When you book through Fonster you can't pick the contractor yourself, so we do the hard part for you. Here's exactly how we decide who gets your job, and how we hold them to it.
No contractor can receive a single Fonster job by signing up. Every application is reviewed by a person before it is ever switched on.
We don't blast your job to everyone and let the pushiest contractor win. Our matching engine shortlists only the contractors who genuinely fit your job, then ranks them by proven track record, not by who pays the most.
Only contractors who actively service your town are considered, so the person who arrives is local and can get to you without cross-town delays.
We match on the specific service you need, then give weight to contractors with completed jobs in that exact trade, experience that's proven on our platform, not just claimed.
Among the contractors who fit, the best-performing rise to the top: fewest recent strikes, strongest reliability tier, and the highest rate of jobs they actually see through to completion.
Suspended or paused contractors are removed from matching automatically. If a contractor's standing drops, they stop receiving work until it recovers.
Getting onto the platform is the start, not the finish. Every active contractor carries a reliability score that our system recalculates regularly from their real behaviour on the platform.
Do they actually finish the jobs they accept? Contractors who see work through to a confirmed completion score higher and get matched more often.
How quickly they respond when offered a job. Fast, dependable responses lift the score; ignored offers pull it down.
A strike is recorded when a contractor lets an offer expire without responding, never delivers a promised quote, or has a completion the customer disputes. Strikes lower the score and the match ranking, and they fade over time, so contractors can recover by doing better.
Consistently completes jobs and responds fast. First in line for new work.
Solid but still building a track record, including every newly approved contractor, who starts here.
Missed offers or disputes have hurt their standing. Matched less, and reviewed for suspension.
This is the part most platforms skip. At each key step, you are asked to confirm what happened. The contractor can't simply mark their own homework.
The contractor receives a time-limited offer. If they don't respond in the window, it expires, a strike is recorded, and the job is re-matched to someone else.
When the contractor submits their quote, we ask you to confirm it actually reached you. If you say you never got it, the job is flagged for our team to step in.
Before a job is closed, the contractor marks it complete and we ask you to confirm the work was genuinely finished. If you dispute it, it doesn't close, it goes to our team and counts against the contractor.
Expired offers, undelivered quotes and disputed completions all surface to Fonster admin automatically, so problems get a human, not a dead end.
You're never left chasing a contractor on your own. Fonster stays in the middle of the job, from match to completion.
Deal with Fonster, not a stranger you found in a classified ad. We arrange the match, track the milestones, and are reachable on WhatsApp throughout.
For larger and managed projects you receive one written quote and one invoice through Fonster, instead of juggling paperwork from several trades. You approve the price before anyone is scheduled.
Our network covers the Cape Winelands, Helderberg and Northern Suburbs, contractors who know the area, the building styles and the local conditions.
Trust shouldn't be taken on faith. Here's the evidence, kept up to date.
Rated 4.9/5 by 30 Western Cape homeowners, every review moderated before it's published.
Read the reviews →Had a job done through Fonster? Tell other homeowners about it. Every submission is checked before it goes live.
Leave a review →Plain-English pricing guides and CoC checklists so you can judge a quote and know what to insist on, written to inform, not to upsell.
Browse the guides →You'll also find recent completed jobs shown on our local service pages, real work, by town and trade, updated automatically as jobs finish.
Recourse is part of trust. If you're unhappy with a job matched through Fonster, tell us, disputes are reviewed by our team, and a contractor's standing on the platform depends on resolving them properly.
Message us directly. A real person at Fonster will help, before, during, or after your job.
WhatsApp 060 985 5047 Email us