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OakTend Pro Terms

Last updated September 20, 2026.

Summary (not a substitute for the terms below): These are the extra rules for contractors ("pros") who use OakTend for Pros. You are an independent business, not our employee. You need a valid license (or every job you take must fit California's narrow small-job exception, described with its conditions in Section 3) and your own insurance. There is no fee to apply, quote, or message about a job. When a homeowner hires you for a job through the app, we charge a success fee of 5% of the agreed job value, with a $15 minimum and a $1,000 cap, charged once at the time of hire. The homeowner then pays your invoice through the app, using Stripe, after the work is done. When it opens, Pro membership is planned at $29.99 a month or $239.88 a year, with a three (3)-day free trial. OakTend is in a homeowner preview right now: the Pro side is not open to new signups, memberships cannot be bought, and no charge of any kind is made. See Section 9. You are responsible for your own taxes, permits, and the way you do your work. These terms work together with the general Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, which still cover things like arbitration, the liability cap, and governing law. We do not repeat those rules here.

1. Who this applies to and how you accept it

These Pro Terms apply to you if you create a pro account on OakTend, whether you sign up as an individual tradesperson or on behalf of a business. They apply in addition to the general Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Where something here is specific to being a pro and the general Terms of Service does not address it, these terms fill the gap. Where the two actually conflict on a pro-specific point, these terms control.

You accept these terms by checking the box shown during pro onboarding, described in the appendix at the end of this document. We record that acceptance, along with the timestamp, your IP address, and your user agent, the same way we record acceptance of the general Terms of Service.

If you are signing up on behalf of a business, you confirm that you have the authority to bind that business to these terms, and "you" in this document means both you personally and the business you represent. If you are a sole proprietor operating under your own name, "you" means you individually. Either way, the license, insurance, and conduct obligations in these terms apply to the business entity that actually performs the work, whichever one that is.

OakTend may offer a pro account to an individual or to a company. Nothing about how you register changes your obligations under California contractor law. If your license is held by a corporation, LLC, or partnership, you confirm that the entity performing work through OakTend is the same entity that holds the license you provide us.

2. You are an independent contractor, not our employee

Using OakTend as a pro does not make you an employee, agent, partner, or joint venturer of OakTend LLC, a California limited liability company. There is no employment relationship, no agency relationship, and no partnership between you and OakTend, however a homeowner's job through the platform turns out.

Concretely, that means:

OakTend does not train you, does not supervise your work, does not provide your tools or materials, and does not tell you how to perform your trade. The service contract for any job is between you and the homeowner. We are not a party to it, and we do not guarantee, inspect, or warrant the work performed under it.

3. License requirements

If the work you take on through OakTend requires a California contractor's license, you must hold an active, appropriately classified license issued by the Contractors State License Board (CSLB) that covers that work.

California law has a narrow small-job exception (Business and Professions Code section 7048). You do not need a CSLB license for a job where the total price for labor, materials, and everything else is under $1,000, but only if all of these are true: the work does not need a building permit, you do the work yourself without employing anyone to do it or help with it, and the job is not a piece of a larger project or split up to stay under $1,000. If you advertise, your ad must say you are not a licensed contractor (Business and Professions Code section 7027.2), and you must never hold yourself out as licensed. The exception is narrow, and it is your responsibility to know whether it applies to a given job, not ours.

If you enter a license number in your OakTend profile, you confirm that the number is accurate and belongs to you or to the business entity performing the work. We periodically check the license number you provide against the CSLB's public license lookup. When we display a "License verified" badge on your profile, it means only this: the license number you gave us matched an active license in the CSLB's public database as of the date shown next to the badge. It is a point-in-time public-records check. It is not a guarantee that your license is still active today, not a guarantee that you personally are the license holder, and not a guarantee of the quality of your work. We tell homeowners to independently check cslb.ca.gov if they want current information, and you should expect homeowners to do that.

You must tell us within five (5) days if your license is suspended, revoked, expires without renewal, or otherwise stops being active. You can update your license information in your account, or contact us at support@oaktend.com. Continuing to accept jobs on OakTend that require a license you no longer hold is a serious violation of these terms and may result in suspension or termination under Section 16, in addition to whatever the law separately requires of you.

Beyond what OakTend requires, California law imposes its own rules on how you do business, and you remain responsible for all of them, including:

OakTend does not review your contracts, your bids, or your deposit practices before you send them to a homeowner. Compliance with these laws is entirely your responsibility. A violation of any of them is also a violation of these terms.

Where OakTend stands under contractor law. OakTend is not a contractor and is not a home improvement salesperson for you or anyone else. We do not solicit, negotiate, sign, or perform home improvement contracts on behalf of any licensee. We publish job posts that homeowners write, and you decide whether to apply. During the homeowner preview, while the Pro side is closed, our team may also tell a local pro about a job a homeowner posted. When we do that we pass along only the job details the homeowner wrote. We pass the homeowner's name or contact details only after the homeowner has told us to. We do not price, negotiate, or close the job for anyone, and we take no fee for it. Because we never act as your sales agent, OakTend does not register with the CSLB as a home improvement salesperson, and nothing in these terms makes us one. If you ever ask us to negotiate or close a contract for you, we will say no.

Homeowner Data Use Addendum. By accepting these terms you also accept the Homeowner Data Use Addendum, which sets the rules for how you may use the homeowner information inside a lead. It is incorporated here by reference and controls over Section 10 if the two differ.

4. Insurance and bond

If your trade requires you to carry a CSLB contractor's bond, you must maintain it in the amount the law requires. You must also maintain general liability insurance appropriate to the work you take on through OakTend, and workers' compensation insurance if you have employees, as required by California Labor Code section 3700.

Any insurance information you enter into your OakTend profile, such as your carrier name and policy expiration date, is self-reported by you. We do not call your insurance carrier to confirm it, and we do not verify that a policy is actually in force. When we display your insurance information to a homeowner, we label it as self-reported, and you agree that this label is accurate: it reflects what you told us, not something OakTend independently checked.

You are responsible for keeping this information accurate and current. If your coverage lapses or changes, update your profile promptly. You may optionally upload a certificate of insurance to your account for your own record-keeping and to show homeowners; uploading a document does not change the self-reported nature of the insurance chip shown elsewhere on your profile, and we do not audit uploaded certificates for authenticity.

You also agree to carry appropriate liability insurance covering bodily injury and property damage for the work you perform through OakTend, and to keep it current for as long as you take jobs here. That obligation is yours under these terms, and it applies to every job you take, whatever its size.

OakTend does not enforce it for you. We do not verify your coverage, and we do not decide which jobs you may apply for based on what is on file. Whether you carry insurance, whether it is adequate for a particular job, and whether a homeowner is willing to hire you without it, are matters between you and that homeowner. What you tell us is shown to homeowners as self-reported, as described above, so they can ask you for a certificate before work starts.

OakTend is a venue that connects homeowners with independent businesses. OakTend does not perform, supervise, or guarantee the work, and you are solely responsible for the work you perform, including any injury or property damage arising from it. Keeping a document on file with OakTend is record-keeping, not an endorsement: it does not make OakTend your insurer, and it does not change your own liability for your own work.

5. Background checks

OakTend may offer an optional background check through Checkr, a third-party consumer reporting agency, when this feature is enabled. If it is, you decide separately whether to complete a Checkr background check, and you go through Checkr's own consent process to do so. We do not run a background check on you without your separate consent through Checkr.

If you complete a check, and only if you consent to sharing the result, we may show a badge on your profile indicating that a background check was completed. We do not publish the underlying report to homeowners.

Under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Checkr, not OakTend, is the consumer reporting agency that prepares any background check report. If you have questions or disputes about the accuracy of a report, you should direct them to Checkr using the process Checkr provides you, not to OakTend.

6. Jobs and the success fee

A "lead" on OakTend is a job a homeowner has posted, including the details of the work and, once the homeowner has chosen you for it, the homeowner's contact information. Leads are non-exclusive unless we specifically say otherwise for a particular job: the same job may be shown to, and applied to by, more than one pro.

There is no fee to browse jobs, apply to a job, message a homeowner about it, or send a quote.

We do not guarantee the volume of jobs you will see, their quality, how responsive a homeowner will be, whether you will be hired, or how much income you will earn through OakTend. Nothing on the platform, in our marketing, or in a sales conversation should be read as a promise about your future business. Any number we show in marketing material, such as an example of what another pro has earned, is an illustration, not a projection of what you personally will earn, and past results shown by us or by any other pro are not a guarantee of your results.

Success fee. When a homeowner hires you for a job through OakTend, we charge you a success fee of 5% of the agreed job value, with a minimum of $15 and a cap of $1,000 per job. The fee is charged once, at the time the homeowner hires you, not when you apply, quote, or message.

Prices may change. If we change the success fee, the new fee applies to a hire that happens after the change; it does not change what you already owe on a job you were hired for before the change. We will give reasonable notice of a fee change.

7. In-app payments through Stripe Connect

Pros connect a Stripe Express account to OakTend. You need one connected before a homeowner can hire and pay you through the app.

Here is how payment will work when in-app payments open. No payments are taken during the preview period described in Section 9. After a homeowner hires you for a job and the work is complete, the homeowner pays your invoice for that job through OakTend. The payment goes from the homeowner to you through Stripe. OakTend does not hold the homeowner's payment at any point before it reaches you, and does not hold it in escrow.

OakTend is not the merchant of record for the payment between you and a homeowner; that payment is between you and the homeowner, processed through Stripe.

The success fee described in Section 6 is charged to you through your connected Stripe Express account, under the Stripe agreement you accept when you connect it, including Stripe's Connected Account Agreement. That agreement, not these Pro Terms, governs your relationship with Stripe as a platform for receiving payments.

We may add escrow, holds, or a different payment structure in a later phase. If we do, we will update these Pro Terms and tell you before the change takes effect.

8. Pro membership

OakTend Pro membership is an optional paid subscription. It is not on sale during the preview period described in Section 9. When it opens, we plan to price it at $29.99 per month or $239.88 per year, with a three (3)-day free trial for every new member before the subscription starts billing. Your card will be charged automatically once the free trial ends, unless you cancel first, and the subscription will renew automatically on the cadence you chose until you cancel.

You will be able to cancel online at any time from your Billing page in the app. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for; there is no partial refund for the unused part of a billing period.

Pro membership is not required to see or apply to jobs. Every pro, member or not, sees every open job on OakTend and pays the same success fee described in Section 6 if hired. Membership never gates access to a job that a non-member cannot also see and apply to. What membership includes beyond that is described on the membership page from time to time.

Pro membership signup is currently part of the preview period described in Section 9; see that section for what is and is not being charged today.

For the full disclosure of price, billing cycle, trial terms, and cancellation, along with the auto-renewal rules required by California law, see the Billing and Refund Policy. That document, not this one, is the authoritative source if the two ever appear to differ on a billing detail.

9. Preview period

OakTend is in a homeowner preview. The Pro side is not open to new signups. Homeowner paid features are free, memberships show as coming soon and cannot be bought, and no charge of any kind is made. We will tell you by email and on this page before that changes. The prices in these Pro Terms describe what we plan to offer when the Pro side and memberships open.

While the preview lasts, the Pro side shows a coming-soon page with a waitlist instead of an open pro sign-up flow, and no success fee, membership charge, or other fee under these Pro Terms is charged to any pro.

10. Homeowner data

A lead includes personal information about the homeowner. Before the homeowner chooses you, that is the details of the job they posted, their city, their photos, and a first name and last initial. Once the homeowner has chosen you for the job, it also includes their name, email, phone number, and property address. You may use this information only to respond to and perform that specific job. You may not add a homeowner's information to a marketing list, resell it, share it with anyone outside your own business, or use it to solicit the homeowner for something unrelated to the job you were introduced to them for, unless the homeowner separately and clearly agrees to that.

OakTend provides an in-app CRM feature where you can keep your own notes on homeowners you have worked with. This is for your own business record-keeping. It does not change the rule above: information you keep there is still subject to the same "use it for the purpose it was given to you" limits.

If a homeowner deletes their OakTend account or otherwise asks us to delete their information, and we relay that request to you, you must honor it with respect to your own copy of their data, including anything you have stored in your CRM notes, except to the extent you are separately required by law to keep a record (for example, a signed contract or an invoice you must retain for tax purposes).

You must keep any homeowner data you handle secure, using reasonable safeguards appropriate to the sensitivity of the information. You are an independent business, and you are responsible for your own compliance with any privacy law that applies to you directly, including the California Consumer Privacy Act if it applies to your business. OakTend's Privacy Policy describes our own obligations as the platform; it does not describe or substitute for yours.

11. Conduct

You agree to communicate with homeowners professionally and to treat them with respect. The following are not allowed:

A violation of this section is grounds for account suspension or termination under Section 16.

12. Profiles and content

You are responsible for the accuracy of everything in your OakTend profile, including your business description, license number, and insurance information. By posting content to OakTend, including photos, descriptions, and messages, you grant us the license needed to display that content on the platform as part of operating OakTend, consistent with the general Terms of Service.

Photos you post of completed work must be your own work, or work you have the rights to post. If a photo shows a homeowner's property, you must have that homeowner's permission to post it. Do not post photos of a job you did not perform, and do not post identifying photos of a property without the property owner's permission.

13. Reviews about you

Only a homeowner whose job you were assigned to through OakTend can leave a review about you. We do not remove a review because it is negative. We only remove a review for violating our content guidelines, such as containing profanity, someone's contact information, harassment, content unrelated to the job, or a review we determine is fake. We plan to let you post one (1) public response under a review. Until that is available, you can ask us to look at a review by writing to support@oaktend.com. If you believe a review violates our guidelines, you can report it, and we will review it against those guidelines, not against whether you agree with the rating.

14. Messaging

In-app messages between you and homeowners are automatically screened for things like slurs, profanity, and attempts to share contact information outside the platform. We may also review message content for safety and fraud purposes, consistent with the general Privacy Policy. Keep your communications with homeowners professional, whatever the channel.

15. Fees, taxes, and invoices

Stripe processes the success fee and Pro membership subscriptions. Stripe, through your connected Stripe Express account, also processes a homeowner's payment to you for a job, as described in Section 7. OakTend does not directly handle your card information.

You are solely responsible for any taxes owed on the income you earn from work you perform for homeowners you meet through OakTend. If the law requires OakTend, Stripe, or both to issue you a tax form for your OakTend activity, we, or Stripe on our behalf, will comply with that requirement.

16. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your pro account for reasons including: your license lapsing, being suspended, or being revoked without you telling us as required by Section 3; credible complaints about your conduct or your work; fraud or abuse, including circumventing the success fee described in Section 6; failure to pay amounts you owe us; or any other violation of these terms or the general Terms of Service.

If your account is suspended or terminated for a violation, any account credit you were holding is forfeited, and any active Pro membership is cancelled; you will not be charged again after cancellation, but we do not refund the unused portion of a period you already paid for except as the Billing and Refund Policy or the law otherwise requires.

If you believe a suspension or termination was made in error, you can appeal by emailing support@oaktend.com and explaining why. We will review the appeal, though we cannot guarantee a particular outcome.

17. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless OakTend LLC, a California limited liability company from any claim, loss, or expense, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of: the work you perform for a homeowner; a violation of a license, insurance, or other legal requirement described in Sections 3 and 4; a claim brought by a homeowner arising from your work or your dealings with them; or your misuse of homeowner data in violation of Section 10. This indemnity covers your own conduct; it does not require you to cover a claim caused by OakTend's own conduct.

18. Disclaimers specific to pros

OakTend does not guarantee that the platform will be available at all times, free of interruptions, or error-free, consistent with the general Terms of Service.

The accuracy of a lead depends on what the homeowner told us: the job details, the address, and the description of the work are only as accurate as the homeowner's own input. We do not independently verify a job posting before it reaches you.

We compare the name on a homeowner's account with the owner name in public property records, which we get from our property-data provider, and show a "Name matches public record" indicator when the two loosely match. This is a soft trust signal, not a legal determination of property ownership, and some homeowners, such as those in a condo association, will show as unverified even when they do legitimately own their home. Do not treat either the presence or the absence of this indicator as a guarantee of who owns a property.

19. Changes and contact

We may update these Pro Terms as OakTend changes, following the same notice process described in the general Terms of Service for material changes: we will give you actual notice, such as an email or an in-app notice, before a material change takes effect, and update the "Last updated" date above. Continuing to use OakTend for Pros after a material change takes effect means you accept it.

Questions about these Pro Terms can be sent to support@oaktend.com. Legal notices should go to legal@oaktend.com.

Appendix: Onboarding acknowledgment

Shown as a required checkbox during pro account onboarding, before the account can start applying to jobs:

Checkbox text: "I have read and agree to the Pro Terms and the Terms of Service, and I confirm the statements below."

By continuing you confirm:

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