The honest answers, not the marketing version.
General
An app that connects you with someone already at a place, live, for a quick video look before you decide to go. Instead of guessing from old photos or reviews, you see what's actually happening right now, from someone standing in it.
Reviews and busyness estimates are built from old data, sometimes hours or weeks old. A peek is live. It's the difference between reading about the weather yesterday and looking out the window right now.
Requesting a peek
Pricing is shown for each place before you request, usually a couple of dollars. You'll always see the exact price and how it splits between the scout and OnsitePeek before you pay.
You'll see honestly if nobody's there right now, we don't fake it. You can search for a nearby alternative, or check back in a bit. As more scouts join, live coverage keeps growing.
You can search and add any real address worldwide. Whether someone's actually live there depends on whether a scout has signed up nearby, which grows over time as more people join.
No. Calls are live only, connecting the two of you directly for that moment. Nothing is stored afterward.
Being a scout
Switch to Scout mode in the app, and it walks you through setup right where you are, using your phone's real location. No separate application process, you can be live within a couple of minutes.
Your phone's real GPS is checked against the place you're claiming to be at before you're allowed to go live. If you're not genuinely close, the app won't let you claim it, this isn't optional and can't be typed around.
You keep the majority of what a requester pays for each peek, shown clearly before you ever accept one. Payment is tied to Stripe, the same trusted system many marketplace apps use to pay people directly and securely.
Yes. One account, one login, switch between the two anytime with the toggle in the app.
No fee. Signing up is free, and you start earning from your very first accepted peek.
Trust and safety
We built real safeguards specifically because this matters: scouts are location-verified before they can go live, video calls are short and live-only with no recording, and payment happens through a secure, trusted processor rather than directly between people. That said, as with any interaction with someone new, use the same judgment you would anywhere else.
No. A scout's location is only used to verify they're at the place they claim, it's never shown to requesters as GPS coordinates, only that they're confirmed live there.
We're actively building out reporting tools as OnsitePeek grows. Right now, if something feels off, end the call and reach out to us directly, we take it seriously.
Your personal information
Your email and password to run your account, and if you're a scout, your phone's real-time location, but only in the exact moment you go live, never tracked continuously. Payment details are handled entirely by Stripe, a trusted, secure payment processor, we never see or store your full card information.
Yes. Your password is scrambled using industry-standard hashing before it's ever stored, meaning even we can't see it in its original form. When you log in, we check the scrambled version, not the real thing.
No, never. We don't sell your data, and we don't share it for advertising purposes. The only outside companies that ever see any of your information are the ones directly needed to run the service itself, like Stripe for payments, nothing beyond that.
No. It's only ever checked in the moment, never continuously. As a requester, it's used once when you open the app, just to help search show you what's nearby first, and you can decline. As a scout, it's checked in the single moment you go live, to confirm you're genuinely at the place, and it's never shown to requesters as an exact location.
Yes. Reach out to us directly and we'll remove your account and the personal information tied to it. We're working toward a fully self-serve option as the app grows.
Yes. Every connection to OnsitePeek is encrypted (https), the same standard used by banking and shopping sites, so information traveling between your device and our servers can't be read by anyone in between.
Using the app
No. OnsitePeek runs right in your phone's browser, no download or install needed. Just visit the site.
Two reasons. Scouts are asked to verify they're genuinely at the place they claim, that's what keeps peeks trustworthy. Requesters are asked too, but for something different, it helps search show you what's actually nearby first. If you say no, search still works, it just can't prioritize what's close to you.
This is a setting on your phone or browser, not something wrong with the app. Check your phone's Settings for Location Services and make sure it's allowed for your browser, then try again.