On-demand house help market becomes two-horse race in urban India

Capital, labour flock to Urban Company, Snabbit as speed becomes currency of convenience

The race to dominate India’s fast-emerging instant household help services market is intensifying, with Urban Company and Snabbit emerging as the two clear front runners in a consumer services category with decade-defining potential. 

Snabbit has crossed the 500,000 monthly jobs mark, narrowing the gap with Urban Company, which logged around 600,000 jobs in December, according to industry sources familiar with operating data. The momentum underscores how quickly the market for near-instant domestic help — ranging from cleaning and dishwashing to basic household chores — is scaling in India’s major urban centres. 

A younger entrant, Snabbit has aggressively built a playbook focused on delivering helpers within 15 minutes across top metros. Urban Company, long known for its scheduled home services model, has responded by sharpening its focus on instant fulfilment to counter Snabbit’s rapid gains, sources said. 

 Snabbit declined to comment on its operating numbers. 

Industry watchers say the segment is beginning to resemble a duopoly, drawing parallels with the food delivery wars between Zomato and Swiggy over the past decade. “Capital, supply, and demand are all starting to concentrate around two players that can execute at scale,” said an investor tracking the space.  

Snabbit raised $56 million in total in 2025 from a consortium including Elevation Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, and Bertelsmann. Urban Company, which listed successfully last year, has publicly signalled its readiness to deploy capital to defend its turf and respond to disruption from instant services. 

Snabbit’s monthly jobs have surged fivefold from about 100,000 in August 2025, despite operating in fewer cities and pincodes than its rivals. Its footprint is concentrated in Delhi-National Capital Region, Bengaluru, Pune, and Mumbai. In contrast, Urban Company and its smaller rival, Pronto, have a wider geographic presence, extending into Hyderabad, Chennai, and Kolkata. As of October 2025, Pronto handled 66,000 jobs per month. 

On a same-city basis, Snabbit is estimated to be roughly 20 per cent larger than Urban Company in overlapping geographies, highlighting the intensity of competition where the two go head-to-head, according to an industry source. 

What began as an extension of India’s quick-commerce (qcom) mindset into home services is now evolving into a logistics and infrastructure business. Execution variables — such as dense labour supply, real-time dispatching, and predictable worker utilisation — are proving more critical than traditional marketplace levers like listings or lead generation. “The category is no longer forgiving of thin execution,” said an investor closely following the sector. “If you can’t keep supply dense and jobs predictable, scale collapses very quickly.” 

The sector’s history offers cautionary lessons. Earlier players like TaskBob struggled to move beyond lead generation and eventually shut down, while Housejoy was forced to retrench sharply after aggressive expansion exposed weak unit economics. Classified-led platforms that attempted to layer fulfilment onto discovery also failed to build durable, national-scale networks. Executives said the current cycle differs because of labour behaviour. In execution-heavy markets, supply tends to consolidate before revenue does. Service professionals gravitate towards platforms offering consistent job volumes, predictable income, and lower idle time. As reliability improves, customers follow — and capital follows both. 

India’s online home services market is likely to expand at a CAGR of 18-22 per cent to reach ₹8,500-8,800 crore by FY30, driven by growing urban demand for convenience, reliability, and speed, according to a report. 

Following the widespread adoption of qcom, instant home services are emerging as the next frontier in India's digital economy, creating a new habit loop for time-pressed urban consumers, says consultancy Redseer. 

India’s overall home services market, valued at ₹5.1-5.21 trillion in 2024-25, remains dominated by the unorganised sector. “Instant home services act as an on-demand household support system, bridging the gap between informal domestic help and structured service platforms,” the report said. “It is expanding rapidly at a projected CAGR of 18–22 per cent through FY30, as consumers increasingly seek convenience, reliability, and accountability that offline alternatives struggle to provide.” 

The instant war

• Snabbit has crossed 500,000 monthly jobs, closing in on Urban Company’s scale
• Urban Company responded by sharpening its focus on instant fulfilment
• Execution and dense labour supply are now key to winning the market