Terms of service

Accounts

You must be 18 or older and legally able to enter a contract. One account per person; agencies use an Enterprise account with named seats rather than a shared login.

The information on your profile must be accurate. Claiming skills or experience you do not have wastes a client’s time and is grounds for removal.

You are responsible for what happens under your account. Tell us immediately if you think someone else has access to it.

Gigs and proposals

Clients must post genuine work with a real budget. Listings that exist to harvest ideas, portfolios or unpaid "test" work are removed.

A proposal is an offer. If a client accepts it, both parties are committed to the scope and price agreed, and changes are renegotiated in writing on the platform.

Clients commit to responding to proposals within 48 hours. Where they do not, the gig is flagged and the proposal is refunded to the freelancer’s monthly allowance.

SmartPay escrow

On a SmartPay gig, the client transfers the full contract value into a ring-fenced escrow account before work begins. Those funds are held for the contract and are not ours to use.

Funds release to the freelancer when the client approves the delivery, or automatically if the client neither approves nor disputes within the seven-day review window.

Raising a dispute locks the funds until the dispute is resolved. Neither party may withdraw them in the meantime.

Fees

FairGig charges a service fee on completed work: 10% on the Starter plan, 5% on Pro and 3% on Enterprise. The fee is deducted when funds are released, not when escrow is funded.

Subscription fees are billed in advance and are non-refundable for the current period. You can cancel at any time and keep access until the period ends.

All amounts are in South African Rand and include VAT where applicable.

Disputes

Disputes are assessed against the scope agreed on the platform, using the evidence both parties submit. Keep project communication on FairGig — we cannot weigh a conversation we cannot see.

A reviewer may release funds in full, in part, or return them to the client. The decision is final within the platform.

Nothing in this clause removes your right to pursue a matter through the courts or another lawful forum.

Prohibited conduct

Do not take payment off-platform to avoid fees. It removes the escrow protection that is the reason FairGig exists, and it ends the account.

Do not post false reviews, manipulate ratings, scrape the platform, or submit work you do not have the right to deliver.

Do not use FairGig for anything unlawful, or to harass another user.

Intellectual property

Unless the contract says otherwise, ownership of delivered work transfers to the client on full payment — not on delivery.

Freelancers keep the right to show completed work in a portfolio unless the client has agreed a confidentiality term in writing.

You keep ownership of the content you post to FairGig, and grant us the licence needed to display it on the platform.

Liability

FairGig is a marketplace and an escrow facility. We are not a party to the contract between a client and a freelancer, and we do not employ freelancers.

We provide the platform as-is. We do not warrant that a gig will be filled, that a freelancer will be hired, or that any particular outcome will follow from using it.

To the extent the law allows, our liability to you is limited to the fees you paid us in the three months before the claim arose.

Termination

You may close your account at any time. Obligations under contracts already in progress survive closure.

We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms. Where funds are held in escrow for that account, they are resolved through the normal dispute process rather than forfeited.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, and the South African courts have jurisdiction.

If a provision is found unenforceable, the rest remains in force.