and turn notifications on there. Safari tabs on iOS can't receive them at all — that's Apple's rule, not ours.

You pick which kinds you get — applications, hiring updates, messages, reminders, reviews and so on — in Settings → Notifications. Switching one off stops it being created at all, so it won't reach you in the app either.