At a training centre run by the startup Pronto, women practice basic household tasks and rehearse emergency protocols for work inside customers' homes. They learn to use app features designed to summon help if they feel threatened, and are coached on practical skills such as chopping and mopping.
The trainees are preparing to join a surge in demand for low-cost, app-booked domestic help. Pronto and fellow newcomer Snabbit have been expanding quickly in cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai, competing with the listed Urban Company in a market that Urban Company estimates is worth about $9 billion and covers 53 million households across India.
A new price point
These platforms are offering services at prices that have no close global comparison - often under 99 rupees, or about $1, an hour. The companies are spending heavily to draw in busy urban professionals, subsidising services to achieve rapid scale. By contrast, similar home services typically cost about $30 an hour in the United States and roughly $7 in China.
The businesses operate via apps that dispatch helpers to apartments in assigned neighbourhoods. Workers receive bookings and, like ride-hailing drivers, press a countdown timer in their apps to start an engagement. For workers who manage long shifts, potential annual earnings from full-time work - eight hours a day - can reach as high as $5,000, a figure that exceeds India’s per capita income of around $3,000.
Worker motivations and precautions
Many women see the work as a way to monetise skills they have practised in their own homes. Indu Jaiswar, 35, said doing household chores in her first formal job could help pay for her son’s medical ambitions. "This is what we’ve been doing in our own homes for years. Might as well get paid for it," she said.
Companies recognise the particular risks of sending predominantly female staff into private residences for extended periods of time. Unlike couriers who spend only moments at doorways, domestic helpers can be inside customers’ homes for hours, increasing the potential for harassment or abuse in a country where sexual harassment rates are a persistent concern.
To address those risks, Snabbit and Pronto say they include an in-app SOS button that notifies area supervisors. Pronto also provides self-defence training, and its CEO, 23-year-old Anjali Sardana, said the company aims to reassure workers by offering legal and medical support when required. "In the offline world, the rate of abuse for a lot of these domestic workers is super high," she said.
Urban Company has previously outlined safety measures such as a women-only helpline and an SOS feature inside its app, and did not comment for this story.
External views on safety protocols
Investors and activists say safety is a central operational challenge. Soumya Chauhan, a principal at Dutch e-commerce investor Prosus, which holds a stake in Urban Company, said she views worker safety as fundamental. "The platforms that successfully crack the safety protocols will earn the deepest consumer loyalty and the most sustainable market returns," she said.
Women’s rights activist Shabnam Hashmi acknowledged that companies perform substantial background checks on workers before onboarding them but argued that customer verification is also necessary. "How is it ever possible for these jobs to be safe for women - even with an SOS button? Unless they carry cameras, which is of course impossible, there is no way to know what happens behind that door," she said.
Some workers adopt personal safeguards. Pronto worker Jaiswar said she always calls a customer before visiting and accepts jobs only when a woman is present.
Surging demand and expansion metrics
The appetite among consumers is evident in booking numbers. Urban Company reported its highest daily home services bookings of 50,000 in February. Snabbit’s orders have climbed to about 35,000 a day. Bain Capital-backed Pronto registered a record 22,000 daily bookings in March, a leap from around 2,500 daily orders in October, and said it raised $25 million in new funding.
Pronto’s CEO said she launched the business last year after spotting simultaneous demand from three sides: customers wanting dependable short-term maids, workers seeking steadier and safer employment, and a gap in the market for a scalable service. "It’s possible to build a win-win-win business," she told Reuters.
Consumers, pricing and behaviour
India’s prevailing habit of outsourcing household tasks and a cultural preference for low-cost solutions are important tailwinds for the expansion of on-demand domestic help. In Bengaluru, a 30-year-old user who goes by Dhruv said he paid 100 rupees an hour for Urban Company to help unpack utensils and hang curtains after moving. The service, he said, "helped him save quite a bit of time and effort," but added that price was decisive. "I wouldn’t pay 400 or 500 rupees for it."
Snabbit’s founder Aayush Agarwal said his platform is gaining traction among young couples and singles who prefer to schedule housekeepers by the job, rather than retain monthly domestic helpers, who are often known to miss work. Pronto’s advertising on Facebook has promoted some visits at 25 rupees with taglines such as "Maid on Leave? Don’t grieve", while an Urban Company three-visit pack is priced at 66 rupees an hour. Snabbit’s ads have highlighted customers booking helpers "just to peel 20 potatoes" or to "separate LEGO blocks by colour."
Unit economics and cash burn
Like many growth-stage startups, these companies are investing heavily to attract both workers and customers. They are paying workers directly to make shifts attractive and are offering large discounts to win new users. Urban Company’s disclosures show that in the October to December period it received 1.61 million home-help orders, with each order incurring a loss of 381 rupees, or about $4.
The company says discounts are moderating but that order values need to rise significantly to reach break-even. Lightspeed partner Rahul Taneja, whose firm backs Snabbit, suggested a path to sustainability. "Over a period of time, it is safe to say that it will become an earn-as-you-go model," he said.
At Pronto’s training centre, posters advertise potential payouts that highlight the gap between worker earnings and what new customers pay. They show home helpers can earn $1.60 per hour for 12-hour days in a month, which the company notes is 48% more than the rate paid by some new customers. That translates to earnings of more than $500 a month, a level of income that attracted 22-year-old Nisha Chandaliya, who left a call centre job that paid about $180 a month to support an ailing mother. "It’s exhausting to clean six-seven homes, but I need the stability. I can’t afford to go back," she said.
Operational and market implications
As bookings rise and marketing incentives persist, the intersection of rapid consumer adoption, concentrated female labour forces and slim unit economics will shape how this segment evolves. Firms that can balance worker safety, customer verification and a viable pricing model may secure durable customer loyalty and more sustainable returns, while those that continue to subsidise orders heavily will face mounting cash demands.
Currency context noted by the companies places $1 at 93.3010 Indian rupees.