How helyi compares
Everything you need to run a Local, with a flat fee instead of a slice of every order.
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.
The old way
- Market platform 5% on wholesale (⅓ of your markup)
- Invoicing Separate tool
- Scheduling Separate tool
- Stock Spreadsheet
- Paperwork Printed every event
Several tools that don't talk to each other. The platform skims about a third of the markup that funds your Local.
With helyi
- All built in: ordering, suppliers, invoicing, stock, slots, members
- Online payments + EFT discounts, auto-reconciled
- Paperless. One login.
- A flat fee per order. No cut of your sales.
Paid by members, only when they shop. Around R100 on a typical order.
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 | Flat per order | % of wholesale | None |
| Cut of your markup | None | ~⅓ | None |
| Your time per event | Minutes | Hours | Hours |
| Paperless | Yes | Prints everything | No |
Where your markup goes
The wholesale amount goes to the farmer or producer; a markup goes to running the Local. Existing platforms add 5% on top of the wholesale price, and let organisers add their own 10–15%, so members pay 15–20%, and the platform pockets about a third of that markup before you've covered a thing. helyi takes none of it: instead, a flat fee is added to each member's order.
On a R3,000 wholesale basket, at a 15% markup (R450):
| Existing platform | helyi | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform's cut | R 150 (⅓) | R 100 flat |
| Stays with your Local | R 300 | R 450 |
| Grows as orders grow | Yes | No |
A fixed fee leaves more in the community
Handing the platform a percentage of every order is the unfair part: it grows even though the platform does no more work on a bigger basket. Legacy platforms also pile on a per-member event fee. helyi does neither: one flat fee, better for the Local and its members.
Count that event fee (around R50) plus the 5%, and the two only draw level on a small R1,000 basket. But ordering from a Local is a big monthly shop. The average is closer to R3,000, where the legacy take is about R200 against helyi's flat R100. Roughly half, staying in the community for members and organisers instead of going to a platform.
Illustrative, with the legacy event fee assumed at R50 and a 5% wholesale cut. Existing platforms add 5% to wholesale and let hosts add 10–15%, so members pay 15–20% on top and those platforms take roughly a third of it. helyi's flat fee is added to each member's order and never touches your markup. Payment-gateway fees apply on all options.
The fee fits the community
R100 is the default and the cap. It only ever moves down, never up. 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 think a flat fee is more fair than giving a slice of every order to your software.
- 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.