The following extract is taking directly from The Open Letter's feature on petl pay:Â https://theopenletter.io/p/project-based-payments-management
TRENDING NOW
Subcontractors, But Without The Chaos
"The project-based economy will be a $20 trillion behemoth by 2027, but poor financial management capability threatens to derail it – enter this local venture…
The way companies work is changing: Just a few years ago, most corporates and SMEs built on standardised, repetitive and ongoing ops. Now? We’ve switched to project-based work – cross-functional, unique and limited projects pegged on driving innovation.
Globally, project-based work (with non-permanent staff) is now strategically critical for 97% of companies, with 40% of the workforce being freelancers, contractors or temporary staff. It’s created the $20 trillion project economy (R300 trillion).
SA’s talent-on-demand market is also exploding as corporates aggressively hire for "change management" skills, causing a 53% surge in independent talent registrations in 2025.
But it comes at a price
Managing freelance payments is operationally very different from salaried employees: They invoice at different times, with different rates, for different milestones. Surveys show 78% of companies still use spreadsheets to manage freelancers – perhaps why 50% of B2B invoices are paid late.
Look, it’s fine if you have one freelance graphic designer, but the more you add, the crazier it gets, and legacy ERP systems like SAP and Oracle are not going to help.
And, while building Rafiki, a platform that helps users source and coordinate freelancers or contractors, local founders Greg Cooke and Nick Boswell saw firsthand that payments are the biggest pain for corporates and SMEs alike in managing contractors.
So the pivot was clear: change the focus to payments and the coordination around it for contractors.
Introducing Petl Pay
Petl Pay is a financial orchestration tool for project-based teams. It’s the conductor that takes all the frantic instruments, time sheeting, invoicing, client payments and contributor payouts and blends them into one harmonious, project-based workflow.
The project isn't just the work; it's the financial glue. And they’re starting where there is not only a big market, but lots of pain… the building and construction industry. Greg tells us they are simultaneously validating a second core vertical: agencies and professional services, due to how similar the industries’ financial flows are (think complex, milestone-based projects with high-volume contributor payouts.)
On the payments side, they are offering users access to stablecoin wallets for quick, low-fee international payments.
Petl Pay recently got accepted to join the Visa Fintech accelerator, and with the rise of contractors and pain felt using them, they might just be onto something big.
We are watching this space."
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You can read the original feature on petl pay in The Open Letter here.
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