How helyi compares
There are three ways to run a community food market: helyi, an existing platform stitched together with extra tools, or all by hand. Here's the honest comparison.
Feature-by-feature
| helyi | Existing platforms | By hand | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Running orders | |||
| All-in-one platform | Built-in | Extra tools | No |
| Automated supplier orders | Built-in | Varies | Manual |
| Itemised invoicing | Built-in | Separate tool | Manual |
| Collection-slot booking | Built-in | Separate tool | Manual |
| Stock per event | Built-in | Add-on | Spreadsheet |
| Payments | |||
| In-person card payments | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Online payments | Built-in | No | No |
| EFT discount | Built-in | No | Manual |
| Payment reconciliation | Automatic | No | No |
| Cost & effort | |||
| Fee model | 3% on wholesale | 5% on wholesale | None |
| Per-member event fee | None | Yes | None |
| Your time per event | Minutes | Hours | Hours |
| Paperless | Yes | Prints everything | No |
Platform fees: 3% vs 5%
Existing platforms take 5% of the wholesale price. helyi takes 3%.
On a R3,000 wholesale basket:
| Existing platform | helyi | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform fee | 5% (R 150) | 3% (R 90) |
Illustrative. Payment-gateway fees apply on all options.
The fee fits the community
3% is the default. helyi adjusts the fee to fit each Local, and in communities where a markup of any kind is out of reach, it runs Locals for free.
How free Locals work →Why we can charge less
helyi is built by people who came from tech and care deeply about fixing the food system and championing small businesses. We aren't running it to get rich. The fee only covers our costs.
And because we build it ourselves, our overheads are far lower than businesses paying out to expensive developers or running on environmentally destructive AI tools. Lower costs for us means a lower fee for your Local.
When helyi is the right fit
- You run a community food market and want it all in one place.
- You want a fair, low platform fee that doesn't eat into your markup.
- You want your time back from spreadsheets and printing.
When by hand is fine
- A handful of friends doing the occasional one-off order.
- No suppliers to coordinate, no invoices to chase, no slots to book.
Ready to run your Local?
See everything that's built in.