How we earn trust, in writing.

Every pro listed on Shatun Brothers verifies their identity before they can list. Beyond that, pros earn additional verification badges by uploading documents we check — visible on every profile, clickable for the supporting details.

Required to list

• •Identity verified. Government-issued ID plus selfie liveness check through Persona, the same identity-verification service used by Robinhood, Brex, and Coinbase. No expired IDs accepted. This is the only check we require — every listed pro has cleared it.

Optional badges (earned, not required)

Each badge appears on a pro's profile only if they've supplied the document and we've verified it. A pro without a particular badge isn't blocked from listing — they simply haven't uploaded that document yet, and you'll see that on their profile. Click any badge to see the underlying details.

• •Insurance Verified. Pro uploaded a current general liability insurance certificate. The badge details show the carrier, expiration date, and coverage amount as listed on the certificate at time of upload. We do not guarantee continuous coverage between annual rechecks.
• •License Verified. Pro supplied a CSLB license number that we matched against the Contractors State License Board database at time of submission. License status is each pro's own legal responsibility, and any homeowner can re-check a license at cslb.ca.gov at any time.

Badges are rechecked annually. If a pro's insurance lapses or a license expires, the corresponding badge is removed from their profile. If you see a pro listed who you suspect is no longer compliant, email trust@shatunbrothers.com and we will audit within five business days.

When a homeowner submits a request, we route it to up to five pros nearby whose profiles match the service category, ZIP code coverage, and timing. The pros are presented to the homeowner in an order determined by these factors:

• Verified response time over the last 90 days.
• Star rating, weighted to give more confidence to pros with more reviews (Bayesian shrinkage prevents a single five-star review from dominating).
• Review count — recent reviews count more than old ones.
• Job-completion rate — how often accepted leads turn into completed jobs.
• Days since the pro last accepted a lead — fresh activity favors active pros.

We publish the factor list. We do not publish the exact weights. The weights are protected for one reason: pros who know the exact formula can game it. By publishing the factors but holding the weights, we let homeowners verify the system is rational while keeping it resistant to manipulation. The factor list is reviewed annually by a third-party audit (we will publish the first audit at the end of year one).

We do not accept paid placement. There is no “featured pro” tier. There is no ad slot above search results. A pro cannot pay to rank higher. The only way to rank higher is to do better work and respond faster.

Reviews are dual-confirmed. Both the homeowner and the pro must leave a review within seven days of the job, or the review is held. This eliminates the most common abuse pattern — where one side (usually the dissatisfied one) leaves a review and the other never responds.

If only one side responds within the seven-day window, the review enters a 24-hour grace period and then publishes with a visible “awaiting other side” tag. If both respond, both publish at the same time.

Pros can leave a public reply to any review on their profile (one reply per review). They cannot edit or delete reviews. Homeowners can edit their review for 24 hours after publication; after that it's locked unless an admin override applies.

Fake reviews — same IP / same email / coordinated patterns — trigger immediate suspension and review removal. We have not had to use this rule yet because we're new, but the rule is in place.

When a homeowner or pro disputes a charge, a job outcome, or a review, the case is reviewed within seven calendar days by a real person. For now, that person is the founder. As the platform grows we will publish the names and roles of dispute reviewers, with quarterly aggregate statistics on decisions and turnaround times.

Reasons a charge can be disputed: phone number bounced, the homeowner did not respond, the work scope was misrepresented, the homeowner backed out before any work began, or duplicate routing of the same lead. We refund the $15 lead fee for any of these and document why. We do not charge restocking fees on disputed leads.

Reasons a review can be disputed: the reviewer never hired the pro, the review describes work outside the actual job scope, or the review violates basic decency standards (slurs, threats, doxxing). Successful review disputes result in the review being removed, not edited.

Decisions are final but appealable once with new evidence. Email disputes@shatunbrothers.com within 10 days of the original decision.

Homeowners pay nothing. Quote requests are free. There is no signup fee, no premium tier, no data sale to third parties. The only money that flows from a homeowner is to the pro for the actual work, and that's direct between the homeowner and the pro — we don't take a cut.

Pros pay $15 per qualified lead. Flat. Same price whether the job is $80 caulking or $600 tile work. No bidding. No premium subscription. No lead-credit churn that locks pros in even when they're not getting matched. The $15 is deducted from the pro's wallet only when a homeowner engages with the pro's reply — never just for a notification.

No hidden fees. We do not charge homeowners an “estimate fee,” “trip fee,” or “platform fee.” We do not charge pros a percentage of the job. The $15 lead fee is the entire pro-side cost.

Some patterns end a pro's account immediately. We list them here so the standards are clear:

• Falsified ID, license, or insurance.
• Coordinated review manipulation (asking friends to post, paying for reviews, retaliatory negative reviews against other pros).
• Charging the homeowner outside the platform's pricing transparency framework — for example, quoting a $200 job and trying to upsell to $800 mid-job without re-quote.
• Refusing to honor dispute decisions after final ruling.
• Discrimination against homeowners based on race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, disability, or any protected class.
• Threatening or harassing homeowners, other pros, or platform staff.
• Pattern of canceling accepted leads at the last minute (more than 20% cancel rate over 30 days).

First-time minor violations may receive a warning. Repeat or severe violations result in permanent account closure and a public note on the prior profile if the pro's reviews remain visible.

Homeowner contact information is shared with a pro only after the homeowner explicitly engages (replies in chat or accepts a quote). Until that point, the pro sees the project, the ZIP, and a first name only. After engagement, the pro sees what the homeowner has chosen to share.

We do not sell either side's data to third parties. We do not run remarketing pixels for advertising platforms outside the messaging required to deliver the service.

California residents have full CCPA rights including access, correction, and deletion. See our Privacy Policy for the request process.

Shatun Brothers launched in Los Angeles in 2026. We do not pretend we have the depth of data Thumbtack or Yelp do. They have a decade-plus head start. What we have is the chance to operate by different rules from day one — process-first instead of catch-up.

In practice that means: visible verification dates on every pro profile, the founder personally reviewing every dispute for the first six months, ranking factor list published, and a kill-rule that says if the platform isn't producing acceptable outcomes by month 18 we shut it down rather than degrade standards to keep it alive.

That last commitment is the most unusual. Most marketplaces, when they aren't working, lower their standards (accept lower-quality pros, accept fake reviews, paid placement) to keep the lights on. We've written down a public kill-rule instead. Worth reading: our About page covers the decision in detail.