Drive for Hauly: Owner-Driver Guide (No Subscription)

TL;DR: Hauly charges no subscription (vs Courier Exchange's £179/month). Jobs pushed to your phone, commission-only on completed jobs. Requirements: driving licence, GIT insurance (£10k+), public liability (£1m+), vehicle under 10 years, smartphone. Verification takes 48 hours.

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If you are paying £179 per month to Courier Exchange and doing fewer than 20 jobs through the platform, you are subsidising other drivers' work. Your subscription stays the same whether you complete 30 jobs or three. Hauly is built on a fundamentally different model: no subscription, no board to watch, and jobs pushed directly to your phone. You pay a commission only when you complete a job and get paid. When you do not work, you owe nothing.

This guide covers exactly what you need to get started, how the dispatch system works, what jobs typically pay, and how the numbers compare to subscription-based platforms.

What you need to drive for Hauly

The requirements are straightforward. If you are already working as a courier or delivery driver, you likely have everything on this list.

What you need:

• A valid UK driving licence — clean is preferred but minor points are acceptable
• Goods-in-transit insurance with minimum £10,000 cover
• Public liability insurance
• A vehicle under 10 years old — car, small van, transit van, or Luton
• A smartphone running Android or iOS
• Self-employed or sole trader status (limited company is also fine)

What you do not need:

• CPC qualification (unless you are driving vehicles over 3.5 tonnes)
• An operator's licence (again, only required for 3.5 tonnes and above)
• Previous experience on any courier platform
• Your own client base or existing work pipeline

The barrier to entry is deliberately low. Hauly is designed for owner-drivers who want to build up work without committing to a monthly fee before they have earned anything.

How the Hauly driver verification works

The registration and verification process has four steps and takes 48 hours from start to finish.

Step 1: Register — Fill in the driver form on hauly.co.uk. This takes about five minutes and covers your personal details, vehicle information, and coverage area.

Step 2: Upload documents — Photograph your driving licence (front and back) and upload your insurance documents. Goods-in-transit and public liability certificates are both required. The upload process is built into the registration flow.

Step 3: Verification — The Hauly team reviews your documents within 48 hours. If anything is unclear or missing, you will receive an email explaining exactly what is needed. Most registrations are approved on first submission.

Step 4: Activation — Once approved, your account is activated and you can set your availability immediately. You will receive a notification confirming that you are ready to receive job offers.

One important note: Hauly is currently in its early driver network build phase. The platform is actively onboarding drivers across the UK. Getting in early means less competition for jobs in your area when volume increases. Drivers who join now are building dispatch priority before the market gets crowded.

How job dispatch works

Hauly uses a push model, not a board. This is the most significant difference from Courier Exchange and similar subscription platforms.

Here is how it works in practice:

You set yourself as available in the app. This tells the system you are ready to receive job offers. You can turn availability on and off at any time — there is no penalty for being unavailable.

When a customer requests a delivery near your location, you receive a notification showing the collection postcode, delivery postcode, approximate distance, and your payout for the job. You have 60 seconds to accept or decline.

If you accept, navigation starts immediately and the customer is notified that a driver is on the way. If you decline, the job passes to the next nearest available driver. There is no penalty for declining jobs, within reason — the system is designed to match willing drivers with suitable work, not to pressure you into accepting every offer.

This is fundamentally better than a board model for one reason: you do not need to monitor anything. You set yourself as available, go about your day, and respond when something suitable appears. There is no sitting at your phone refreshing a page, no bidding war with other drivers, and no wasted time scanning jobs that do not match your route.

The dispatch algorithm prioritises proximity first, then factors in your acceptance history, ratings, and vehicle suitability. Consistent, reliable drivers naturally receive more offers over time.

What Hauly jobs pay

Hauly is a new platform and job volume varies by area and time of day, so do not plan around a guaranteed number of jobs.

Each job has a fixed price calculated from the route, shown in the app before you accept. For reference, the customer price for a local small-van job on the Hauly rate card starts from £61, and longer routes cost more: see the rate card.

Hauly takes a platform commission on completed jobs only. The current rate is disclosed during registration and can change. Your payout is the job value minus the commission, and that is the only cost you pay to Hauly. No subscription, no fees in weeks when you do not work.

Hauly vs a subscription platform

A subscription platform such as Courier Exchange charges a fixed monthly fee whether or not you win work, and you find jobs by watching a board and bidding. Hauly charges commission only on completed jobs and pushes jobs to your phone.

	Subscription board	Hauly
Fixed monthly cost	Yes, whether you work or not	None
How you find jobs	Watch the board and bid	Offers pushed to your phone
Quiet month	You still pay the subscription	You pay commission only on jobs you complete
Busy month	The fixed fee is a smaller share of your income	Commission scales with the work you do

Work out your own break-even: take your monthly gross from jobs won through the board, subtract the subscription, fuel and running costs, and compare with what the same jobs would net after Hauly's commission. A subscription tends to suit very busy drivers, and commission tends to suit anyone with quiet weeks. Check Courier Exchange's current pricing on their site before deciding.

Getting your first jobs on Hauly

Your first few weeks on any platform set the tone for your experience. Here is how to maximise your chances of getting consistent work from the start.

Complete your profile fully. Upload a vehicle photo, write a short bio, and make sure your coverage area is accurate. Customers and the dispatch system both respond better to complete profiles. It takes five minutes and it matters.

Set a realistic radius. It is tempting to set a wide coverage area to see more jobs. Resist that. A tighter radius means you are closer to the jobs you are offered, which means faster acceptance times, shorter dead miles, and better ratings. Start tight and expand once you have a rhythm.

Respond to notifications quickly in your first few weeks. The dispatch algorithm factors in your response time and acceptance rate when deciding who to offer jobs to. Early consistency builds your priority score, which compounds over time into more and better job offers.

Treat every job like it generates a review. Because it does. Customer ratings affect your visibility in the dispatch queue. Communicate clearly, handle items carefully, and confirm delivery promptly. The drivers who earn the most on any platform are the ones with the best reputations, and reputation starts with job one.

Track your numbers from day one. Know your gross per job, your commission cost, your fuel spend, and your net hourly rate. This data helps you decide which jobs to accept, what radius works best, and when your most profitable hours are.

Register now

Register your interest now. Verification takes 48 hours and getting in early means less competition in your postcode area as the platform grows. No subscription, no risk, and no board to watch.

Register as a Hauly driver →

Need to send something yourself? Get an instant courier quote — fixed prices from £61, vetted drivers, collection often within about an hour, depending on driver availability. No account needed.

Looking for work in Liverpool? We're actively recruiting small car and small van drivers across the L postcode area. See Liverpool driver jobs →