AskMandla is a WhatsApp-native platform designed to formalize domestic employment in South Africa by offering essential services to both domestic employers and workers in the sector.
Launched on May 1, 2025, on Labor Day, AskMandla was created to integrate 1.6 million domestic workers and the households that employ them into the same digital infrastructure already used by the rest of the formal economy, through the platform they use daily: WhatsApp.
For domestic employers, the platform transforms the entire legal compliance process (employment contract, registration with the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), monthly issuance of pay stubs, and ongoing administrative management) into a simple two-minute conversation with Mandla, the company’s AI assistant.
“For domestic workers, we offer something they often never had: a formal pay stub, a documented record of their employment relationship, and early access to wages already earned. This way, they can withdraw a portion of their accumulated earnings before the end of the month and receive the money in their bank account in less than 24 hours. The fees are transparent, set in advance, and come with no surprises,” explained Ean Barnard of AskMandla to the Disrupt Africa portal.
A AskMandla grew out of Shesha-LawZA, a domestic work platform created by the company’s legal director, Janine Kane-Berman, which provided contracts and guidance on legal compliance through a mobile app.
“The legal foundation worked; the delivery model didn’t. Domestic workers don’t spend their days sitting in an office. They live on WhatsApp. So, in 2025, we rebuilt the entire platform from the ground up, making it WhatsApp- and conversation-oriented. The result was AskMandla,” said Barnard.
South Africa has about 1.6 million domestic workers, and approximately 80% of these employment relationships remain informal, without written contracts, registration with the UIF, pay stubs, or employment history.
“This represents about $6.5 billion in wages circulating annually outside the formal financial system, with no protection or access to benefits for either party,” explained Barnard. “The problem lies in the absence of an infrastructure tailored to the needs of households.”
According to Ean Barnard, adoption of the platform has been steady. The startup, which has already secured pre-seed funding, processed approximately $300,000 in domestic workers’ wages and issued nearly 1,000 pay stubs during its first year of operation.
For now, AskMandla operates exclusively in South Africa, where it aims to consolidate and validate its business model.
“The legal and regulatory component of our product is based on South African labor law, which has been encoded into our artificial intelligence agents by Janine and the team. Expanding into another country means rebuilding that entire legal foundation in accordance with that country’s labor code. We’re open to doing so with the right partner, in the right country, and at the right time. But it won’t be this year.”
The business model is based on two tiers. The first consists of monthly subscriptions, through which employers pay for the legal compliance and payroll processing service.
The second tier consists of financial services.
“Advance access to salary was the first product in this area and was launched in April of this year. The fees are disclosed upfront, before each transaction, tailored to the customer’s income level, and with no hidden costs,” he explained. “We’ve been very careful in this regard, because there’s a long history of predatory credit products disguised as salary access. We don’t want to be part of that pattern. Savings, insurance, and health coverage will be the next products in this fintech tier.”
According to Barnard, the strategy involves using subscriptions as a customer acquisition mechanism, while financial services represent the main driver of business growth.
“Every employment relationship generates an employment record. Every employment record makes the worker visible to the financial system. And it is this visibility that unlocks revenue from financial services on a large scale.”
