Straight answers.

Yes. Hail takes nothing from your fares — not a percentage, not a booking fee, not a service charge. The only thing you pay Hail is the flat £75 monthly subscription for the driver app.

If you agree a £14 fare with a rider, you collect £14. That’s the whole model.

Directly by the rider, at the end of the trip — in cash or on your own card machine, whichever you take. The fare is agreed in the app before the trip starts, so there’s nothing to negotiate at the kerb.

Hail never holds your money. There’s no wallet, no weekly payout, no waiting for a transfer that arrives on Tuesday.

Everything: the full driver app with live requests and counter-offers, scheduled bookings, unlimited trips with no per-ride fees, the safety toolkit on every trip, document and compliance management, and support from a team that actually knows Rochdale.

Your first month is free, so you can see the work before you pay anything.

Yes, any time, from inside the app — no phone calls, no notice period, no exit fee. You keep access until the end of the month you’ve already paid for, and you can rejoin whenever you like.

Every request shows you the rider’s proposed price alongside the pickup and destination. If it works for you, accept it. If it doesn’t, counter with your own price — the rider sees your counter and confirms before anything happens.

You never drive for a fare you didn’t personally agree to. There’s no meter and no algorithm deciding what your time is worth.

Yes. You need a current private hire driver’s licence issued by Rochdale Borough Council, and your vehicle needs to be licensed by the same authority. We verify both before you can go online — it’s a legal requirement, not a formality.

Licences from other councils can’t be accepted for now. As Hail grows to other areas, that will change.

Yes — valid hire-and-reward insurance, the same as for any private hire work. You upload your certificate when you sign up, we check it before you’re approved, and we track the expiry date and remind you well before it lapses.

The fare is agreed in writing in the app before the trip starts, so there’s no ambiguity about what’s owed. If a rider still refuses to pay, report it in the app: non-payment counts against the rider’s account, and repeat offenders are removed from the platform.

We’ll be straight with you: because Hail never holds the money, we can’t claw a fare back for you — no one can promise that. What we can do is make sure a rider who burns a driver doesn’t get to do it twice.

Hail launches in Rochdale and the surrounding area. Trips need to start inside the coverage area; they can end anywhere you’re willing to take them.

One town, done properly, before anywhere else — that’s deliberate.

Soon. The rider and driver apps are built and in final testing, and our private hire operator licence application is in progress. We won’t take a single booking until both are done properly.

Founding drivers get onboarded first, before the public launch. Joining the founding driver group now puts you at the front of that queue.

You enter your pickup and destination and propose what you’ll pay. Nearby licensed drivers see it and either accept or counter with their own price. Nothing happens until you confirm — so the fare is agreed by two people, not set by an algorithm, and there’s no surge, ever.

Every driver on Hail holds a council-issued private hire licence, drives a licensed vehicle, and carries hire-and-reward insurance — we verify all of it before they can take a single trip.

Every trip comes with live trip sharing, a one-tap SOS button, and a saved emergency contact. Safety is standard, not a premium add-on.

Yes — schedule a trip ahead of time, at your price, and a driver commits to it in advance. You’ll get reminders as the pickup approaches.