Ask for Help and Offer Help, explained

Exchange Place has seven sections, but two of them are where most trading starts: Ask for Help and Offer Help. They are mirror images of each other.

Ask for Help: find somebody who can help you

Ask for Help lists members who are offering their time. Their skills are on their cards — design, coding, languages, writing, accounts, career advice.

How it works

1. Find somebody with the skill you need. Filter by country, region, language or who is online now.
2. Press Ask for help and say what you need.
3. They press Start work. Your 200 Time Coins are held so they cannot be spent twice.
4. They do the work within 24 hours and press Mark work done.
5. You press Confirm, and they are paid.

The benefits

• Expert help without money changing hands.
• Every helper has a public track record.
• Each request is small — fifteen minutes — so it is easy for people to say yes.

Offer Help: find somebody you can help

Offer Help lists members who would like help. You choose somebody you can help, offer it, and earn 200 Time Coins when they confirm.

How it works

1. Find a member whose need matches your skill.
2. Press Offer to help, then Interested on the card.
3. They press Accept help request.
4. You press Start work, do the work and mark it done.
5. They confirm, and you are paid.

The benefits

• Earn Time Coins to spend on help you need, or in the store.
• Build a reputation. Completed helps appear on your track record, and the leaderboard ranks people by how many different members they helped.
• Win rewards. The top helper in each category every week receives 2,000 Time Coins.

Two halves of one idea

Every help on Ask for Help pays somebody on the other side, and every help on Offer Help is somebody else's request. Time Coins simply keep score, so you can help one person and be helped by another.

Full step-by-step guides: Ask for Help and Offer Help.