For UK trades and service businesses tired of paying for time that earns nothing
Turn gaps between jobs into business purchasing power.
The morning a job falls through, the fortnight the diary runs thin, the crew stood waiting — put that time to work and earn Silva to spend across the network.
The van and the tools cost the same whether you’re on a job or not — so fill the quiet hours and spend the value back.
No cash changes hands for Silva · You choose which jobs and hours you offer · UK members only
Sound familiar?
You're not after a capacity exchange. You're trying to fix these.
Every trade feels at least one of these. Almost none connect them to the one asset they're already paying for — their time.
Do jobs fall through at short notice?
A cancelled booking leaves the day empty and the crew stood down.
Are there gaps between jobs?
Dead time you can't bill for, sitting between one job and the next.
Is the van costing you when it’s parked?
Finance, insurance, tools and wages carry on whether you’re working or not.
Do the quiet seasons bite?
The winter lull or the summer slowdown — fixed costs never take a month off.
Does quoting eat hours that never convert?
Time spent measuring up and writing quotes that come to nothing.
Are lead sites charging for every enquiry?
Paying per lead for work you might not even win.
What almost everyone misses
The empty mornings, the gaps between jobs, the quiet off-season — that idle time is real value already sitting inside your business. Silvatree is the mechanism that turns those idle hours into business purchasing power you can spend.
The idea
One week’s work. Two pots, not one.
The old way: work hard, cash in, cash out, bills paid, nothing left. With Silvatree you generate the same cash, but you also fill a second pot by selling idle capacity to Silvatree members. The two-pot way is: cash in, less cash out, some cash remaining — and Silva in, Silva out, paying the rest of the bills. The second pot is business purchasing power.
Wages, rent and tax drain it. A full week of work — and nothing left to show for it.
Your cash pays the expenses that can only be paid in cash — rent, wages, electricity, leases, taxes. A second pot fills from idle capacity you'd have wasted, and pays for marketing, repairs, printing, accounting, cleaning and tradesmen.
1 Silva = £1 for tax & accounting · spending power inside the network, never exchanged for cash.
How it works
Three steps, from idle hour to purchasing power.
You have spare capacity
Gaps between jobs, cancelled mornings, a quiet off-season — time your van and crew still cost you, whether you’re working or not.
Silvatree puts it to work
We match the jobs and hours you offer to members who need a trade. You get paid in Silva for time that earned you nothing before.
You spend your Silva
On the things a trade already pays for — accountancy, marketing, van signage, printing, tools, a night away — keeping your cash in the bank.
New to the idea? What is a Capacity Exchange?
Your spare capacity
Find the spare capacity inside your trade.
If your time, your crew or your van sits idle when the diary is thin, it belongs here.
Dead diary time
The hours between one job finishing and the next starting.
Short-notice openings
A day that falls through can never be re-sold.
Off-season weeks
The lull when the phone goes quiet but the bills don’t.
Waiting labour
Team on the payroll with no job to be on today.
Parked-up kit
Plant and equipment that cost the same standing still.
Fill-in work
The little jobs that fit the gaps others won’t take on.
Trade buying
Supply-and-fit margin on stock you already source well.
Held capacity
The call-out time you keep free and rarely fill.
Why it's safer
Business trading, without the borrowed money.
Most trade exchanges quietly let the owner/operator run up a large negative trade balance it never has to repay — diluting the value of every other member’s credits. Silvatree is built so that can never happen.
We can never owe the network
Silvatree's own accounts have a hard zero floor. We can't hold a negative balance or extend ourselves a line of credit — full stop.
Silva is earned, never printed
A Silva only exists because a real trade happened between two members. It can't be created out of thin air or bought for cash.
A Reserve Fund stands behind you
If a member ever leaves owing, the Reserve Fund absorbs it immediately — so positive balances stay protected whatever happens next.
If we ever wind down, we go last
Our own balance is wiped out first, leaving more in the pot for members. We put the network ahead of ourselves by design.
How we prove it
Our ledger is built so the network always sums to zero.
This isn't a choice — it's how we protect the system, and it's how the ledger was constructed. Here's what that means for your balance.
The network always sums to zero. Every Silva earned is a Silva owed — the whole system balances to nothing, by construction.
No outsized balances. No member is allowed to sit on a large positive or negative position that could destabilise the network.
Silvatree's own accounts are always positive. The company can never hold a negative balance. It can never owe the system. It cannot issue itself Silva — it can only earn it like every other member. Both the rules and the platform architecture enforce this.
These rules are set out in the Silvatree Exchange Terms & Conditions — the rules the whole network runs on.
Straight talk on fees
Three fees. The same for every member.
There are no tiers at Silvatree — no bronze, silver or gold, and no badge attached to how much you trade. Every member pays the same three fees, worked out the same way, and what you pay turns on one thing: how much of your existing spending you decide to route through the network. Charging by size of business would be arbitrary, because a large firm might trade very little and a small one a great deal. A flat fee would mean the smallest members subsidise the largest.
Joining fee
2%
of the spending you declare
- Minimum £200, maximum £6,000
- Paid once, on admission
Monthly subscription
£20
a month, plus 0.2% of your declared spend ÷ 12
- £24.17 a month on a £25,000 declaration
- £20 more in months you put nothing into the network
Transaction fee
6% + 1%
in cash, and in Silva
- Paid by the seller on each exchange
- The 1% in Silva funds the Reserve Fund
That is the whole structure. There is nothing else to pay — no tier to upgrade to, no charge for finding you buyers, and no fee for closing your account.
- ✓All fees are exclusive of VAT.
- ✓We never charge interest on Trading Headroom, and never take security or personal guarantees.
- ✓If a full year of genuine engagement has not delivered, we refund your joining fee.
What members say
From members
“I joined Silvatree 2 months ago and have already accumulated three new clients for my digital marketing services.”
I have been able to go from operating at 50% capacity to 75% and have subsequently been able to use my Silva to pay for a business coach who is helping me to scale my business and attract more clients, as well as paying for my accounting services and bookkeeping.
“As accountants we have experienced a great influx of new clients that we would never have previously had.”
This has increased our bottom line, and enabled us to help many who would otherwise not have had the cash to pay for our services — which means we can pay for many business expenses in Silva that we would otherwise have paid for in cash.
Questions
Trades & services: common questions
- What counts as spare capacity for a trade?
- The time your van, tools and crew cost you whether you're working or not: gaps between jobs, cancelled bookings, quiet off-season weeks and held emergency slots. A day that falls through can never be re-sold, so it's exactly the kind of capacity worth filling.
- Do we choose which jobs and hours we take on?
- Yes. You pick exactly which jobs and hours you offer, so you can keep your diary open for cash work and only fill the gaps and quiet stretches that would otherwise earn nothing.
- What can we spend the Silva we earn on?
- On what a trade already pays for through the network — accountancy, marketing, van signage, printing, tools and even a night away. Silva is a unit of account (1 Silva = £1 for your records); it's spending power inside the network, never cash you withdraw.
- What does it cost to join?
- Membership isn't free. What you pay scales with the size of the trading we support for you, and transaction fees are the same for every member. We go through the full fee schedule, with your own numbers, on a suitability call.
Silvatree works across sectors
One model, told through the spare capacity in each industry.
- Hotels & staysMidweek rooms, off-season nights and unsold spa slots.
- RestaurantsQuiet midweek covers and dark private dining rooms.
- Salons & clinicsUnbooked chairs, quiet treatment rooms and slow mornings.
- RetailSlow-moving stock, quiet hours and empty shelf space.
- Print & productionIdle press hours, quiet studio and finishing time.
- Media & outdoorUnsold billboards, unbooked airtime and blank pages.
- Professional servicesUnbilled hours, bench time and quiet post-year-end weeks.
Find out if Silvatree is right for your business.
Book a free suitability call. We run an expense analysis, share a capacity & profit report, and tell you honestly whether it's a fit — we'll be the first to say if it isn't.
Not ready to join? No pressure. Go on our standby list and we'll get in touch whenever there's business we can send your way.
Not sure yet? Take the 2-minute readiness test.
Short of time? Talk it through with our AI capacity adviser — available 24/7. It'll cover most of what we'd discuss on the call.