Legal

Terms of Service

Last updated: 25 August 2026 | Effective: 25 August 2026

These terms govern your use of the Modiri apps, this website, and the Modiri marketplace. They apply to homeowners and to artisans, and some sections apply to only one of you — each says which. Please read them. They are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

1. Who You Are Contracting With

Modiri is operated by Elementary Data And Software (Pty) Ltd, registration number 2023/958330/07, a company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa, trading as Modiri.

Website: modiri.co.za
General and legal enquiries: legal@modiri.co.za
Privacy enquiries: privacy@modiri.co.za
WhatsApp: +27 63 416 9418

2. What Modiri Is — and What It Is Not

Modiri is a marketplace. We introduce homeowners who need work done to artisans who do that work, we handle the booking and the money, and we provide the tools around it.

Modiri does not perform the work. Artisans and service companies on Modiri are independent businesses. They are not our employees, our agents, or our subcontractors. We do not supervise the work, we are not present when it is done, and we do not warrant its quality or workmanship. The contract for the work itself is between the homeowner and the artisan.

What we do commit to is running the platform properly: holding your money in escrow, releasing it according to these terms, and standing behind our dispute process in section 11.

3. Using Modiri

To create an account you must be 18 or older and have legal capacity to contract. You agree to give accurate information, to keep it up to date, and to keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens on your account.

You agree not to:

Give false or misleading information, or impersonate anyone
Use Modiri for any unlawful purpose, or in breach of any South African law
Harass, threaten or abuse another user, or Modiri staff
Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the platform
Scrape, crawl or harvest data from the apps or the website
Post a review that is dishonest, or that you were paid to post

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms. Where we do, we will still settle any money properly owing to you.

4. Vetting, Badges and What They Mean

Modiri operates a vetting process for artisans. An artisan pays a once-off vetting fee, submits identity documents, gives written consent to a criminal-record check, and is reviewed before a verification badge is awarded. A badge is valid for two years, after which it must be renewed.

Artisan profiles carry a trust tier — Registered, Background Checked, Certified Pro, or Fully Covered Pro — which tells you how far that artisan has been through the process.

Be clear about what this does and does not mean. "Registered" means an artisan has created an account and given us their details; it does not mean they have been background-checked. Only the higher tiers reflect completed verification. During Modiri's launch phase, artisans who have not completed vetting may still appear and may still be booked. Always check the badge and tier on a profile before you book, and use your own judgement.

A badge is not a guarantee of workmanship, and it is not insurance. It reflects checks completed at a point in time.

5. Pricing and the Minimum Booking

Artisans set their own prices, per service, either as a fixed price or an hourly rate. Prices must fall within the price band Modiri publishes for that trade.
The minimum booking value is R500. No job can be booked through Modiri for less.
An artisan may charge a call-out fee per visit, capped at R950. It is shown as its own line in the booking breakdown and counts toward the R500 minimum.
For hourly work, the homeowner chooses the number of hours upfront, subject to the smallest number of whole hours that clears the R500 minimum.
For quoted work, the price is agreed per job. A homeowner can invite several artisans to quote and choose between them, or engage one artisan directly.

All prices are in South African Rand and include VAT where the artisan is VAT-registered.

6. Payment, Escrow and Commission

Payments are processed by PayFast. You pay when your booking is confirmed, and Modiri holds the money in escrow — it is not paid to the artisan when you pay it.

Commission: Modiri charges the artisan 15% of the job amount. The artisan keeps 85%. There is no flat service fee, and no commission is charged to the homeowner. PayFast's own transaction fees are absorbed by Modiri and are not passed on to either of you.

When escrow is released: no money is paid to the artisan until you say you are happy with the work. When the artisan finishes, they mark the job finished in their app. That does not complete the booking and releases nothing — it sends the job to you for sign-off. You then have two choices:

Approve the job in your app. The money is released to the artisan, net of commission, at that moment.
Say you are not happy, which raises a dispute under section 11. The money stays in escrow, untouched, until the dispute is resolved.

If you do not respond: the artisan has done the work and cannot be left unpaid indefinitely, so a job you have neither approved nor disputed is approved automatically 7 days after the artisan marks it finished. We remind you before that happens, and the deadline is shown in your app. Raising a dispute at any point before then stops the automatic approval.

Payouts to artisans follow the schedule the artisan chooses: immediately, weekly, or on a chosen day of the month. Artisans may change this at any time, effective from their next completed job.

7. Cancellation

If the homeowner cancels:

Before the booking is confirmed and paid — free.
Within 30 minutes of confirming — free, full refund.
More than 4 hours before the scheduled start — free, full refund.
Less than 4 hours before the scheduled start, or if you are not there when the artisan arrives — a R250 cancellation fee. The balance is refunded.

If the artisan cancels: the homeowner is never charged and receives a full refund. Artisans who cancel confirmed bookings, or who reschedule at short notice, accumulate reliability flags; three flags trigger a review of the account by Modiri.

8. Rescheduling

First reschedule — free.
Second reschedule — R150.
A third attempt cancels the booking, and the cancellation rules in section 7 apply.

When the artisan reschedules, it is always free to the homeowner.

9. Photos and Job Information

Homeowners may attach photos of the job so artisans can price it accurately. Those photos are shared with the artisan or artisans invited to that job, and with Modiri staff handling a dispute. Do not upload anything you are not willing to share for that purpose. How we handle photos is set out in our Privacy Policy.

10. Reviews

A homeowner may rate and review an artisan after a completed booking. Reviews must be honest and based on your own experience of that job. We may remove a review that is abusive, dishonest, or unrelated to the work. By posting a review you grant Modiri a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to display it on the platform and on the artisan's public profile page.

11. Disputes About the Work

If a homeowner is not satisfied with completed work, they may raise a dispute in the app. When a dispute is raised:

Modiri acknowledges it and assigns a QA Official to the case.
Where an on-site assessment is needed, an independent qualified artisan from the same trade — connected to neither party — may be engaged to inspect and report.
Our target is to resolve a dispute within 14 days of it being raised.
The outcome is a full refund, a partial refund, or no refund, based on the findings. Refunds are made to the original payment method.

Both parties agree to take part in this process in good faith and to provide the evidence asked of them. The dispute process does not take away your right to approach a court, the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud, or the National Consumer Commission.

12. Artisan Terms

This section applies to artisans and service companies.

You are an independent contractor. Nothing in these terms creates employment, partnership, or agency between you and Modiri. You control how you do the work, you supply your own tools, and you are responsible for your own tax, licences and insurance.
Vetting fee: a once-off R750 for an individual artisan, or R500 for a member of a registered company. It is payable before the check is carried out and covers the cost of the screening process.
Commission of 15% is deducted from each completed job before payout, as set out in section 6.
Banking details: to be paid, you must give us accurate banking details, and keep them up to date. We use them only to pay you. We cannot pay you without them, and we are not responsible for a payment that fails or goes astray because the details you give us are wrong.
Tax: Modiri can generate tax invoices on your behalf where you have given us your tax details. You remain responsible for your own SARS obligations, including VAT registration if you cross the threshold.
You must do the work you accept, on the date agreed, to a reasonable professional standard, and you must hold any licence or certification that the law requires for that trade.

13. Intellectual Property

The Modiri name, logo, badge design, apps, website, copy and layout are the intellectual property of Elementary Data And Software (Pty) Ltd and are protected under South African copyright and trade mark law. You may not reproduce, distribute or use any of it without our written consent.

You keep ownership of the content you upload — your photos, your profile text, your reviews. You grant us a licence to host and display it for the purpose of running the platform.

14. Availability and Disclaimers

We work to keep Modiri available and accurate, but the platform is provided "as is". We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted or error-free, and features may change.

We do not warrant the work performed by artisans, their qualifications beyond the verification we describe in section 4, or the accuracy of what a user tells us about themselves. Estimated arrival times, travel times and map data are estimates supplied by third parties.

15. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by South African law, and subject to section 16:

Modiri is not liable for indirect or consequential loss — loss of profit, loss of income, or loss of opportunity — arising from your use of the platform.
Modiri is not liable for loss or damage caused by an artisan in performing the work, or for a dispute between a homeowner and an artisan, beyond the dispute remedies in section 11.
Where Modiri is liable to you in respect of a booking, our liability is limited to the total amount paid through the platform for that booking.

Nothing in these terms excludes liability for fraud, for gross negligence, for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

16. Your Consumer Rights

Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, or any other South African consumer legislation. Where a term of this agreement conflicts with a right you have under those Acts, that right prevails.

17. Interest Registration (Waitlist)

This website also offers an interest registration service — a waitlist through which you can be notified when Modiri becomes available in your area. Registering does not create a platform account, does not guarantee access, and does not entitle you to compensation if a launch is delayed or features change.

18. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why, who we share it with, where it is stored, and how to have it deleted. It forms part of these terms.

19. Suspension, Termination and Changes

You may stop using Modiri at any time, and you may ask us to close your account by emailing privacy@modiri.co.za. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, that presents a risk to other users, or where we are required by law to do so.

We may update these terms as the platform changes. Material changes will be communicated to registered users by email and in the app, and the "last updated" date above will change. Continued use after that constitutes acceptance.

20. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. Any dispute arising from them is subject to the jurisdiction of the South African courts, and you consent to the jurisdiction of the Magistrates' Court having jurisdiction over you, notwithstanding that the amount in dispute may exceed that court's ordinary limits.