There for the people
behind every finisher.

No. Bield never sees your money. You and your pacer agree compensation directly — cash, bank transfer, a Service Swap (pacer ↔ pacer trade), or volunteer. We don't take a fee, set a price, or hold funds.

This is intentional: we're modelled after Checkatrade, not Airbnb. Trust + introductions only.

Because the network needs them more than it needs revenue from them. Pacers, crewers and marshalls are why runners turn up; race organisers are why there's a catalogue at all. Charging the supply side at launch is how marketplaces die before they start.

Runners pay £4.99/mo (or £49.99 for the year) for Premium — that covers Strava / ID verification, DBS sponsorship for guide runners, infrastructure, and keeps us off venture capital. Pacers, crewers, marshalls, helpers and organisers don't pay anything at launch, and our intent is to keep core access free. And the flywheel goes the other way too — every certified gig earns a free month of Premium, up to a full year. Help the community, the community helps back.

Every certified support gig — Pacer, Crewer, Marshall, or Helper — gives you one free month of Premium. You can stack up to 6 base months from gigs alone.

Then up to 6 bonus months on top: your first-ever gig pays double (+1), a short-notice rescue inside 48 hours of race start (+1), a three-gig streak inside 90 days (+1), and holding base credits as Pacer AND Crewer AND Marshall unlocks the All-Rounder rosette (+1). Hard ceiling is 12 months — a real cap, not a leaky engagement loop.

Certification requires geotag, duration, and organiser confirmation. It can't be gamed by a friend ticking a box.

Every certified gig accrues points alongside the free month. Five hours of certified service = one point. Tiers run parkrun-style: Bield 10 / 25 / 50 / 75 (entry), then Bield 100 (Century, 500 hrs) / 200 (Major, 1,000 hrs) / 500 (Legend, 2,500 hrs) / 1000 (Lifetime, 5,000 hrs).

Digital badge lands on your profile the minute you hit the tier. Physical shirt is co-branded with a race-day kit maker where we can match a sponsor — and printed at-cost via print-on-demand if we can't find one inside 14 days. Bield doesn't profit on the shirt; the hours behind it are the product.

No catch. Top contributor by points in each country, each calendar year, wins five years of Premium free. We set it deliberately high — that's five years of revenue we're taking off the table to recognise the person who put more in than anyone else.

Eligibility is built to prevent collusion: minimum 20 points in the year, across at least 3 distinct race organisers and 5 distinct races. One winner per country per year. Ranked on points (contribution depth), not raw gig count.

No. There's a privacy toggle in your profile to opt out of the public leaderboard entirely. You'll still earn your months, your points, and your milestone badges — they're just visible only to you and to organisers you've worked with.

The leaderboard's only purpose is to make the people already doing the work visible. If you'd rather stay quiet about it, that's a respected default.

For the locals who'd stick an arm out for thirty minutes at the bend near them. The chronic shortage of marshalls at small UK races is the single biggest reason events get cancelled or re-routed — and the supply is right there, in the village, just uncoordinated.

Bield surfaces nearby volunteers to organisers and lets them slot in for a short window. Same earn-a-month and point credit as Pacer or Crewer. The wizard captures where you'd want to stand, what hours work, what kit you've got.

After a race, we check that the runner's and pacer's Strava activities overlap in time and space. If they do, both parties can leave a review and it appears on the platform with a "verified" mark. If they don't, the review is held — same race, different runs aren't proof you paced together.

This kills the "five stars from my mate" problem that other platforms can't.

L0 hides everything. L1 reveals your handle + race + role slot. L2 adds your contact + pace plan. L3 unlocks at commit and shares emergency contact + dietary. L4 (race week) shares medical info + bib.

All PII auto-purges race day + 14. The engagement record stays anonymised for your race CV.

Sure — you can sign up. But our verification, DBS sponsorship, and partnerships are UK + Ireland-focused for the first year. If you're racing UTMB or Western States and want to bring a UK pacer out, that works fine. Otherwise expect thinner discovery in your region until we expand.

Because pacing is a skill, not a face. Photos in browse biases discovery in ways we can't audit. Bield browse is credentials-first: handle, badges, race CV. Photos are visible only after both parties opt in at L3.

Standard DBS in the UK costs £18 + provider fees (~£40 total). For our first 100 Guide Running specialists who complete Tier III verification, Bield pays the lot. After that you can still get DBS-checked, you just cover the cost.

This is a cohort programme, not a perpetual one. We want the bar high without making it pay-walled.

Founding cohort opens June 2026. Public release scheduled for September 2026, in time for the autumn ultra season. Join the cohort above and you'll get a fortnightly update on progress.

Bield is built by Olive Wood IT, a UK consultancy run by Richard Woods. One developer, one designer, ~£20k pre-launch budget, no VC. The team has personal time on Spine, UTMB, and Lakeland 100, which is why we picked this problem.