Help center

JobDeposit holds a home-improvement job's deposit and pays the contractor milestone by milestone. The homeowner funds the deposit once; the contractor uploads before and after photos for each task; AI photo inspection checks each milestone; approved milestones are released and paid out. Payments run in Stripe test mode: no real card is charged and no real money moves.

Use Try demo (the /demo link) to open the homeowner or contractor dashboard with sample data, no account needed. Demo data is shared sample data. Sample projects are read-only and are never mixed into your own jobs.

Go to /signup, choose homeowner or contractor, and enter your name, email and a password of 8 or more characters. Supabase may send a confirmation email; open the link to finish. Your role (homeowner or contractor) is set at sign-up.

Sign in at /login with your email and password. Sign out with the Sign out button in the top bar. If you see a message that your account is a different role, you signed in to the other dashboard: homeowners use /homeowner/dashboard and contractors use /contractor/dashboard.

There is no self-serve password reset page in the app yet. If you can't sign in, ask for a human and the support team will help from a support ticket. Never share your password in the chat.

New homeowners start with an empty dashboard. Click Start my own project to open the 7-step wizard at /homeowner/start: basics, scope, budget, milestones, timeline, contractor preferences, then review, which creates the project and funds the deposit in test mode. Sample projects are in their own read-only tab.

The homeowner must approve the milestone scope and tasks before the deposit can be funded. If the contractor edits a milestone's scope, the homeowner is asked to review it again. Funding holds the full job total (plus the materials allowance on labor + materials jobs) in one deposit, in Stripe test mode.

Milestone states are draft, funded, in progress, submitted, AI review, retake requested, approved, released, paid out, disputed, resolved upheld and resolved refunded. Contractors add photos while a milestone is funded, in progress or retake requested. Before photos are reference only and are not inspected.

When the contractor submits a milestone, AI photo inspection compares each task's photos to its requirement. If every task passes, the milestone is approved automatically. If not, the contractor gets a retake request with the reason, and flagged photos are set aside on the record. If the AI passes a milestone with confidence below 0.75, it goes to a JobDeposit senior reviewer before release; the homeowner can't approve or reject that review.

No person signs off on a release. The homeowner approves the milestone scope and tasks once, before funding. After the contractor submits, the milestone is approved and released automatically when every task passes AI photo inspection, as long as the contractor's business bank account is approved, and then paid out. Passes with confidence below 0.75 go to a JobDeposit senior reviewer first. There is no homeowner sign-off step. The homeowner's check after payout is a dispute. Homeowners only approve materials receipts manually when a receipt is flagged.

An approved milestone is released only when the contractor has an approved business bank account; otherwise release waits until the account is approved. A daily payout run pays out milestones released that same day, so payout is normally the same day as release. Contractors see this in the Payouts tab.

Contractors add the business bank account in Profile & bank, or in the profile setup wizard at /contractor/onboarding. In this app the bank connection is simulated (Stripe Connect test mode). Releases wait until the account is approved.

The pricing page lists 0% platform fee for homeowners on remodels and a 1.5% contractor fee per verified milestone payout, taken only when a milestone is released and paid out. The Pro & leads plan is listed at $49 per month as a beta placeholder. Live billing is not active: the platform runs in test mode.

On labor + materials jobs the contractor can upload materials receipts. The AI reads the receipt; rules check scope match, purchase date, plausibility, duplicates, the remaining allowance and read confidence. Receipts that pass are approved automatically; others need the homeowner to approve or decline. Approved receipts are added to the daily payout.

After a milestone is released, the homeowner can open a dispute on it (photos don't match, incomplete, poor quality) from that milestone. Funds for that milestone are held while JobDeposit's team reviews it, and the outcome is upheld, refunded or partial. Support can't promise or issue refunds.

The contractor sets and edits schedule dates directly and every edit is logged for the homeowner. The homeowner can propose a date change on the Schedule tab; it applies only after the contractor accepts it.

New contractors finish a 9-step profile wizard at /contractor/onboarding (business, trades, service area, portfolio, license, insurance, payouts, review, publish); credentials stay pending until verified. When a homeowner selects you for a funded job, a Get started card opens a 5-step setup: review scope, confirm schedule, upload documents, prep the first milestone, start work.

New leads appear at the top of the contractor dashboard and in the Leads tab; they match your trades and service zip codes. Onboard a client (/contractor/clients/new) sets up a job and gives you an invite link to share yourself; JobDeposit does not email the client.

The verified badge requires the license, insurance and business checks to pass. The badge is revoked if insurance expires.

The bell at the top of your dashboard shows in-app alerts for new messages, talk-directly requests, milestone updates, schedule changes, receipts, bids and leads, and payouts. Each alert links to its thread or item. You can turn alert types on or off from the bell; dispute and escalation alerts always stay on. Email alerts are built but switched off, so no emails are sent yet.

Each job has one thread between the homeowner and the contractor in the Messages tab. In AI mode the AI mediator passes a polite version of your message to the other party and keeps the original on record; it can also answer questions from the job record and suggest a reply. Talk to a human in the thread switches both sides to direct messages, sent word for word, still inside the thread.

During onboarding, homeowners and contractors must agree that all job communication happens in the JobDeposit thread with the AI mediator. The thread is the record for disputes. Each acceptance is saved with a time stamp. This is how JobDeposit works, not legal advice.

See the legal pages: Privacy (/legal/privacy), Cookies (/legal/cookies), Terms (/legal/terms), Payments (/legal/payments), Disputes (/legal/disputes), AI verification (/legal/ai-verification) and Acceptable use (/legal/acceptable-use). Support can point you to these pages but can't interpret them or give legal advice. For data access or deletion requests, ask for a human.

If a dashboard says please sign in, your session ended: sign in again at /login. If a photo won't upload, check the milestone is funded, in progress or retake requested. If the Fund deposit button is missing, the scope may need your approval first. If something still looks wrong, ask for a human and include what you clicked.

The support assistant answers questions about using JobDeposit from this help center. It can't change your account, move money, approve milestones or receipts, or give legal, tax or financial advice. When it can't help, it opens a support ticket with a ticket number and the chat transcript for the support team.