Snabbit and Urban Company's InstaHelp Surpass 1 Lakh Jobs Amid Intense Price Competition

BENGALURU: On-demand house-help platforms Snabbit and Urban Company’s InstaHelp each crossed 1 lakh completed jobs on Sunday, as intense competition in the fast-growing category pushed the price of an hour’s household work to as little as Rs 29 in some locations. Snabbit said it had completed more than 1.15 lakh jobs by 6:50 pm on Sunday, with the tally expected to rise further by the end of the day. Urban Company said InstaHelp crossed one lakh delivered orders at 5:54 pm. The company described it as a peak-day milestone, adding that sustained volumes would depend on repeat usage, service quality and worker availability. The milestones came amid aggressive promotional pricing. App screenshots reviewed by TOI showed Urban Company offering 30 minutes of InstaHelp Standard for Rs 19, while 45-minute and one-hour bookings were priced at Rs 29 at the location checked—discounts of up to 88% from regular rates. Snabbit, too, was offering one-hour booking slots for Rs 29 in some locations, according to screenshots shared across social media. By around 7 pm on Sunday, however, Urban Company’s app showed instant service as unavailable at the location checked, with the earliest available slot being the following morning. InstaHelp promises to send a worker within 10-15 minutes for chores such as sweeping, mopping, dishwashing, laundry and basic meal preparation. Urban Company launched InstaHelp as a pilot in Mumbai in March last year and has since expanded the service to select neighbourhoods across major metros. “Crossing 100,000 delivered orders in a single day, barely five months after we crossed 50,000, reflects both the growing consumer demand for InstaHelp and the strength of the operating model we’ve built,” said Urban Company co-founder and CEO Abhiraj Singh Bhal. Snabbit has scaled from about 400 daily jobs to more than one lakh in under two years. It completed four million house-help jobs in the April-June quarter, including 1.51 million in June alone. The company said its cash burn per completed job fell by more than Rs 100 sequentially to below Rs 250.