For journalists, podcasters, and anyone writing about NeighCheck.

One-paragraph description

NeighCheck is the complete financial toolkit for tipped and gig workers — restaurant servers, bartenders, hair stylists, rideshare drivers, delivery couriers, and twelve other tipped professions. Built independently by a single developer (NorseHorse) who worked the floor himself, NeighCheck handles shift tracking, tip-out math, tax projection across all 50 states, mileage and expense deductions, and adds community features like anonymous wage transparency and peer employer reviews. It's free, has no ads, doesn't resell user data, and ships on iOS and Android.

Fact sheet

What it does (feature highlights)

• Shift & tip tracking. Per-shift logging with cash + credit tip breakdown, sales totals, tip-out by pool / percentage / points, and IRS Form 4070 compliant export.
• Tax projection. Real-time federal + state + FICA projection updated for 2026 brackets. State-specific tip credit and tipped minimum wage rules for all 50 states, DC, and Puerto Rico.
• Multi-job support. Separate W-2 and 1099 profiles. Mix tipped restaurant work with gig driving in one app.
• Mileage & expenses. Manual mileage tracking with IRS-compliant fields, receipt OCR scanning, expense categorization, year-end Schedule C export.
• Wage Wire. Anonymous wage transparency feed. Workers post their actual hourly take-home by employer and shift, building a peer-sourced wage map.
• Employer Intel. Peer-written reviews of specific employers and managers, with structured ratings and free-form notes.
• Pastures. Location-based community grouping workers by neighborhood.
• Encrypted DMs. End-to-end encrypted messaging between workers.
• AI Coach. Conversational interface to your own financial data (Claude-powered). Ask questions like "What's my real take-home this month?" or "Should I drop my Tuesday shift?"
• Analytics. Personal records, cash flow analysis, paycheck predictor, tip analytics, period-over-period comparisons.
• Correlation insights. Tips correlated with weather, sleep (HealthKit), day of week, co-worker schedule.
• iOS-native. WidgetKit home screen widget, Live Activities (lock screen + Dynamic Island), Siri Shortcuts.

Why it exists

Tipped workers in the U.S. operate in a financial blind spot. The IRS treats tips as taxable income but employers often don't withhold enough, so workers face surprise tax bills in April. Direct wage as low as $2.13/hour federally means payroll deductions for FICA on tip income can leave workers with $0 paychecks. The tip credit creates state-by-state complexity that most workers never learn until they're harmed by it. And gig workers — drivers, delivery couriers — get hit with self-employment tax that an equivalent W-2 worker doesn't see.

Existing apps in the category split the work: tip trackers handle tips, mileage apps handle mileage, bookkeeping apps handle invoicing. None of them were built by someone who'd actually worked the floor. NeighCheck consolidates the workflow into one app, prices it free, and adds the community layer (Wage Wire, Employer Intel) that gives workers peer-sourced market intelligence they otherwise have no access to.

NorseHorse — founder bio

NorseHorse is the independent developer behind NeighCheck. He works a day job at Texas Roadhouse and builds apps in the evenings and on days off. His portfolio spans tipped-worker tools (NeighCheck, HeardCheck), encryption tools (PGPony, AgePony), business tools (EntityDesk), and social platforms (NorseHorse, Hate City, StillHold). Background includes five years in pharmacy, deep experience with reef aquariums, home cooking, and the practical mechanics of forming and operating LLCs and corporations — none of which is directly relevant to making a tip tracker, except they all teach you to figure things out yourself.

NorseHorse is based in Hoover, Alabama. He goes by NorseHorse (not by his legal name) in all development contexts.

Suggested quotes

Use any of these in coverage. Verify exact wording with NorseHorse before publication if quoted directly.

"Tipped workers shouldn't need a CPA to understand their own paycheck. NeighCheck does the math automatically so the worker knows what they actually take home — before April surprises them." — NorseHorse, founder

"Wage Wire exists because tipped workers in the same city, doing the same job, can take home wildly different amounts based on who their employer is. Anonymous peer data is the only way most workers will ever see what's actually possible." — NorseHorse, founder

"Every other tipped-worker app I looked at was either built by someone who'd never worked the floor, or had a subscription paywall, or sold data, or all three. I built the one I wanted as a worker." — NorseHorse, founder

Brand assets

• Logo (SVG, full color)
• App icon (PNG, 1024×1024)
• Brand palette and typography (Markdown)
• Default OG share image (1200×630)

Site facts (for stat-citing pieces)

As of writing, neighcheck.com hosts:

• ~290 SEO-targeted URLs across the site
• 16 cornerstone guides covering tipped-worker tax, rights, and personal finance
• 50 glossary terms defined in plain English
• 5 calculators (tip-out, paycheck, quarterly tax, mileage, self-employment tax)
• 157 state-specific pages covering wage rules and tax structures for all 50 states + DC + Puerto Rico
• 6 competitor comparison pages
• 11 profession-specific landing pages (servers, bartenders, baristas, stylists, drivers, etc.)

Background / longer story angles

• The solo developer angle. One person, one day job, twenty-something apps shipped. The dynamic of independent software development without VC or marketing.
• The tipped-worker financial picture. Hidden tax burdens, the tip credit complexity, the $2.13/hour direct wage problem, sub-minimum-wage shifts. Worth a feature-length explainer.
• Wage Wire as labor infrastructure. What happens when workers in the same market can compare actual take-home anonymously? Glassdoor for the front-of-house economy.
• Why no subscription. Legal restriction prevents monetized features until November 2026. Worth understanding NorseHorse's broader philosophy on app pricing and worker tools.
• The competitor landscape. NeighCheck vs Wedge / Stride / Hurdlr / Everlance / Keeper — what each app does well and where the gaps are. See our comparison pages.

What NeighCheck is not

• Not a tax preparation service. NeighCheck projects taxes but doesn't file them. Users export to their preferred tax software or CPA.
• Not a payment processor. We don't move money.
• Not an employer-facing product. Built for the worker, not the restaurant or platform.
• Not part of a larger company. Independent, single-developer-owned.

Press contact

Email NorseHorse@norsehor.se for interviews, fact-checking, screenshot requests, or background conversations. NorseHorse responds personally — there's no PR firm or media liaison.

For tight deadlines, mention "press deadline" in the subject line and include your publication and timeframe. Same-day responses are common but not guaranteed.