Tipped now for Tippers
I gave myself a silly challenge. One week. Tip every person who actually deserved it. No cash in my pocket, no QR codes, no armbands, no “I’ll sort you out next time.”
Tipped is on the App Store now. I downloaded it on a Monday, and by Friday I had paid seven people. All I typed was a cellphone number. Android, same app, Google Play.
The number is the whole magic trick
You open the app. You type their cellphone number. You pay. They get an SMS. They do not need Tipped installed, a card, a code on the mirror, or a band on their wrist. They sign up when they feel like it, and the money is already waiting under their name.
That is it. I kept waiting for the catch. There wasn’t one, so I took the app out with me. The screen is literally called Pay to Cellphone. Number in. Amount in. Done.
Thee benefit vs eWallet or Payschap, the Tippee, the person who receives the tip or payment now is part of Tipped and can earn many more Tips, payments for all of the great deeds.

A very normal week, if you tip like a maniac
Salon on Monday, still in the cape, phone in my lap. Barber on Tuesday, clippers buzzing, me settling up before he even spun the chair around. Wednesday was dinner, then a coffee the next morning because I was on a roll. Thursday I paid the car guard from the driver’s seat and the fuel attendant at the pump. Friday a delivery rider got a tip at my front door before I’d even taken the box.

Salon

Barber

Restaurant

Coffee shop

Car guard

Delivery
Payment three comes with a Vida
Here is the bit I was not expecting, and the reason I am still opening the app. Make more than two payments in Tipped and there is a free Vida on us. Fees drop once you are signed up, so the third tip costs you less than the old card-machine dance. Deals from Pick n Pay and Takealot show up in the same wallet. Vida, it turns out, loves Tipped.

They get the good part
The SMS is not a receipt they can frame. It is the money. They sign up once and they are on Tipped too. People who live on tips are lifting their earnings by more than 30% a month when paying takes ten seconds, because the guest who used to shrug and leave actually pays.
A stylist does not wait for the jar to be split on Friday. A housekeeper is not hoping the front desk remembers her name. A car guard can send money home to his family from the same phone, still standing in the parking lot. A server coming off a dinner shift can stop at the spaza and buy bread, a cool drink, maize meal, with money that is already hers.
I like that part more than the free coffee. The coffee is excellent. The look on someone’s face when the SMS lands is better.
If you tip people, download it and save the numbers you use all the time. The salon. The barber. The guard on your street. Next time you will not pat your pockets. You will type.

