A community-owned marketplace for trusted local services.
Trust connects people. Let's take it further.
Find and offer services through the people you actually know. Every search, recommendation and deal leaves your community more connected than it was.
MeritWork is invitation-only while communities get started.
How it works
- 1
Trust through your network, not strangers.
Network-weighted, self-policing.
MeritWork is a trust-based services marketplace where recommendations travel through people you actually know. No anonymous reviews. No paid placement.
The act of recommending is private. Your reputation as a recommender is public. That asymmetry is the main trust mechanism.
Bad recommendations cost the recommender's reputation; good ones build it. No central moderation, no content-policing committee. The accountability is built in.
- 2
No advertising costs.
No ads to buy. No leads to pay for. No reviews to chase.
For many local providers, advertising is the biggest cost of doing business. Lead platforms can cost a local trade well over £1,000 a year, and the same enquiry is often sold to as many as five competitors.
On MeritWork, your reputation does the advertising. It's like everyone you've worked for quietly recommending you to everyone they know, around the clock, without anyone lifting a finger.
- 3
Economic activity that builds community.
Every transaction strengthens the network.
When you hire someone through your network, or when someone hires you, both sides become accessible to each other's connections. Every transaction extends your network.
The community that forms is bound by more than a shared identity. It's held together by the connections people make.
- 4
Value circulates back to participants.
Built into how it works, not just promised.
New providers get a boost in search until people start recommending them. No transaction fees, no commission, ever. Providers keep what they earn.
People whose network position enables connections are recognised and rewarded.
The platform shows you what you're contributing, for example: seven people used services through you this week. Real social impact you can measure. Value moves sideways through the network, not upward to investors.
- 5
Works within the alternative economy.
Pay however your community pays.
Cash, mutual credit, time credits, local currencies, in-kind exchange. Every way of paying works equally well. Communities decide which they use; providers choose what they accept.
Plugs into Murmurations for federation, the Open Credit Network for mutual credit, Made Open and Timebanking UK for time credits. MeritWork works within the alternative economy rather than competing with it.
- 6
Local first, federated for reach.
Independent communities, connected by choice.
Each community has its own members, its own rules and its own data. Communities can reach each other without giving up their independence.
Distance matters for physical services. Local results carry priority. Cross-community reach is available but never overrides community choice.
In practice
Sarah searches for a plumber and sees the ones her network has vouched for, weighted by whose judgement has held up. For the plumber, reputation grows through people whose word is trusted. No paid placement. No fees for ranking. Just work that gets vouched for.
Hire Sarah's plumber and you become visible to his connections too, so the people he trusts are now within reach. The network gets denser as it gets used. At the end of the year you see, concretely, how many connections you've made.
A roofing firm takes cash. A tutor takes time credits. A food co-op takes mutual credit. Three providers, three ways to pay, one search. Each provider sets their own terms; the platform follows them.
A different kind of platform.
Service discovery isn't enough.
MeritWork is a community-owned marketplace where people find and offer local services: plumbers, tutors, gardeners, childminders, co-ops.
Existing platforms are service-discovery tools. You use them, you get a tradesperson, the interaction ends. The network is no more connected, no more trustworthy than before.
MeritWork is structurally different. Every search, every recommendation, every transaction leaves the network more connected than it was. The economic activity and the community-building are the same act.
MeritWork takes its lead from older traditions like guilds, mutual aid societies and time banks, which all knew that economic activity could strengthen community. But those were inward-facing, binding people within a defined group.
MeritWork builds community across groups. Every transaction extends the networks of both the person hiring and the person being hired. Whether you're a household, a sole trader, a co-op, or a small business, the network grows around you.
How this stays community infrastructure.
Founder-built, self-funded.
No investors, no corporate interests.
Asset-locked, by law.
Community Interest Company moving to platform co-operative. No acquisition pathway.
Open source under copyleft.
The math is inspectable. The trust mechanism is auditable. Anyone can fork it.
Sliding-scale subscriptions, no commission.
£3 to £50 a month depending on size. The platform takes nothing from what providers earn through transactions. Six months free for everyone at launch.
Why this exists.
MeritWork is built by Adi Andrei, a former NASA scientist with 30 years in data science, building production systems for companies including British Gas, Unilever, Philips and Space NK.
The conviction behind it is simple: technology should enhance human connection, not the other way around. MeritWork is what that conviction looks like as software.
No AI
No ads
No digital ID
Just plain old personal responsibility.
Where local economies grow on trust.
Bring your community to MeritWork, or ask to join one.