Booking, refund and payout policy

You pay the specialist's fee plus a flat Outdoor Equity booking fee: $50 for an on-site visit and $20 for a video or phone consult.

The total is shown on the booking screen before you confirm, and payment is taken at booking. Any account credit you are holding is applied automatically, so you only pay the remainder.

Outdoor Equity holds your payment. Your specialist is paid 48 hours after they attend, as long as no problem has been reported in that window.

Outdoor Equity keeps the booking fee. The specialist receives their own fee.

You do not get a cash refund. The full amount you paid is kept as credit on your account for a future booking, and it never expires.

Credit is applied automatically the next time you book. You can see your balance on My bookings.

If your specialist does not show up on site, or does not join or engage on your call, you get a full refund to your card — including the booking fee. No payout is made to the specialist.

Report it with the "Report a problem" button on your booking. The button is available from the scheduled time until 48 hours after the booking was due to finish.

Where the original booking was paid with account credit, that credit is restored to your account instead of being refunded to your card.

Video consults run inside Outdoor Equity. There is nothing to download: use the Join call button on your booking, which appears 10 minutes before the start time.

For phone consults, your specialist’s number is shown on the booking from 10 minutes before the call until an hour after it.

Every booking has its own message thread. Use it for access, timing, photos and questions — before, during and after the job. Messages stay on record so our team can help if something goes wrong.

Phone numbers, emails and links are hidden in messages and notes until a booking is confirmed. For on-site visits, both of you can see each other’s number from 3 hours before the visit until 2 hours after, for gate codes and running-late calls.

Rebooking a specialist you have used before, accepting follow-on work they propose, or booking through their personal invite link gets a discounted booking fee. The specialist keeps 100% of their own fee either way.

Follow-on work proposed by your specialist shows on My bookings. Accept and pay there and it carries the same payment hold, refund and dispute protection as your first booking.

The payment hold, no-show refund, dispute support, ratings and your property record only cover bookings and payments made through Outdoor Equity. Cash or direct arrangements are not covered and we cannot help if they go wrong.

Specialists agree that for 12 months after first meeting a homeowner here, further work for that homeowner is booked through Outdoor Equity. Asking a homeowner to pay directly, or sharing contact details to move a job off the platform, is a breach of the specialist terms: we warn first, and repeated attempts put a listing under review.

If a specialist asks you to go direct, please let our team know. It helps us keep the marketplace fair, and it never affects your booking.

Specialists pay a $250 Introduction Fee if they take a homeowner they met here off the platform within 12 months. It is never charged to homeowners. Read the community rules for how it works.

After every completed booking we ask you to rate the experience: whether they turned up on time, how professional they were, how clear their advice was and whether it was value for money.

Specialists who do not turn up, or who behave unprofessionally, are warned and then suspended. Two upheld no-show reports in 90 days removes them from search, and a sustained low rating or professionalism score puts them under review.

Your ratings are what keeps the standard high. Sub-scores and reports are only ever seen by our team.