About Payday Relay
A weekly finish line for people who work for themselves.
Payday Relay turns unstructured 1099 income into a repeatable rhythm. It was built for independent earners whose work has no paycheck, no clear stopping point, and no one above telling them what today requires.
Payday Relay gives that work a shape.
Built from lived experience
I built Payday Relay because I needed it.
I was diagnosed with inattentive-type ADD at 33, after decades of trying to force myself through systems that never quite fit.
Remote gig work finally gave me freedom — but it also gave me the classic 1099 problem: income arriving in bursts, weeks blending together, and no reliable way to know whether I had done enough to cover not just my expenses, but taxes, savings goals, and a real vacation.
My personal stakes changed when I left the US, signed a lease on a home I loved, and realized meeting residency requirements would require a higher income than I had ever earned in a conventional job. I had to prove that my 1099 work could give me both freedom and consistent stability.
So I stopped trying to motivate myself through panic and gave myself a weekly finish line.
That system helped me work with more clarity, set money aside with intention, and take real time off without dragging my laptop behind me.
Payday Relay grew from that experiment.
The founder
I’m Shari “Dove” Shepard.
Founder of Earthwise Digital and Payday Relay. I built Payday Relay after years of remote 1099 work, ADD-powered executive dysfunction, and a stubborn refusal to keep treating my brain like the problem.
I’m also the product’s first long-running user. I still run my own 52-week Payday Relay Race on the same kind of system my users get.
I built this for people who need structure without shame.
Built with care
A privacy-conscious, values-led company for independent earners.
That means clear pricing, plain language, honest AI use, and no dark-pattern conversion tricks.
Your numbers belong to you. Your Google Sheet lives in your own Drive. Payday Relay uses Google access to run the system — not to sell your data or turn your money life into someone else’s asset.
Caddy, the in-app coach, supports reflection and clarity. It does not replace professional financial, legal, tax, or investment advice.
Long term, Payday Relay is building toward formal social and environmental accountability through paths like B Corp certification and 1% for the Planet.
For now, the pledge is simple:
- Build useful software.
- Respect people’s data.
- Support independent work.
- Grow with responsibility.
Start Your Free 4-Relay Sprint
Run four weekly relays with your real numbers and your own Google Sheet.
See what changes when your workweek has a finish line.
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