Editorial Standards

Our editorial mission

To publish accurate, useful, non-promotional information that helps South African households hire home-service providers safely and at a fair price. When our commercial interests conflict with the user's interest, the user wins.

Research process

1. Primary marketplace data

   We analyse anonymised transaction data from completed jobs on the HomeSorted marketplace — bid ranges, accepted-quote values, category demand and geographic distribution. Sample sizes and time windows are declared inside each pricing table.

2. Regulatory cross-check

   Every price, requirement or claim tied to South African law is verified against the primary regulator (PIRB, Department of Employment and Labour, SABS, National Consumer Commission, Information Regulator) before publication.

3. Practitioner review

   Where a topic is trade-specific (plumbing, electrical, gas), the draft is reviewed by at least one HomeSorted-verified provider who works in that trade before it goes live.

4. Editorial approval

   Nothing publishes without sign-off from the HomeSorted Editorial Team. Sign-off attaches an author byline, a published date and a review date to the page.

What we will never do

• Manufacture fake author personas or invent credentials for editorial staff.
• Publish AI-generated filler content that is not fact-checked and reviewed by a human editor.
• Sell placements inside our editorial guides. Advertising, if ever introduced, will be clearly labelled and physically separated from editorial content.
• Alter historical articles silently. Substantive changes are logged in a public changelog on each page.
• Hide corrections. Corrections are surfaced on our Corrections page and linked from the affected article.

Sponsored content policy

HomeSorted currently does not accept sponsored content. If we introduce paid partnerships in the future, they will be labelled with a clearly visible "Sponsored" tag at the top of the article, marked with `rel="sponsored"` on outbound links, and excluded from our editorial recommendation lists.

Corrections and updates

If we get something wrong, we fix it. Material corrections are dated on the affected page and appended to /trust/corrections. Minor updates (grammar, phrasing) do not bump the review date. Substantive updates (price changes, regulatory changes, methodology changes) do.

Contact the editorial team

To submit a correction, share primary data with us, or challenge a claim in one of our guides, email editorial@homesorted.co.za or use the Contact page linked below. We respond within five working days.