UK. Electricians, plumbers, builders and small teams
Compare job management software for UK trades
A one-van and a six-van business buy this software for opposite reasons, so pricing shape matters more than features. Some charge per user, some per business; one is free up to thirty jobs a month. Below: what eight suppliers publish.
| Option | supplier's own page, checked 15 Aug 2026 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8 A sole trader who wants to start at nothing | Free plan at £0 a month for 1 user and 30 jobs a month, with 10 AI uses a day and SMS at 5p | Nothing. Every paid plan from Starter at £25 a month carries unlimited users; you pay for jobs per month instead (50, 150, 500, then 1500 plus at £119 and £269) | Electronic forms described as completing any report, procedure or certificate on site and generating a professional PDF. Asset management and recurring maintenance scheduling are listed on the paid plans | Card payments through the app or a pay-online link, Tap to Pay on iPhone, online bookings, quoting and invoicing on every plan | Accounting integrations on all plans, syncing clients, items, invoices and payments | 14 day free trial, and the Free plan continues indefinitely. The pricing page describes the mobile app as iOS and refers throughout to iPhone and iPad; it does not mention Android |
| Gas Engineer Software Gas and heating engineers who live in certificates | The page's pricing FAQ states plans start from £18 per user per month on an annual plan, £19 monthly, for the Starter plan aimed at sole traders. Prices exclude VAT | Per user, so a second engineer is another licence. The page's plan builder prices a 4 user Core team at £100 a month, being 4 users at £25 each on monthly billing | The core of the product: gas records and certificates including CP12 landlord gas safety records, oil records, job sheets, full certificate history, an AI certificate validator, and air source heat pump records listed as coming soon | Quotes and estimates, invoices and payments from the Core plan; the Starter plan does not include them | Direct integrations with QuickBooks, Xero and Sage, on the Pro plan at £30 per user per month | 14 day free trial with no card and no feature restrictions. The page states all plans are month to month with no contracts and no setup fees |
| Powered Now A UK trade business that wants VAT and MTD in the same app | Business £28 a month or £280 a year. Pricing is stated as per user, VAT excluded | Per user. Adding your team is a Professional plan feature at £32 a month per user, so the second user costs both a licence and a tier | Forms and certificates from the Professional plan, with automated certificate reminders. Drawings and annotations on Premium at £40 | Quotes, invoices, deposits and part payments, online payments, a mobile card reader, and automatic invoice and quote chasing on Premium | Making Tax Digital compliance on every plan, with Xero integration and VAT return submission from Professional | 14 day trial. Annual billing is described as two months free every year |
| YourTradebase Quoting and getting paid, without the rest | £29 per month, described as the whole price. Prices subject to VAT | £15 per month per additional user, the clearest published second-user price here | Not named on the pricing page. The product is presented as quotes and estimates, job scheduling, invoices and card payments | Quotes and estimates, invoicing with reminders, and card payments | Connections to QuickBooks and Xero are listed in the site's own feature navigation | 30 day free trial with no card, the longest here. No long-term contracts, and the page states an account downgrades to a free account with usage limits rather than being cut off |
| Tradify A small team that wants everything on one per-user price | Lite £34 per user per month. VAT treatment is not stated on the pricing page | Another £34 to £44 depending on tier, straight linear per user. A Custom tier for large teams is sold by phone | Forms and certificates from the Pro plan at £37, with oil and gas safety certificates and electrical safety certificates named separately in the site's own feature list | Quoting and invoicing, online and credit card payments and email tracking on Lite; progress invoicing, quote options with online acceptance and automated quote and invoice chasing from Pro | Xero, Sage and QuickBooks Online sync on every plan including Lite | 14 day free trial described as including all features. Add-ons priced separately: instant website £10 a month, text messages 10p each |
| Okappy Firms that push work out to subcontractors | £39 plus VAT per user, quoted as a monthly equivalent paid yearly in advance, on the Growing plan with a minimum of 5 employees. The Established plan is cheaper per user at £29 plus VAT but has a minimum of 10 | Per user, but subcontractor licences are included rather than charged: 5 on Growing, 10 on Established, 1,000 on Enterprise | Standard templates and check sheets on every plan, custom templates and custom check sheets on the higher tiers, plus daily check sheets | Raise and receive invoices, take payment, create quotes | Export to accounting software listed on all plans | Free trial offered, and the page states contracts are monthly rolling with 14 days written notice. Training from £250 and configuration from £100 are priced separately |
| Joblogic A trade firm growing into contract maintenance | Standard from £45 per user per month billed annually, with a worked example of a 5 user team at £225 a month | Per user, and the page states per-user pricing scales linearly up to 50 users, above which it becomes a custom commercial agreement | Electronic Forms (Standard) on the entry plan, with a custom form builder held back to Enterprise. Gas certificates and F gas compliance appear in its industry pages | Quotes and invoices plus Stripe integration on Standard; purchase orders and invoicing move up to Premium | Accounts integration is listed among its features, and the marketplace is described as carrying 70 plus apps and integrations | Standard has a free trial with no card. The page states most customers commit to 24 or 36 months and that a 12 month term can be structured instead, which is the longest tie-in here |
| Fergus Job costing and profit per job | The UK page states plans starting from 53 a month for Basic and 75 for Professional, with a dollar sign and no currency stated anywhere on the page. We have reproduced the figures rather than converting them | Timesheet users are quoted from 26 a month, in the same unstated currency. Enterprise is a custom plan for more than 10 staff | Job cards are the named on-site document. The plan comparison does not name UK trade certificates | Quoting and estimating, price books, invoicing and credit card and on-site payments | Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB listed in the plan comparison | 14 day free trial with no card, monthly billing described as having no lock-in contracts, and a free one hour onboarding session |
How we chose these, and how they are ordered
These are job management apps aimed at UK trade businesses with roughly one to twenty people on the tools, whose own pricing page we could read on 15 August 2026. Products sold mainly to facilities management contractors and national maintenance operations are not here. They are a different purchase, covered on our sister site for larger field service operations.
The order is by the cheapest published way for a sole trader to start, from free upward, because that is what a one-van business asks first. It is not a quality ranking; sort by anything else and the order changes completely, which is why the table is sortable.
Column by column, the useful comparison is usually the second: what a second and third user cost. That is where a per-user product and a per-business product diverge sharply.
Every price is copied from the supplier's own page on 15 August 2026, with its VAT treatment as the supplier states it. Where a supplier states nothing about VAT, we say so rather than assuming.
Fergus is included with a caveat rather than a price. Its UK page quotes plans with a dollar sign and states no currency anywhere on the page, so we have reproduced the figures and not converted them.
simPRO and Jobber are excluded entirely: both refuse our checks with a 403 at every path, including their own home pages. We do not publish a row we cannot source.
What this table does not tell you: which one you will actually enjoy using. There are no scores, ratings or review counts here. We have not run these products on real jobs, and neither has anyone else publishing a scored table of eight of them in an afternoon.
It records what each supplier states about its own product on a named page on a named date. Use it for a shortlist of two, then spend the trial on what decides it: how long it takes you to quote from a van in the rain.
We take no commission from any supplier here and carry no paid placements.
- ServiceM8 servicem8.com UK pricing
- Gas Engineer Software gasengineersoftware.com pricing
- Powered Now powerednow.com pricing
- YourTradebase yourtradebase.com pricing
- Tradify tradifyhq.com UK pricing
- Okappy okappy.com pricing
- Joblogic joblogic.com pricing
- Fergus fergus.com UK pricing
Compare Trade Software is an information site. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or connected to any software supplier named here, nor with HMRC or any certification body, and nothing on it is tax, legal or accounting advice. We take no commission from any supplier in this comparison and carry no paid placements. Prices and features change without notice: every figure carries the date we read it on the supplier's own page, and you should confirm the current position there before you buy.
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What it costs to put a UK trade business on job management software, and what the second user costs
Last updated
The headline price of trade software is almost never what you end up paying, because the pricing shapes are not comparable. Per user, per business, per job and per band look similar on a pricing page and behave completely differently once you hire someone. This table reduces eight UK products to the two numbers that decide it.
Every figure is copied from the supplier's own pricing page on 15 August 2026 and reproduced rather than estimated, with the VAT treatment as that supplier states it. Where a supplier does not state VAT treatment, the row says so. Where a supplier's cheapest plan carries a minimum number of users, that minimum is shown, because a per-user price with a minimum of five is not an entry price for a sole trader. Fergus is shown with its figures as published, in a currency its UK page does not state. simPRO and Jobber are absent because both refuse automated checks at every path including their home pages, so we could not read their prices at source. No product on this page pays us and no placement is paid.
| Product | Cheapest published start | What a second user costs | VAT stated? |
|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8 | £0 a month, 1 user, 30 jobs a month | Nothing: paid plans from £25 a month carry unlimited users and charge by jobs per month instead | Not stated on the page |
| Gas Engineer Software | £18 per user per month on an annual plan (£19 monthly), Starter tier | Another licence at the same rate; the page prices a 4 user Core team at £100 a month | Yes, prices exclude VAT |
| Powered Now | £28 a month (£280 a year), Business tier | Another licence, and adding your team is a Professional feature at £32 per user per month | Yes, per user and VAT excluded |
| YourTradebase | £29 a month | £15 a month per additional user | Yes, subject to VAT |
| Tradify | £34 per user per month, Lite tier | Another £34 to £44 depending on tier | Not stated on the page |
| Okappy | £39 plus VAT per user monthly equivalent paid yearly, minimum 5 employees | Another licence, but 5 to 1,000 subcontractor licences are included by tier | Yes, plus VAT |
| Joblogic | £45 per user per month billed annually, Standard tier | Another licence; the page states pricing scales linearly to 50 users | Not stated on the pricing page |
| Fergus | 53 a month, Basic tier, in a currency the UK page does not state | Timesheet users from 26 a month, same unstated currency | Not stated on the page |
- Of eight UK trade job management products, the cheapest published entry is £0 a month (ServiceM8's free plan, 1 user and 30 jobs a month) and the cheapest paid entry is £18 per user per month excluding VAT (Gas Engineer Software Starter, annual), checked 15 August 2026.
- Only one product publishes a distinct second-user price: YourTradebase at £15 a month per additional user, against £29 a month for the first.
- ServiceM8 is the only product here that charges by jobs per month rather than by user, so its paid plans carry unlimited users from £25 a month.
- Free trials run from 14 days on most products to 30 days on YourTradebase, and Gas Engineer Software, Okappy and Fergus all state there is no minimum term.
- The longest tie-in belongs to Joblogic, whose pricing page states most customers commit to 24 or 36 months, with 12 months available if it suits the business better.
Cite this page
“What it costs to put a UK trade business on job management software, and what the second user costs”, Compare Trade Software, https://comparetradesoftware.com/ (updated 2026-08-15). Every figure is copied from the supplier's own pricing page on 15 August 2026 and reproduced rather than estimated, with the VAT treatment as that supplier states it. Where a supplier does not state VAT treatment, the row says so. Where a supplier's cheapest plan carries a minimum number of users, that minimum is shown, because a per-user price with a minimum of five is not an entry price for a sole trader. Fergus is shown with its figures as published, in a currency its UK page does not state. simPRO and Jobber are absent because both refuse automated checks at every path including their home pages, so we could not read their prices at source. No product on this page pays us and no placement is paid.
Questions, answered directly
What is the cheapest job management software for a UK sole trader?
Of the eight, ServiceM8's free plan is cheapest: £0 a month for one user and 30 jobs monthly. Cheapest paid: Gas Engineer Software's Starter, £18 per user per month on an annual plan, excluding VAT, for sole traders and single-engineer businesses. YourTradebase: £29 a month plus £15 per extra user. Powered Now Business: £28 per user a month, excluding VAT.
Does trade job management software include electrical or gas certificates?
Sometimes, usually one tier up. Gas Engineer Software is built around gas and oil records including CP12 landlord gas safety records. Tradify: forms and certificates from Pro (£37 per user a month), naming oil, gas and electrical safety certificates. Powered Now: from Professional (£32). ServiceM8 and Okappy: general electronic forms and check sheets. YourTradebase's pricing page names none.
How much does it cost to add a second user?
It depends on the pricing shape. On per-user products a second user is another full licence at the same rate. YourTradebase: £29 for the first user, £15 a month for each extra. ServiceM8's paid plans from £25 a month include unlimited users. On Powered Now, adding your team needs the Professional plan, so it can cost a tier too.
Which trade apps handle Making Tax Digital?
Powered Now lists Making Tax Digital compliance on every plan, and VAT return submission from Professional. Most others sync to accounting software that submits: Tradify to Xero, Sage and QuickBooks Online on all tiers, YourTradebase to QuickBooks and Xero. Gas Engineer Software adds QuickBooks, Xero and Sage on Pro; ServiceM8 syncs to your accounting package on all plans.
How do I choose job management for a growing trade business?
Price next year's team on each shape, not the cheapest start. On per-user products (Tradify, Gas Engineer Software, Powered Now, Joblogic, Okappy) every new engineer is another full licence. YourTradebase: £15 a month per extra user. ServiceM8 (paid from £25 a month) has unlimited users and charges by jobs a month, favouring a growing team doing fewer, larger jobs.
Do I have to sign a long contract?
Mostly not. Gas Engineer Software states month to month plans with no contracts or setup fees; Okappy, monthly rolling contracts with 14 days written notice. Fergus states monthly billing with no lock-in; YourTradebase, no long-term contracts and a 30 day free trial. Joblogic is the exception: it states most customers commit to 24 or 36 months, 12 if it suits.
Why are simPRO and Jobber not in this comparison?
Both returned a 403 to our automated checks at every path we tried, including their home pages. So we could not read a price or feature list at source, and we publish no row we cannot verify. Fergus is included without a currency: its UK page quotes a dollar sign and names no currency, so we did not convert.
Will these apps work on an Android phone?
It varies, so check. ServiceM8's UK pricing page describes an iOS app, for iPhone and iPad, and does not mention Android. Powered Now states PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android phone and tablet. Gas Engineer Software lists mobile apps for Android and iOS on every plan. On Android handsets, confirm it on the supplier's own page before the trial.
Sources
This site's own datasets, every figure quoted from its source and dated:
- The Trade Job Software Pricing Index carries 27 published figures read from 23 sources' own pages; the 24 published figures given without a breakdown run from 5 to 299 GBP (30 sources publish a figure), read 11 November 2026.
- The Trade Money Stack Cost carries 9 published figures read from 9 sources' own pages; the 8 published figures given without a breakdown run from 12 to 50 GBP, read 11 November 2026.
- The UK Trade Business Population carries 10 published figures read from 3 sources' own pages; the 7 published figures given by measure run from 0.20 to 4.10 percent, read 11 November 2026.
- The UK Trade Compliance Obligations carries 6 published figures read from 3 sources' own pages, from 7 to 30 day, read 7 November 2026.
Compare the price, then compare the second user
Eight UK trade job management apps, what each publishes as a starting price, and what happens to the bill when you put someone else on it.