Earned wage access · South Africa
You’ve already earned it.
Waiting until the 25th is not a cash-flow plan. Draw the wages you have already worked for this month, for one small flat fee, and it comes off your next payslip once.
- We never ask for your bank details
- Works on WhatsApp and USSD
- Six languages
- Next business day
- —
- Within the hour
- —
Early in the cycle there is not yet enough earned to draw. The minimum draw is R200.
How it works
Four steps, and only one of them is yours.
The order matters here: nothing can be drawn before it has been earned, and nothing is recovered before it has been agreed.
- 01
Your employer signs up
They connect payroll and set the share of earned wages their staff can reach. It costs them nothing and they fund nothing.
- 02
Your earned wages add up
Every day you work, your balance grows. We read it from payroll or your clock-in data, never from a guess.
- 03
You draw what you need
On your phone, on WhatsApp, or by dialling a USSD code. Money lands next business day, or inside an hour if you choose.
- 04
One line on your payslip
The amount you drew plus the flat fee is recovered from your next pay. One line, once, agreed in writing up front.
What it costs
One flat fee. No percentages, ever.
A percentage punishes the biggest draws, which cost us no more to process, and it cannot be explained in six languages. So we band it, cap it per cycle, and print it before you agree to anything.
| You draw | Next business day | Within the hour |
|---|---|---|
| R200 to R500 | R19,00 | R33,00 |
| Over R500 to R1 000 | R27,00 | R46,00 |
| Over R1 000 to R1 500 | R39,00 | R66,00 |
| Over R1 500 to R2 500 | R51,00 | R87,00 |
| Over R2 500 | R75,00 | R125,00 |
| Most you can pay in one cycle | R150,00 | R250,00 |
The same R1 500, priced six ways
- Holela, next business dayR27,00
- Holela, within the hourR46,00
- Other wage-access appsR58,50 to R77,50
- Percentage-priced operators (~12%)R177,82
- Micro-lenders at the statutory maximumR275,00
- Mashonisa (informal)R450,00 to R750,00
Cost of accessing R1 500 once. Where a range is published we plot its cheapest end. Competitor and informal-lender figures are modelled from published pricing, not audited. Check them before you rely on them.
For employers
Your payroll clerk is already doing this by hand.
Staff ask for advances every month. Someone approves them on WhatsApp, someone keys them into payroll, and the ones who don’t ask go to a mashonisa instead. This replaces all of it.
- Nothing to pay and nothing to fundWe advance our own money and carry it ourselves. You are not a party to the advance and there is no facility to arrange.
- No exposure if someone leavesRecovery is capped at a share of wages already earned, so the money is there on payday. Terminations are handled before they become a shortfall.
- One deduction line, like medical aidA single file into your existing payroll run. No new process for the clerk to learn.
- Live in under three weeksCSV or SFTP on day one, with SimplePay and PaySpace connectors following.
R0
What it costs you to offer it. No subscription, no per-employee fee, no float to carry, nothing on your balance sheet.
The ILO’s Earned wage access: a global study on benefits and risks (April 2025) finds the real benefit is smoothing short-term gaps, and names fee stacking as the main risk. Our per-cycle cap and minimum draw exist because of that finding, not in spite of it.
In your language
Money is not a second-language conversation.
Every message we send you — the one confirming your money is on its way, the reminder before payday — is written in all six launch languages. Not machine-translated: tone is exactly what a translation engine loses, and this is a conversation about somebody’s pay. The screens themselves are in English today, and follow.
- English
- You've already earned it.
- isiZulu
- Usisebenzele kakade.
- You've already worked for it
- isiXhosa
- Uyifumene ngomsebenzi wakho.
- You earned it by your work
- Afrikaans
- Jy het dit klaar verdien.
- You've already earned it
- Sesotho
- O se o e sebeleditse.
- You have already worked for it
- Setswana
- O setse o e diretse.
- You have already worked for it
Questions
The ones people actually ask.
What exactly am I getting?
Access to wages you have already worked for in the current cycle, paid to you early. The amount plus one flat access fee is recovered from your next pay, once, through your employer's payroll. You agree to that deduction in writing before any money moves.
Does the fee grow if payday is far away?
No. The fee is fixed at the moment you draw and never changes: not with the size of the draw beyond its band, and not with how many days are left in the cycle.
Why don't you ask for my bank details?
Because that is how this gets abused. Your money goes to the same account your employer already pays your wages into. We take the destination from payroll, never from a form, so nobody can redirect your pay by pretending to be you.
How much can I access?
Your employer sets the share. The usual setting is a quarter of what you have earned so far, with a minimum draw of R200 and a cap on how much of your pay can be committed, so there is always a payslip left at the end of the month. The most you can pay in access fees in one cycle is R250.
What if I don't have a smartphone?
It works on WhatsApp, and on a USSD code you can dial from any phone. No app to install and no data needed for USSD.
Can my employer see what I spend it on?
No. They see the total deduction they need to process, the same way they see a medical aid line. What you drew it for is not their business and we do not collect it.
What happens if I leave my job mid-cycle?
Anything already drawn is recovered from your final pay, which by design is always enough to cover it. You will not be chased for a shortfall that our own limits should have prevented.
Ask your employer about Holela.
We go live through employers, not app stores. If yours is not on board yet, send them our way. It costs them nothing and takes under three weeks.