SideWRK
Invoicing and payments built for tradespeople — estimate
By day I'm a technician at a dealership. Like most guys in the trades, I've always had side work — and I got tired of pricing jobs on napkins and chasing payment over text. So I built SideWRK: estimating and invoicing that works the way each trade actually bills.
That last part turned into the most interesting research of the project. Hourly billing only fits about 5 of the 42 trades I built for. Roofers bid by the "square" (100 sq ft), fence guys by the linear foot, junk removal by the fraction of a truckload, dent repair guys literally price by coin size — nickel, quarter, half dollar. Quote in the wrong unit and you underbid every time.
We published the whole dataset free: sidewrk.app/side-work-rates — billing unit, typical rate, and labor share (what % of the ticket you keep vs. pass to parts) for all 42 trades.
Where the business is: product's live, one real trialing user, ads just spun up, zero-authority SEO doing zero-authority things. Distribution is the whole fight. Happy to answer anything about building for blue-collar users — they're the best and most honest user base I've ever built for.
We researched and published 2026 rate data for all 42 trades we support — so our users can bill and invoice in line with what their trade actually charges: https://sidewrk.app/side-work-rates
The surprise from the research: hourly billing only fits about 5 of the 42. Roofers bid by the square, fence guys by the linear foot, junk removal by the truckload fraction, dent repair by coin size. Quote in the wrong unit and you underbid every time.
I'm a dealership mechanic building this for my own side work. Happy to answer anything about pricing the trades.
SideWRK is a phone-first app for the money side of a trade business. Build an estimate on your phone, send it for approval, and get paid — by card, Venmo, Cash App, Zelle, or Apple Pay, with no merchant account and no per-invoice fee. It covers 30+ trades, from mechanics and appliance repair to cleaning, landscaping, and concrete, with real per-trade pricing built in. Free 14-day trial.
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The interesting opportunity isn't making invoicing easier for tradespeople—it's becoming the fastest path from finishing a job to getting paid. I'd keep validating whether customers choose SideWRK because it replaces multiple payment tools or because it shortens the time between completing work and collecting cash.
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You just described the design bet, honestly. The whole flow is built around leaving the driveway paid: write the estimate at the job, the customer approves and signs on their phone, and payment happens right there — card, Venmo, Zelle, or Cash App, no merchant account to set up. There's even a "request payment" link for guys who just text people for money.
On your validation question, I'll be straight: my sample size is tiny right now, so I can't claim customers over anecdotes. But the anecdote I trust most — when I show it to other techs in person, the moment that lands isn't the invoicing. It's "the customer signed and paid before I packed up the tools." Time-to-cash is the hook; replacing the pile of tools is just how it gets done. Watching closely whether that holds as real usage grows.
Appreciate the frame — "fastest path from finishing to getting paid" is going on the wall.
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