Payments

You pay the professional directly, in whatever way you both agree: cash, bank transfer, Revolut, or card if the pro accepts one. Surrounders never processes payments, holds no money, and adds 0 fees on top of the pro's listed price.

The listed price on a service is the pro's own price. For hourly services the total depends on how long the session runs; for fixed-price services it is the amount shown. If a listing says "price on request", the pro quotes after you describe the job in chat.

Two habits make this smooth:

• Agree the method before the session. A one-line message - "is cash okay, or do you prefer Revolut?" - settles it. Cash remains the most common choice for home services in Cyprus.
• Agree the amount for hourly work. Confirm the expected duration when booking, so a 3-hour cleaning does not surprise anyone at 4 hours.

If you need a receipt or invoice, ask the professional - they are independent and handle their own paperwork.

Yes. Surrounders is free for both customers and professionals - there are no booking fees, no subscriptions, and no commission taken from professionals. You pay only the price the professional lists, and you pay them directly.

Professionals keep 100% of what they charge, which is one reason local pros list real, competitive prices instead of padding them to cover platform fees.

Booking, messaging, reminders, recurring schedules, and reviews are all included at no cost. If paid features for professionals appear in the future, the core marketplace - finding, booking, and messaging - stays free.

There is no catch, but the question deserves a straight answer. Surrounders is in its launch phase in Cyprus, and the priority is simple: get enough good professionals and happy customers in one place that the marketplace works. Charging either side today would slow that down, so nobody pays anything - 0 fees, 0 commission.

Longer term, the plan is optional paid tools for professionals who want more from the platform. What is firmly off the table is a commission on bookings: taking a percentage of a pro's work would push prices up for customers and push pros off the platform - the opposite of the point.

For customers, free is permanent by design. You are not the product either: Surrounders shows no ads and does not sell your data. The business succeeds only if enough bookings happen that some professionals eventually find the optional tools worth paying for. Until then, you are simply early.

Yes. Cash is the most common way to pay for home services in Cyprus, and since payment on Surrounders always goes directly from you to the professional, cash works exactly as you would expect: the service happens, you pay the agreed amount, done.

That said, plenty of pros prefer bank transfer or Revolut, especially for larger amounts or recurring weekly bookings where counting notes every Tuesday gets old. The method is entirely between you and the pro.

One habit worth keeping: confirm the method in chat before the first session. It takes one message, avoids the awkward "I only have a card" moment at the door, and for hourly services it is a natural moment to confirm the expected total too.

The listed price is the professional's own price, and whether VAT applies depends on their individual status. Professionals on Surrounders are independent - many are small sole traders who fall under Cyprus's VAT registration threshold and do not charge VAT at all, while larger operations may add it or include it.

In practice, for most home services paid person-to-person, the price you see or agree in chat is simply the price you pay.

If it matters to you - typically because you need a proper invoice for a company, a landlord, or expenses - ask the professional two questions before booking: whether the price includes VAT, and whether they can issue an invoice. Both take one message, and pros dealing with business customers answer them routinely.

Surrounders itself adds no VAT, fees, or charges of any kind - the platform is not part of the transaction.

Surrounders deliberately does not process payments: you settle directly with the professional, and the platform stays out of the money entirely. This is a choice, not a missing feature, and it has 3 practical consequences you benefit from.

First, it keeps everything free. Payment processing costs money, and platforms that handle payments recover those costs through service fees or commissions. With no money flowing through the platform, there is nothing to charge anyone for.

Second, it keeps arrangements flexible. Real-life services are full of small adjustments: the cleaning ran 30 minutes long, you added a second child to the lesson, the pro rounded down for a regular. Direct settlement absorbs all of that with a conversation instead of a refund ticket.

Third, the pro keeps 100% of their price, which is exactly why good independent professionals join and stay.

The honest trade-off: there is no payment protection through the platform, so treat the first booking with a new pro the way you would any first arrangement - agree the price and method in chat beforehand, and pay after the service is done. If online payment ever becomes an option later, the direct arrangement stays available.

No. Surrounders adds exactly 0 to anything: no service fee at booking, no commission baked into prices, no charge for cancelling, no premium tier you discover at checkout. There is no checkout. The only money in the entire transaction is the professional's own price, paid directly to them, and they keep 100% of it.

This is easy for us to promise because of how the platform works: Surrounders never processes payments and never holds money, so there is no point in the flow where a fee could even be attached. The price you see on a listing is the pro's whole price, not a base that grows as you proceed.

Where surprises can still come from - and how to close them off:

• Hourly services. The honest total is rate times duration, so a job that runs long costs more. Confirm the expected duration in chat before booking. "Roughly how many hours for a 2-bedroom flat?" prevents the only common surprise on the platform.
• Quoted jobs. For "price on request" listings, the quote you agree in chat is the deal. If the scope grows on the day, expect the price to be revisited - reasonable, but better discussed than assumed.
• VAT. Pros are independent; many small sole traders do not charge VAT, some do. If it matters for you, ask the pro whether their price is final. The platform adds nothing either way.

Everything above is the pro's side of the arrangement, agreed between you two. From Surrounders itself: nothing hidden, because nothing is charged at all.

Often, yes - the pricing type decides how. Listings marked "price on request" are literally built for it: there is no set number, the pro quotes your specific job in chat, and that quote is a conversation. Fixed and hourly prices are the pro's own rates - they set them, they keep 100% of them, and whether to move is entirely their call.

That said, asking politely never hurt anyone. Pros on Surrounders are independent people, not a corporate price list. A courteous "would you do the pair of rooms for X since you are already here?" gets a yes surprisingly often, especially when your job is flexible on timing or bundles several visits. The worst outcome is a friendly no and the listed price standing.

Where the real leverage lives:

• Describe the job precisely. Photos and details let a quoting pro price the actual work instead of padding for the unknown.
• Bundle or commit. Regulars often end up on better terms than one-off customers - a weekly recurring arrangement is worth more to a pro than a single visit, and pricing tends to reflect that.
• Be flexible. A slot on a quiet weekday is easier to discount than Saturday morning.

One boundary: whatever you agree, agree it in chat before the session, in writing. Surrounders adds nothing on top and takes no cut, so the number you settle on is exactly what changes hands.

Not expected, genuinely appreciated, entirely optional. For the kinds of services on Surrounders - cleaning, training, tutoring, pet care, repairs and the rest - Cyprus has no tipping culture the way restaurants do. Your cleaner or handyman quotes a price expecting that price, not that price plus 10%. Nobody will think less of you for paying exactly what was agreed.

That said, a tip lands well when someone clearly went beyond the job: the handyman who fixed a second thing for free while he was there, the cleaner who stayed late before your guests arrived. Rounding up in cash, or simply adding a little to the transfer, is a warm gesture - just never an obligation.

There is no tipping button in the app, and that is by design rather than an oversight. Surrounders never touches the money: you pay the professional directly in cash, by bank transfer, by Revolut, or by card if they take one. Since the payment is already a direct handover between you two, a tip is just a slightly larger direct handover. No mechanism needed.

Two things pros consistently value more than a tip, and both are free:

• A review. You have 90 days after a completed booking. For an independent pro, a thoughtful review does more for their livelihood than any tip.
• Rebooking. Becoming a regular is the best thank-you a pro can receive.

Tip if you feel like it. Review if you were happy. Neither is required; the second matters more.

No. Booking on Surrounders costs 0 at the moment of booking: no deposit, no card on file, no pre-authorization, nothing collected upfront. The platform never asks for card details at all, because it holds no money at any point. Payment happens directly between you and the professional, in whatever way and at whatever moment you two agree.

A booking request is therefore a commitment of your word, not your wallet. You pick a slot, the pro accepts, and the only thing "held" is the time in both calendars. If plans change, you cancel from the booking page and the pro is notified - the platform charges nothing for that either, ever.

Worth stating for clarity: if any page or message ever appears to ask you for card details on behalf of Surrounders, it is not us. Report it to [email protected].

One nuance from real life. Some pros, once you are a regular, may privately suggest their own arrangements - a prepaid block of lessons, payment for a month of cleanings upfront, that sort of thing. That is a private agreement between the two of you, exactly like it would be if you had met the pro any other way. Surrounders is not part of it, does not hold or transfer that money, and cannot referee it. Agree such things only with pros you already trust, and keep the terms written down in your chat.

Euros. Every price on Surrounders is in EUR, because Cyprus's currency has been the euro since 2008 and every service here is delivered in Cyprus. There is no currency selector and no conversion happening behind the scenes: the number on the listing is the number in euros, full stop.

For visitors and newcomers, the practical side:

• Paying is direct and flexible. You settle with the professional in whatever way you both agree - cash, bank transfer, Revolut, or card if the pro accepts one. Cash is still the most common choice for home services in Cyprus.
• Cash means euro cash. If you are visiting from outside the eurozone, plan for that; a pro finishing a cleaning job is not the person to hand pounds or dollars to.
• Revolut and cards handle conversion for you. Paying a euro amount from a non-euro account works the way it does anywhere: your bank or app converts at its own rate. That is between you and your bank - the pro simply receives euros.

The platform itself adds nothing in any currency: no fees, no commission, no surcharges. The euro amount you agree with the pro is the entire cost of the service.

One matching detail: times on Surrounders are as local as the prices. Everything runs on Cyprus time (Europe/Nicosia), so a booking at 10:00 means 10:00 in Limassol, whatever timezone your phone thinks it is in.

The booking itself shows the price from the listing you booked - open any booking from your calendar or bookings list and the service's price is right there with the time, address, and status. For fixed-price services that number is the total. Two cases need one extra habit, described below.

Hourly services. The listing shows the rate, so the final total is rate times actual duration. The reliable move: confirm the expected duration in chat before you book ("3 hours for my place, right?") and pick the matching duration for the session. Then rate, hours, and total are all on record before anyone starts working.

Price on request. Quoted jobs have no listing price by definition - the agreed number lives in your conversation with the pro. That chat is permanent and never closes, so the quote is always scrollable, but make it easy on your future self: when you settle on a figure, restate it in one clean message ("so we are agreed - 120 for the full job, Saturday") right before sending the booking request. It will sit next to the automatic booking messages in the thread, exactly where you will look for it later.

Since payment happens directly between you and the pro, this written trail in chat plus the booking record is your documentation - there is no platform receipt, because the platform takes no payment. If you need a formal invoice or receipt, ask the pro; they are independent and handle their own paperwork.