A few questions came up when people first looked at the site. These are the ones worth answering directly.
How are prices set?
People set their own prices. A producer lists a flat of strawberries at whatever they think is fair. A buyer pays that, or they negotiate. There's no algorithm.
The shared unit of account is pegged to the Canadian dollar, so there's a common yardstick across the network. But pricing is always peer-to-peer.
This is not a timebank. An hour of your time is not the currency -- strawberries are not worth the same as an hour of legal advice just because both took an hour. What you grow, make, or do has the value you and your trading partners agree on.
What is community credit?
When you trade with someone, instead of dollars moving between accounts, balances shift along a trustline you have with that person. Two members agree on a credit limit with each other -- say, $200 each way. A purchase shifts your balance by the amount of the sale. No money changes hands; the network tracks who is owed what.
Over time, balances tend to cancel in loops. Your credit with the orchard, their credit with the baker, the baker's credit with you -- those can net out and clear. That's the mutual credit part.
You can settle any balance in cash whenever you want. Click pay, done. The credit is a feature, not a requirement.
Does the platform take a cut?
Yes, a small fee on completed trades. It is never extracted as cash -- the fee stays inside the network as community credit, owned collectively by participants. It flows back into operations, shared infrastructure, and network development. Closer to a co-op than a payment processor.
No fee to open an account, list items, or connect with your neighbours. The fee only runs when a trade completes.