Every tradie hits the same wall. You’re good at your trade, business is growing, but admin is eating you alive. Quotes going out late, jobs double-booked, invoices in a pile. You’re running your business from text messages, a notebook, and whatever you remember after your third coffee.
Job management software fixes this. But choosing the wrong one is almost worse than having none — you’ll spend weeks setting it up, hate using it, and go back to the notebook within a month.
Here are the six most popular options for Australian tradies in 2026. No sponsorships, no affiliate deals. Honest assessments only.
The Six Contenders
- ServiceM8 — The Aussie-built favourite
- Tradify — The Kiwi-built tradie specialist
- Fergus — Another Kiwi, focused on profitability
- Jobber — The Canadian import
- AroFlo — Aussie-built for bigger operations
- simPRO — The enterprise-grade option
Let’s get into it.
ServiceM8
Price: Free (for solo operators, limited) → $9/month (Starter) → $29/month (Growing) → $79/month (Premium) → $179/month (Premium Plus). All AUD. Per-job pricing also available.
The pitch: Built in Australia for field service businesses. One of the most widely used platforms among Aussie tradies.
What it does well:
The mobile app is genuinely excellent — designed for blokes on-site with dirty hands and limited patience. Create a job, add photos, get a signature, send an invoice in about two minutes. Most tradies figure it out without reading a manual.
Quoting and invoicing are smooth. Build quotes from templates, send via email or SMS, convert accepted quotes to jobs with one tap. Integration with Xero and MYOB keeps your bookkeeper happy.
The dispatch board gives a visual overview of who’s doing what. Online booking is built in — embed a form on your website and have jobs created automatically.
What’s not great:
ServiceM8 is primarily an iOS app. There’s an Android version, but historically it’s lagged behind the iPhone version in features and polish. If your team is all on Android, check that the features you need are available.
Inventory management is basic — no proper stock tracking or purchase orders. The pricing structure can get confusing with per-job vs monthly options. And scheduling for larger teams (10+) starts to feel constrained.
Who it suits: Solo operators and small teams (1–8 people) doing reactive service work — plumbers, electricians, HVAC, pest control, locksmiths. It’s perfect for businesses that are mostly call-out or booking-based work.
Tradify
Price: $55/user/month AUD (single plan, all features included)
The pitch: Built by tradies for tradies. New Zealand company with strong Australian traction.
What it does well:
The per-user, all-features pricing is refreshingly simple. No tiers, no feature gating. Everyone gets everything.
The enquiry-to-invoice workflow is excellent — enquiry becomes quote, quote becomes job, job becomes invoice. Each step flows naturally. Time tracking is built in, with staff clocking on/off jobs from the app. Scheduler is visual and drag-and-drop. Solid Xero, MYOB, and QuickBooks integration.
What’s not great:
At $55/user/month, a team of 10 is $550/month — approaching simPRO territory. The mobile app is good but not as polished as ServiceM8. Reporting is adequate but not deep. No built-in online booking.
Who it suits: Small to medium trade businesses (2–10 people) who want a simple, all-in-one solution without the complexity of bigger platforms. Particularly good for businesses that do a mix of quoted project work and reactive service calls.
Fergus
Price: Starting from $55/user/month AUD (basic plan) → higher tiers available with additional features
The pitch: “The profit-focused job management app.” Strong emphasis on understanding your margins.
What it does well:
Profitability tracking is the killer feature. Every job shows estimated vs actual costs in real time. Material margin tracking shows what you’re paying vs charging — if you’re not marking up properly, Fergus will show you exactly how much you’re leaving on the table. Quoting includes price lists and markup templates. Decent workflow automation for status-triggered actions.
What’s not great:
The interface can feel cluttered — steeper learning curve than ServiceM8 or Tradify. Mobile app has had mixed reliability reviews (improving over time). Setup takes longer because of all the features (price books, labour rates, overhead calculations). Budget a good week of setup time.
Who it suits: Trade businesses that have moved past the “just getting jobs done” phase and want to understand their profitability. Plumbing, electrical, and HVAC businesses doing a mix of service and project work. Teams of 3–15 who are willing to invest time in setup to get better financial visibility.
Jobber
Price: From $30/month AUD (Core, 1 user) → $85/month (Connect, up to 5 users) → $175/month (Grow, up to 15 users). Prices are approximate AUD.
The pitch: Canadian-built, globally popular. Strong focus on customer experience.
What it does well:
The customer-facing experience is where Jobber shines — client hub, online booking, automatic follow-ups, review requests. Makes your business look professional. The quoting system allows multiple options in a single quote (“Option A: basic, Option B: premium”), with customers accepting directly from the email. Mobile app is excellent. Automated quote follow-ups can meaningfully increase your conversion rate.
What’s not great:
Designed primarily for North America. Works fine here, but some features feel US/Canada-focused. MYOB integration has been less reliable than Xero. Pricing is tiered by user count — 6 people means paying for the 15-user plan. Australian-specific requirements (ATO compliance, local payment gateways) aren’t as well catered for as Aussie-built alternatives.
Who it suits: Trades that focus heavily on the residential customer experience — lawn care, cleaning, pest control, pool maintenance. Businesses that want to look polished and professional in customer interactions. Less ideal for construction-focused trades or those needing deep Australian integrations.
AroFlo
Price: From approximately $79/user/month AUD (pricing is quote-based and varies)
The pitch: Australian-built for medium to large trade businesses. A step up in complexity and capability.
What it does well:
Asset management and maintenance scheduling is excellent — track service history, schedule preventive maintenance, manage warranties. Purchase ordering and inventory are built in and actually functional (raise POs, receive stock, track levels). Compliance features include SWMS, JSAs, and risk assessments completed on-site via the app. Comprehensive reporting suite.
What’s not great:
Not simple to set up — expect multi-week onboarding. Mobile app is functional but not as slick as ServiceM8 or Jobber. Quote-based pricing makes comparison harder. Overkill for solo operators or very small teams.
Who it suits: Medium trade businesses (8–50+ staff) doing commercial and residential work. Businesses with inventory, asset management, compliance requirements, and multiple crews. Fire protection, HVAC, commercial electrical, plumbing contractors.
simPRO
Price: Quote-based (typically $50–100+/user/month AUD depending on configuration)
The pitch: Enterprise-grade. Australian-built for large trade businesses and contractors.
What it does well:
If you need it, simPRO probably has it — project management, quoting, invoicing, inventory, asset management, fleet management, purchase orders, timesheets, compliance, BI dashboards. Multi-branch support is built in. The quoting engine is the most powerful here — detailed cost estimates with labour, materials, plant, and subcontractor costs. Extensive integration ecosystem.
What’s not great:
The most complex platform here by a margin. Implementation takes weeks to months, often with paid onboarding. The mobile app has historically been the weakest point — cumbersome compared to simpler apps. Highest total cost when you factor in licensing, setup, and training. For small businesses, it’s a sledgehammer for a picture frame.
Who it suits: Large trade businesses (15–200+ staff) doing significant commercial and project work. Businesses that need detailed project costing, multi-branch management, and enterprise-grade reporting. Electrical contractors, mechanical services, fire protection, large plumbing and HVAC businesses.
So Which One Should You Pick?
Here’s the honest decision tree:
Solo operator doing call-out work? → ServiceM8 (free or Starter plan)
Small team (2–5) wanting simplicity? → Tradify or ServiceM8
Small team wanting profitability insights? → Fergus
Customer experience focused (residential services)? → Jobber
Medium business (8–30) with commercial work? → AroFlo
Large business (15+) with complex operations? → simPRO
Don’t overcomplicate it. Pick the one that matches your current size and complexity, not the one you think you might grow into. You can always migrate later (and most platforms offer data migration tools).
The Bigger Picture
Here’s something worth mentioning: job management software is just one piece of your business automation puzzle. The real productivity gains come when your job management tool connects seamlessly with your accounting, your communication, your scheduling, and your customer management.
Getting these systems to talk to each other — so a new enquiry automatically creates a job, which triggers a calendar event, which notifies the assigned tradie, which flows through to an invoice, which syncs to your accounting software — that’s where the magic happens.
If you want to go beyond just picking software and actually build proper automation workflows for your trade business, I cover the full process in Automate Everything. It walks through how to connect your systems, eliminate double-handling, and build workflows that genuinely run themselves.
The One Thing That Matters Most
Whichever platform you choose, the number one factor in whether it succeeds is this: you actually have to use it.
The best job management software in the world does nothing if it sits unused because it was too complicated, too slow, or too annoying to bother with on a busy Monday morning. Pick the one that your team will actually open every day. That’s the right choice.
Now close this tab and go send those invoices.
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