Word of mouth, with a wider mouth
Word of mouth only ever reaches the people who already know you. Draw the ground you cover instead — and offer work to the yards and owners inside it.
A recommendation cannot travel further than the person making it.
Almost every equine professional in the country builds their round the same way: someone at a yard mentions you, and that yard becomes half your week. It works, and it is also the reason a farrier can be twenty minutes from a yard for six years without either of them knowing the other exists.
A directory does not fix it. Being on a list means being found by whoever happens to open the list — which is nobody, most weeks. What a professional actually needs is the opposite direction: to see the work that is near them, and say something first.
You cover the ground already. This shows you who is standing on it.
Four steps, and you pick every recipient.
- 1
Draw the ground you cover
A radius from your base, on your listing. It is the same coverage the search uses to decide whether you appear for an owner in that postcode — one answer, doing both jobs.
- 2
See who is inside it
The yards and horse owners in that ground, ranked by how likely they are to need you: the ones who asked for your trade and are moving first, then the ones who asked for it, then the rest.
- 3
Untick anyone you would rather keep for later
The whole row is the target, and every person is included by default. The composer shows the cost of the send — how many of your offers it will spend — before you send it.
- 4
They reply in a thread
An offer arrives as a message with your listing attached, not a cold call. The reply comes back into the same thread, where it stays findable after the conversation.
Enough to decide whether to spend a credit.
An offer costs one of a small number, so each row has to earn it. These are the four things it says — and where it does not know, it says that instead.
What they asked for
"Wants a farrier." The ranking is computed against your own trade, and the row names the service THIS person ticked — so a farrier who also clips does not tell someone who asked for clipping that they want a farrier.
Whether they are moving
Beside the need: an owner's timeline, or a yard's spaces. "Moving soon" is a different conversation from "just browsing", and "Timeline not set" is said plainly rather than dressed up.
Where they are, honestly
The county and how far they sit from you — and for an owner searching for a yard, how far she is searching. Never a surname, an email, or an exact location.
How fresh the profile is
"Updated 5d." "Updated 3w." An offer costs a credit, and a profile nobody has touched since spring is worth knowing about before you spend one on it.
What it looks like from their side.
An offer arrives as a message with your listing attached — your coverage, your prices, your accreditations, your reviews. Everything they would want before answering is one tap away, which is most of why an offer is not a cold call.
They can reply, ignore it, or turn discovery off entirely. And nobody hears from you twice inside 90 days, whatever your allowance says.
Ten offers, free, and no commission.
10 offers, one credit per recipient, never resetting. Pro replaces the lifetime cap with 30 a month as a fair-use limit rather than a target.
OpenStable takes nothing from the work itself. Payouts are card, Apple Pay and Google Pay on the job, with the platform fee shown on your payouts page before you take a payment.
Questions professionals ask
What does it cost?
Nothing to be listed, and nothing to look. Sending spends a credit: 10 free offers, one per person, and the allowance never resets. Pro replaces it with 30 a month as a fair-use cap. There is no per-lead fee and no commission on work you win.
One credit per person — what does that actually mean?
The 10 are counted by recipient, not by message. Offering work to the same yard twice does not cost two of them. It also means the allowance is a list of ten people you chose, which is the behaviour it is designed to encourage.
Can I offer work to the same person repeatedly?
No, and deliberately. Anyone you have sent to in the last 90 days is excluded from a new send — the composer counts them separately so you can see they exist without being able to reach them again. A directory that let providers re-send weekly would be a directory nobody stayed listed on.
How do people end up in my audience?
Horse owners who are searching in your area, owners who have enquired at a yard near you, and yards that fall inside the radius you cover. Owners can switch discovery off on their own account, which removes them from every provider's audience at once.
Do I need a subscription to be found at all?
No. Being listed, appearing in an owner's search for your area, and answering the enquiries that come from it are free and always have been. Offers are the part that is metered, because they are the part that reaches someone who did not come looking for you.
Is this the same as buying leads?
No — nothing is sold to you and nothing is exclusive. You are seeing people who are already inside your coverage area on a platform they joined themselves, and choosing which of them to approach. If they reply, the conversation is between the two of you, and OpenStable takes nothing from the work.
More about how OpenStable works
Turnout
Nine structured fields on every UK livery listing.
Read moreSearch & filters
Twenty yards, side by side, in an evening.
Read moreThe yard listing
Specific, dated, comparable.
Read moreService providers
Farriers, vets and saddlers who cover your postcode.
Read moreFind horse owners
For yards: invite the owners already searching nearby.
Read more
The work is already inside your radius.
Yards with spaces, owners who asked for your trade, all within the ground you already drive. Offering work is on every provider dashboard.