Catch a Cast
A two-sided booking marketplace with online payments & payouts
What needed solving
Booking freelance talent happened in DMs. Rates were guesswork, availability was a back-and-forth, and money moved on trust alone - clients paid up front with no guarantee of delivery, and freelancers delivered with no guarantee of being paid.
What I delivered
A two-sided platform that puts structure around the whole transaction. Freelancers publish profiles with rates and availability, clients request and pay for a booking by card, and the funds sit with the platform until the work is complete before an admin releases the payout. Every booking gets its own message thread, an open gigs board surfaces inbound work, and the commission rate is a setting the owner controls rather than a number baked into the code.
What it does
- 01Searchable talent directory with profiles, rates and filters
- 02Availability calendars and structured booking requests
- 03Card payments via PayFast with verified payment notifications
- 04Funds held until completion, with an admin payout release queue
- 05Per-booking message threads so nothing happens off-platform
- 06Open gigs board for inbound opportunities
- 07Owner-configurable commission rate and platform settings
- 08Automated transactional emails at every stage of a booking