One platform, three ways to use it: post work and hire, get verified and win bids, or buy and sell on the Marketplace. Pick a side to see the exact steps, then read the deep-dive below each.
Trade, budget range, description, photos or drawings. Takes about a minute.
Pick a 7–30 day bidding window and optional requirements (NDA, site walkthrough, cover letter) that bidders must meet.
Insured, licence-checked contractors send quotes with proposals attached. They pay to bid, so no tire-kickers.
Weigh prices against ratings, reviews and info packages, then hire. After close, all participants see the full bid table.
A private chat opens with your hire. When the work wraps, leave a review: reviews are mutual.
Choose from about 50 trades, set a budget band, and write a clear scope, then attach up to 5 photos, spec sheets or drawings. The more specific the scope, the more accurate and comparable your quotes come back. Posting is free for every client type: private individual, business, or government/institution.
Pick a 7, 14, 21 or 30-day bidding window. Add optional requirements every bidder must accept: an NDA, a mandatory site walkthrough, a cover letter, or a minimum insurance level. Projects budgeted at $100K+ automatically run as formal tenders on the public board.
Only insured, licence- and WSIB-checked contractors can bid, and every bid costs them credits, so you only hear from serious, qualified businesses, never tire-kickers. Each bid can carry a full info package: a written proposal, schedule, references, a portfolio link and a cloud folder.
Your My Jobs view lines every quote up side by side with the bidder’s rating, review count and attachments. Hiring unlocks their contact details and opens a private thread. The instant bidding closes, the full ranked bid table is revealed to everyone who took part: the process stays transparent.
A private, file-enabled chat opens with the contractor you hired: one thread per job. When the work wraps, both sides leave a mutual review that builds public reputation. Need something delivered or installed too? Bridge straight to the Marketplace.
Upload your ID, insurance, WSIB and licence once. Approval typically lands within one business day.
New projects in your trade and province are pushed to you the moment they post. Browse the whole board free.
Open the job's documents (1 credit) and file a free Bid of Intent: required before any final bid.
Your price plus up to 5 attachments, a portfolio link and a cloud folder. Bids cost 1–12 credits by project size.
Winning is free: contact details unlock, a chat opens, and every review builds your public profile and tier.
A one-time upload of your government ID, proof of address, liability insurance, WSIB/workers’ comp and trade licence. An admin reviews and validates you: usually within one business day. Dated credentials are tracked automatically: we remind you at 60, 30 and 7 days before expiry and pause bidding if one lapses, until you re-upload.
New projects in your trade and province ping you the moment they post: in-app, by push notification and by email. The entire job board is free to browse, filter and search, so you can size up demand before spending anything.
Spend 1 credit to open a job’s full documents, then file a free Bid of Intent: a required signal before any priced bid. Some posters require a site walkthrough or an approval step first; you’ll see those conditions up front.
Submit your price plus up to 5 attachments, a portfolio URL and a cloud-folder link: you compete on your work, not price alone. A final bid costs 1–12 credits by budget band, always shown before you commit. There’s no cap on how many contractors can bid, so every job stays competitive.
Winning costs nothing extra: the client’s contact details unlock, a private chat opens, and every completed job and mutual review lifts your public profile and trust tier, compounding into more work over time.
Post as Fixed-price sale, Auction, or Get it quoted, or a Wanted ad. Photos, category, condition, location.
Buyers watchlist it, make an offer you can counter, or message you: once they've bid or offered.
Live auctions run to a countdown; highest wins. Your first 10 bids are free, then 25¢ each from your marketplace wallet.
Once the item is yours, turn the listing into a job for verified contractors with one tap: the QuoteHive edge.
Close the sale, arrange handoff and leave a rating. Sellers pay a small per-category fee only on a sale.
Choose one of four modes: Fixed-price sale (fixed price), Auction (buyers bid to a deadline), Get it quoted (services or custom supply, sellers reply with a price), or a Wanted ad to source what you need. Add photos, a category, condition and location. Selling is free during beta: listing, browsing and offers cost nothing. A card on file is required to list or check out (saved securely with Stripe: we only store the card’s brand and last four digits). On auctions your first 10 bids are free, then each bid is 25¢ from a prepaid marketplace balance.
The buyer journey is simple: browse free, then buy now, make an offer, or bid in an auction, and, once you own an item, optionally request delivery & install from a verified QuoteHive contractor. Shoppers can watchlist your item, make an offer you can accept or counter, or message you directly, but only after they’ve placed a bid or an offer, so sellers hear from serious buyers, not spam. Buyers never pay a sale fee. Your storefront shows your rating, active listings and verified badge (it’s your one shared QuoteHive profile).
Live auctions run against a countdown; the highest bid at close wins, with an optional reserve you can set. Everyone gets a batch of free bids to start: after that, each auction bid costs a flat 25¢ from a small prepaid balance you top up any time. Buying, selling, offers and messaging stay free.
This is what makes QuoteHive different from a plain classifieds site. Once the item is yours (bought, auction won, or offer accepted) the listing shows Request delivery & install, and tapping it posts a real job to our verified contractors right inside the page, no re-typing. (Before you own it the button is visible but locked, so nobody spawns a job for something they haven’t bought.) You can still size the cost up front: buy and auction listings show a non-binding delivery & install estimate before you commit. Bought a vanity? Get it installed. Bought pallets of tile? Get them hauled and laid.
Close the sale, arrange handoff, and both sides leave a rating that builds marketplace reputation. Sellers pay a small fee only when an item actually sells, it varies by category (2–5%), taken from the seller’s proceeds; buyers never pay a sale fee. Your net proceeds land as Pending the moment the sale completes and clear to Available after a 24-hour hold. See the full breakdown and a worked example in Selling: fees & payouts.
QuoteHive takes no commission on the work and charges no subscription. Contractors pay for bid credits: that's the whole model for jobs. The Marketplace adds only two small things: a seller fee on a completed sale (waived during our launch beta) and a few cents per auction bid once your free bids run out.
Posting, comparing bids, hiring and messaging are free: always.
depending on the project budget: 1 credit in the Under $1,000 band, up to 12 on $500,000+ tenders.
enough to compete for several jobs before spending a dollar.
Unlocking a job’s documents costs 1 credit; a Bid of Intent is free. Packs and rates are on the pricing page.
Three things that come with every account, whichever side you use.
Two-factor authentication or a passkey is required before you post or bid: a passkey signs you in with your fingerprint, face or PIN and can’t be reused by a fake login page. In the apps, biometric sign-in and an optional app-open lock keep your session behind the phone’s own sensor.
Every account gets a personal referral link. When someone signs up through it, verifies their email and makes their first purchase, bidding credits land in your account automatically, no limit on how many people you can refer.
Several estimators under one company? An owner account invites team members as seats, assigns bidding credits down from a shared pool, sees each seat’s spend and reclaims what’s unused. Everyone still signs in as themselves and bids in their own name.
The Help Centre covers every step above in detail: verification, formal tenders, refunds, messaging and more.
Post your first project free, or sign up as a contractor and bid with your 12 starter credits.