Made by the little people,
for the little people.
BackScratch is a community platform for small businesses and locals to find each other, trade skills, and make deals — cash, barter, or both.
What is BackScratch?
BackScratch connects local small businesses and individuals for jobs, services, and bartering — building real local economies beyond money. You can trade a plumbing job for graphic design, pay cash for catering, or get creative with whatever arrangement works for both sides. No middlemen. No algorithms deciding who sees your work. Just direct deals between real people.
How deals work
Post
List what you need or offer.
Message
Find someone local in the feed and message them directly.
Propose
Build a deal with clear terms for both sides.
Sign
Both parties agree and sign off.
Complete
Mark the deal done when both sides deliver.
Review
Leave a review — honest and fair.
The BackScratch story
Some of the most valuable exchanges I've ever seen never involved a dollar. They involved a favor, a skill, a relationship — the kind of thing that holds a community together but never shows up on anyone's books.
I grew up watching that up close. My parents ran a catering business in Boston and a restaurant in my homewtown. The money was hard and neither lasted. But the community those businesses built — the neighbors who showed up, the regulars who became friends, the quiet web of people looking out for each other — that part was real. That part lasted.
Small businesses don't fail because they're bad at what they do. They fail because the system isn't built for them. Grants have bars too high to clear. Platforms charge fees that eat into margins that were never fat to begin with. Markets get unstable. And the businesses that hold neighborhoods together quietly disappear.
“The platforms that were supposed to help small businesses have mostly figured out how to extract from them instead.”
BackScratch is a direct response to that. A place where small businesses, tradespeople, makers, and service providers can find each other — post what they need, offer what they have, and make deals that work. Cash, barter, or both. No pay-to-play. No algorithmic invisibility. No fees that punish you for not having cash.
Barter isn't a backup plan for when money is tight. It's how communities have always worked — trading real skills and real goods based on real trust. BackScratch treats it that way. Barter is always free on this platform, and it always will be.
We're starting in Greater Boston — with real businesses, real deals, and real community. Not here to scale fast and extract value on the way out. Here to build something that actually works for the people who need it most.
Made by the little people, for the little people.
Our values
Community first
The community is the product. Every feature we build serves connection, not extraction.
Barter is real value
A fair trade between neighbors is worth just as much as a cash transaction. We built the platform to reflect that.
Built for the overlooked
Accessibility isn't an afterthought here. BackScratch is built specifically for the people mainstream platforms ignore or exploit.
Honest and direct
No dark patterns. No buried fees. We're transparent about how we make money because we think you deserve to know.
Local roots, global vision
We start local and we think big. Greater Boston first — every city and neighborhood that's been left behind, next.
Who it's for
If you run a small business, work for yourself, or want to support local — BackScratch is for you.
FAQ
What is BackScratch?
A community platform where small businesses and locals find each other, trade skills, and make deals — cash, barter, or both.
Is barter really free?
Yes. Barter deals are always free on BackScratch. That's by design and it will never change.
Who is BackScratch for?
Small businesses, tradespeople, makers, healers, food vendors, sole proprietors, and the neighbors who want to support them.
What if someone doesn't hold up their end of a deal?
BackScratch has a built-in dispute system. We facilitate resolution but we don't legally enforce deals — fulfillment is the personal responsibility of each party.
Is my information safe?
[FILL IN — standard privacy and data security answer goes here]
How do I get started?
Sign up, complete your business profile, and post what you need or what you offer. It takes about 5 minutes.
Ready to find your people?
Sign up in 5 minutes. Post what you need or offer. Start making local deals.