Setting up as a provider on Service Connect takes a few minutes, and your first booking usually comes down to how your profile looks and how quickly you reply. Here's what actually moves the needle.
Joining is free, and it stays that way
There's no sign-up fee and no monthly fee to list your services on Service Connect. You don't pay anything to create a profile, add qualifications or send quotes, and there's no commission taken out of your price. Whatever you quote a client is what you're paid: it's held by Stripe once they pay, then released to your Stripe account after you mark the job done and the client confirms it, or automatically after 7 days if they don't.
The only cost involved is optional, and it's for promoting your listing, which we'll come back to further down.
Build a profile that actually gets picked
Clients scroll through a list of providers in their county before they message anyone. A few details decide who gets picked.
A photo and a clear service title
A profile photo makes you look like a real person doing real work, not a placeholder. It matters more than most providers expect.
Your service title matters just as much. "Plumbing services" tells a client nothing about whether you can help today. "Leak repairs, same day" tells them exactly what you do and when you can do it. Think about the specific jobs you want to be found for, and title each service around the problem a client is trying to solve.
Qualifications and being upfront
You can upload your qualifications to your profile, and they show up for anyone comparing providers. If you're an electrician, being registered with Safe Electric is worth stating clearly. If you do gas work, the same goes for RGII registration. Qualifications and insurance aren't inspected or checked in the background, so it's on you to show clients you're properly qualified, and it's worth declaring if you hold public liability insurance too.
Working hours and the counties you cover
Set your working hours so clients booking a slot only see times you can actually do, and list every county and area you're willing to travel to. The more counties you cover, the more searches you show up in. Every booking time in the app runs on Irish time, so there's no confusion about when a slot actually is.
Pick pricing that suits the job
Once a client sends a request, you reply in chat with your own custom offer. You set the price and the conditions, and if you knock something off your usual rate, the client sees it clearly as a discount. There's no back-and-forth outside the thread: questions, the quote, the date and the payment all sit in one place you can find again later.
Clients see the full total, your offer plus the buyer protection fee, before they accept, so there's no surprise on their end and nothing extra for you to explain.
Reply fast
A client who's just posted a job or messaged a few providers will usually book whoever answers first with a sensible offer. Checking your messages regularly and sending a clear price quickly is one of the simplest ways to win jobs on Service Connect, especially while you're still building up reviews.
Share your profile link with people who already know you
Every provider gets a public profile link, serviceconnect.ie/p/..., that you can send to anyone: past customers, neighbours, people who've asked you for a quote outside the app. Sending it to an existing customer is one of the fastest ways to get your first booking and your first review, because they already trust your work and just need to book it through the app.
It's worth it for them too. Booking through Service Connect means their payment is held until the job is done, rather than handing over cash on the day or chasing an invoice afterwards. And because only someone who's completed a booking can leave a review, it's the first one that actually counts towards your profile.
When promoting a listing makes sense, and when it doesn't
Promoting a listing puts you at the top of search results in your category for a day, a week or a month. It's a one-off payment through your Apple ID, starting from €1.99 a day, and it never renews on its own, so you're never signed up to anything ongoing.
It tends to make sense once your profile is actually ready: photo added, services titled clearly, qualifications uploaded, working hours set. Promoting a half-finished profile just puts more eyes on something that isn't ready to convert them.
It also makes more sense in a busy category or county where you're competing with several other providers for attention, or when you want a short, deliberate push, for example a week you know you're free to take on new jobs. It makes less sense if you're already fully booked, if you're in a category or area with little competition, or before you've got at least a photo and a couple of clear service listings up. Get those right first, and the promotion will do a lot more for you.
Ready to get set up? Download Service Connect and work through the provider checklist: payouts, your first service, a profile photo, a qualification and your working hours. You can read more about how bookings work under how it works, see the full picture on buyer protection, or check the FAQ for anything else.