India’s next 10-minute delivery? Domestic workers on demand

Startups are racing to dispatch cooks, cleaners, and other household workers within minutes of a booking. Backed by marquee investors, these ventures are betting that urban India’s hunger for speed and convenience will extend beyond products to people-powered services.

Snabbit, a Mumbai-based startup, has raised $25.5 million across three rounds in just five months, according to data from Tracxn. Its latest $19 million fundraise was led by Lightspeed. While the company hasn’t disclosed its valuation, investor interest is surging—fuelled by parallels with quick commerce and a $5 billion home services market expected to quadruple by 2032, according to Zion Market Research.

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Urban Company, a larger rival in the home services space, is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO). Gurugram-based Pronto, still in its seed stage, is reportedly courting more capital after a $2 million round led by Bain Capital Ventures.

Yet behind the breakneck growth lies a more uncomfortable question: what happens when the 10-minute delivery model is applied not to groceries—but to people?

“India is increasingly becoming a testing ground for what we call blood and sweat aggregator companies, platforms that extract maximum labour for minimal compensation, with little regard for social security, safety, or job stability.”

– Shaik Salauddin

A different kind of platform

Snabbit’s model breaks from the typical gig platform playbook.

Unlike typical gig platforms that merely connect users with workers, Snabbit controls the entire supply chain—recruiting, training, assigning, and paying its workforce, according to co-founder and CEO Aayush Agarwal.

“This isn’t a model where someone picks up a gig and disappears. If someone leaves, they’re exiting the platform entirely,” he said.

Snabbit employs over 600 “experts”—the company’s term for domestic workers—who operate in tight, hyperlocal clusters. Workers typically walk 300 metres between jobs, though some borrow e-bikes to stretch their reach to 800 metres. Service charges range from ₹169 to ₹499 for a four-hour booking, significantly higher than Urban Company’s ₹49 entry point for its InstaHelp service.

The platform’s pitch: urgency. Unlike Urban Company, which emphasizes subscriptions and predictable demand, Snabbit is positioning itself as a high-speed backup solution for when household help doesn’t show up.

“People are largely insensitive to pricing when it comes to on-demand services, because it’s not a daily-use case,” said Agarwal.

Inside the model: flexibility, but with limits

Snabbit does not explicitly classify its workers as gig workers or employees, but its operational model leans gig-style. Workers are not on formal payrolls, but they do receive personal life, health, and accident insurance, and, in some cases, family coverage, two workers based in Mumbai told Mint.

Earnings vary widely. According to Snabbit, workers can earn over ₹10,000 per month for four-hour daily shifts and upwards of ₹40,000 for 12-hour shifts, with bonuses on top. Workers Mint spoke with corroborated this range, reporting monthly incomes between ₹12,000 and ₹40,000 depending on shift duration and location.

These, however, are gross figures and do not account for unpaid waiting time, idle hours between bookings, or occasional cancellations. Part-time workers typically reported earning ₹12,000-18,000 a month, while full-time workers in high-demand zones cited take-home pay of ₹35,000–40,000. While not universal, such earnings appear achievable for consistently active workers operating in dense, high-volume micro-markets.

Because Snabbit operates on an urgency-driven model, earnings are closely tied to availability and responsiveness. Workers active during peak hours and based near clusters of demand are far more likely to hit the upper end of the pay spectrum. Those in lower-density areas—or unable to accept jobs quickly—see lower and more erratic incomes.

Platform stickiness and user behaviour

Snabbit says it has onboarded over 25,000 customers, who use the service roughly three times per month on average. Retention rates, the company claims, are on par with consumer internet platforms like Swiggy or Zepto—high benchmarks in the Indian app economy.

Snabbit is betting that these urgent, last-minute use cases will give it a foothold in the broader home services ecosystem—spanning cooks, drivers, and nannies.

Still, the model comes with familiar platform risks.

One of the biggest challenges for service marketplaces is disintermediation—where customers start hiring workers directly, bypassing the platform. Urban Company has flagged this as a key concern in its IPO draft papers. Snabbit claims its full-stack approach reduces this risk.

“If a client books a worker directly, that worker risks losing access to our platform and guaranteed payout,” said Agarwal. “It’s not in their interest to go offline.”

That deterrent may be real, especially if workers see the platform as a stable income source. Rahul Taneja, partner at Lightspeed (an investor in Snabbit and Zepto), argues that trust and unpredictability also act as bulwarks.

“Disintermediation has happened when tasks have been infrequent and predictable, like servicing an AC twice a year. With high frequency needs that change every time—cleaning today, chopping veggies tomorrow—a platform serves you better than a specific individual,” Taneja said.

“Trust and safety matters in this business. There is a service professional whom you’re letting into your home. A platform that assures safety makes all the difference,” he said.

Agarwal expresses caution about subscription models for home services, viewing them as better suited to predictable, daily-use cases, and a potential drag on pricing.

“The moment you shift from on-demand to subscription, your rates effectively halve, since that’s more of a daily-use case. But by aggregating demand and optimising through our supply network, we can command a premium—offering the promise that we can reach your house within 10 minutes, whenever you want,” said Agarwal.

In contrast, Urban Company embraces subscriptions and service bundles as a way to deliver better value and deepen customer loyalty.

Safety, support, and stress points

Snabbit uses an internal CRM, eKYC process, and custom screening system to verify and onboard workers. Its app includes an SOS button that alerts a field operations team, which the company says typically reaches the worker within 5–7 minutes.

But as with any speed-driven platform, the question of worker welfare remains.

“India is increasingly becoming a testing ground for what we call blood and sweat aggregator companies, platforms that extract maximum labour for minimal compensation, with little regard for social security, safety, or job stability,” said Shaik Salauddin, National General Secretary of the Indian Federation of App-Based Transport Workers (IFAT).

“These businesses thrive on hyper-commodified labour, where workers are treated as disposable tools to meet tight delivery timelines and rising customer expectations,” he added.

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The broader market hasn’t been kind to speed-at-any-cost models. Zepto shuttered its 10-minute cafe vertical due to operational stress. Zomato shut down 15-minute deliveries after four months, citing weak demand. Whether domestic services can scale where food and coffee struggled remains to be seen.

A calculated entry

Still, investors like Elevation Capital, an early backer of Snabbit, see long-term potential.

“Many of these segments remain largely unorganised and informal but have a hyperlocal demand pattern,” said Manish Advani, principal at Elevation. “Snabbit started with a deep pain point, when your regular help doesn’t show up. This acts as a Trojan horse to enter and serve broader, and frequent needs over time.”

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In the short term, Snabbit is betting on the messiness of urban life—last-minute cancellations, no-shows, and sudden gaps—as its opportunity. Whether it builds a durable platform or simply a clever workaround may depend on how well it can protect workers, serve users, and survive the costs of speed.