Terms of use

1. What Gikswork is

Gikswork is a marketplace. Employers post jobs, and freelancers (workers and professionals) apply and do the work. We are not the employer of any freelancer, and we do not do the work ourselves. Each job is an agreement between the employer and the freelancer. We provide the app, check identities and help when something goes wrong. Money is held in escrow, secured by EscrowPay, not by Gikswork.

2. Your account

You must be 18 or older and use your real name. One person, one account.

Keep your password and sign-in codes to yourself. Gikswork staff will never ask for them. You are responsible for what happens on your account.

Everyone who pays or gets paid checks their ID once, with their NIN or BVN and date of birth, through EscrowPay. Freelancers do this before their first job, and employers before their first payment or a job above ₦50,000. The name on the ID must match the name on your account. The check is free (Gikswork pays for it) and you do it once. It confirms who you are. It is not a police or background check.

3. How payment works (escrow)

Every naira you add to your Gikswork wallet is paid into escrow with EscrowPay and held at Rubies Microfinance Bank, a bank licensed by the Central Bank of Nigeria, until it leaves Gikswork. Your money is not Gikswork's to spend. It moves only for a job, a fee, a refund or a withdrawal, as these terms say. Our records show what is yours, and we check them against EscrowPay's records every day.

Before you add or withdraw money, you check your NIN or BVN once with EscrowPay. Money is added by bank transfer, from ₦5,000. Withdrawals are from ₦10,000, cost ₦100 each and go only to a bank account in your own name. Money you added yourself and did not use is checked by our team before it is sent back to you. Moving money inside Gikswork has no transfer charge. The 10% Gikswork fee on a worker's pay still applies.

Jobs only go live when the money is already held. When an employer posts a job, the full pay is moved from their wallet into escrow. The freelancer can see that the money is there before they accept. On a staged job, only the stage now running is held: each next stage is moved into escrow when the last one is paid, and the worker is not expected to carry on until it is.

When the freelancer marks the work done, the employer has 48 hours (72 hours for each stage of a staged job, unless the post says otherwise) to check it and release the payment, or report a problem. If the employer says nothing in that time, the payment is released by itself. Half of a payment released this way reaches the wallet at once, and the rest after 7 days.

Money for goods (for example market shopping or materials) is held the same way and never charged a fee. When the employer approves the materials list and confirms the freelancer's before photo (that the freelancer is there), the materials money is sent straight to the freelancer's bank account. Materials money once sent is final: it is for buying the agreed items and is not returned at the end of the job. Goods money still held and not sent goes back to the employer.

4. Fees and plans

Employers pay no fee on hiring. Freelancers pay a 10% Gikswork fee on the service fee only, taken when the payment is released. Goods money is never charged a Gikswork fee. When you add money, EscrowPay's fee for holding it in escrow (1.5% plus ₦150, at most ₦3,000 for amounts up to ₦250,000) applies; it is not a Gikswork fee, it is paid by you on top of the amount added, and it is always shown before you pay.

Gikswork is free to start. Employers move to a ₦2,000 monthly plan after hiring ₦100,000 in total, and freelancers to a ₦2,000 monthly plan after earning ₦150,000. We tell you before a plan starts, and you can cancel it at any time; it runs to the end of the month you paid for.

Boosts (showing a job or profile higher for 7 days) cost ₦1,000. Withdrawals cost ₦100, from ₦10,000. Welcome and invite credit pays only for plans and boosts. It cannot be withdrawn or spent on hiring.

Freelancers can download a stamped CV of their finished jobs. The first 3 are free, then each new one costs ₦200 from wallet cash. It can include the photos and ratings from those jobs, the employer's first name and initial and the area, never an address or phone number. Employers can download a report of the work they paid for, free. Anyone holding a document's code can check it is genuine.

Invites: you get ₦500 credit when a friend you invited starts, and ₦500 more after their first job, for friends who join within 30 days of you signing up. Invite credit is limited to ₦10,000 in all. A phone number that was used on a deleted account earns no new welcome or invite credit.

5. Keep it on Gikswork

Contact details stay hidden until an offer is accepted, and must not be put in posts, applications, offers, bids or profiles. If anyone pays or gets paid outside the app, they lose all protection, and Gikswork is not responsible for anything that happens after. Asking someone to pay outside the app can lead to your account being restricted.

6. Offers, cancelling and no-shows

An offer stays open for 24 hours (2 hours for urgent jobs). Once accepted, both sides have agreed to the job.

If the employer cancels after an offer is accepted, the freelancer is paid 10% of the service fee for keeping the time free. The freelancer has 24 hours to show they spent more (receipts or travel); if our team accepts that proof, the freelancer may be paid 30% to 70% of the service fee, plus receipted materials at cost with 20% on top. The rest goes back to the employer.

A freelancer who cancels, or does not turn up within 60 minutes of the start without checking in, shows lower in search for 7 days (30 days for a no-show) and the employer gets their money back in full.

7. Problems and disputes

If the work is not right, report a problem within the time to check, or within 7 days if the payment was released by itself. Money still held stays held while it is sorted. You can agree a split together with the assistant, or our team looks at both sides' photos, chat and proof and decides how the held money is shared. Our team replies within 24 hours. Our team may ask both of you for more proof (a written account and photos); each side then has 24 hours to send it, and if only one side sends proof, the held money goes to that side. Decisions on large amounts are checked by a second person. See how disputes work.

8. What is not allowed

• Fake accounts, fake jobs, or pretending to be someone else.
• Anything illegal, unsafe or abusive, including harassment of any kind.
• Taking payment outside Gikswork, or asking others to.
• Posting contact details where they are not allowed, or false reviews.
• Trying to break, copy or overload the app.

Job posts, kinds of work and job photos may be checked automatically and by our team, and we may refuse or hide what breaks these rules.

The full list is in our acceptable use policy, which is part of these terms.

We may hide content, stop money being paid out while we investigate, or restrict or close accounts that break these terms. Some short pauses happen automatically, for example after repeated no-shows or late cancellations. You can appeal a paused or locked account from the page you see when you sign in, or at gikswork.com/locked.

9. Ratings

After a job, both sides can rate each other for 7 days, from 1 (Very bad) to 6 (Excellent), with a few words saying why. Ratings must be honest and about the job.

10. Our responsibility

We check identities and keep careful records, but we cannot promise that every person on Gikswork is honest or that every job goes well. The freelancer is responsible for their work and the employer for the workplace and instructions. To the extent the law allows, Gikswork is not liable for losses caused by the people you meet here, and our total liability to you is limited to the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under Nigerian consumer protection law.

11. Closing your account

You can close your account from Settings, Privacy and data, once no job is open and any money is withdrawn. Your personal details are removed 30 days after you ask, so you can change your mind. Records of money movements are kept for 7 years, as the law requires.

12. Changes and the law

We may update these terms. If a change matters, we tell you in the app before it applies. These terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.