If your shop runs QuickBooks Online, the entry price for field service software is not the number on the front of the pricing page. It is the price of the first tier that syncs to your books. Across four vendors that publish real numbers, that tier costs $0, $48, $99, or $149 a month.
Housecall Pro is the $149 end of that range, which is why so many electricians go looking for an alternative. The second thing that decides your real cost is what each vendor meters: three of the four charge by the seat, one charges by the job. Which model is cheaper depends on whether your shop is people-heavy or job-heavy.
None of these platforms include the thing that determines whether a job record gets created at all: someone answering the phone. That’s not a knock on any of them, it’s just not what they sell. It’s worth pricing separately, because for most shops it costs more than the software does.
QuickBooks Online puts the real entry price between $0 and $149
Billed annually, the first tier that syncs to QuickBooks Online costs:
- ServiceM8: $0, on the Free plan
- Kickserv: $48, on Start
- Jobber: $99, on Connect
- Housecall Pro: $149, on Essentials
Housecall Pro Basic is $59 per month billed annually, or $79 billed monthly, but Basic does not include QuickBooks Online sync. If your books run on QuickBooks Online, your real Housecall Pro entry price is Essentials at $149 annually, and Essentials includes five users.
The full Housecall Pro seat and processing math is in the breakdown of what Housecall Pro actually costs an electrical contractor. The number that matters is never the first price you see. It is the first tier that includes the connection your books require, and even that number still assumes someone is already answering the phone to generate the jobs this software tracks.
ServiceM8 counts jobs while the others count seats
ServiceM8 meters jobs per month, not seats, and every paid plan has unlimited users. Starter is $29 per month for 50 jobs. Growing is $79 for 150 jobs. Premium is $149 for 500 jobs. Premium Plus is $349 for 1,500 or more. The Free plan is $0 for 30 jobs a month with one user, and SMS costs 10 cents a message there instead of being free.
That flips the comparison depending on the shop. A four-person crew running 40 jobs a month pays $29 on ServiceM8 Starter, while the same crew on Jobber Connect pays $186, as the seat math below shows. A solo operator running 200 jobs a month gets the opposite result: job count alone pushes him to ServiceM8 Premium at $149, while Jobber Connect stays at $99.
This is an intake problem as much as a billing one. On a job-metered plan, every job record you open is a billable unit. A front desk that opens a job for every price shopper who calls will burn through a 50-job or 150-job allowance on work the shop never sold. On a seat-metered plan that same sloppiness costs nothing, which is exactly why the two models are not interchangeable, and why whoever is doing your intake matters more on some plans than others.
Wirewoman’s own pricing is flat, $95, $295, or $495 a month, with no per-minute meter and no overage trap either way. She answers 24/7 in about 2 seconds, runs the electrical intake, and texts a job summary to your phone in about 30 seconds: who called, what they need, where to go, whether it’s urgent. That summary is also how you decide what actually deserves a job record before you spend one of a job-metered plan’s monthly allowance, or add a seat to a per-user plan.
Jobber’s $29 headline becomes $186 for four people with QuickBooks
Jobber Core is $29 per month billed annually. It includes one user, each additional user is $29, and it includes online booking but not QuickBooks Online sync.
A four-person shop on Core pays $29 plus three additional seats at $29, or $116 a month, and that still does not touch QuickBooks. Moving to Connect for the sync puts the same four people at $99 plus three seats at $29, or $186 a month billed annually.
Connect includes QuickBooks Online and Xero sync. Grow, at $149 annually for one user, adds job costing, two-way text messaging, and automated follow-ups. Do not hold Jobber’s $29 headline up against Housecall Pro Essentials or Kickserv Start. Compare the tier that carries the integration you need, at the seat count you actually run.
That seat count includes whoever answers the phone, if that’s a person on payroll. Read the signs your electrical business needs front office help before you treat that role as free, because on a per-seat platform it isn’t.
Kickserv takes a different position on seats. Start is $48 a month billed annually and already includes five users, QuickBooks Online, automated email and text reminders, an embeddable contact form, time and expense tracking, and more than 20 reports. Run is $95.20 annually with 10 users, though QuickBooks Desktop there is an extra $50 a month. Scale is $159.20 with 20 users.
ServiceTitan and FieldEdge will not put a number on the page
ServiceTitan publishes three tiers, Starter, Essentials, and The Works, with no dollar prices. Each one says “Request Pricing,” and the page describes per-technician pricing without disclosing a rate. FieldEdge does the same with Select, Premier, and Elite, saying pricing varies with how many technicians or employees you have and which add-ons you need. Every path on both sites leads to a demo.
That is a sales-led model aimed at bigger shops, not a trap. It does mean you cannot compare either one on paper. Get the quote in writing, with the per-technician rate and every add-on itemized as its own line.
Workiz is another name in this category. We could not confirm a current published price from Workiz itself, and the third-party aggregator figures contradict each other, so there is no number worth repeating here. Ask Workiz for it in writing.
Processing fees belong inside the job price
The subscription is only part of the bill. Jobber charges 2.9% plus 30 cents on credit cards, 2.7% plus 30 cents on Tap to Pay, and 1% on ACH. Housecall Pro charges 2.59% for a reader, tap, swipe, or chip, 2.99% when the customer enters a card through the invoice online, and 3.49% for manual entry, cards on file, Amex, and commercial cards, with ACH at 1%.
On electrical ticket sizes, the spread between running the card on a reader at the job and keying it in later moves more money than the gap between two plan tiers. Build those costs into the number you quote, the same way you handle every other job cost when pricing electrical work.
Run the comparison with five numbers, not four
Count your seats. Count your jobs in an average month. Name whether QuickBooks Online is a requirement or a preference, since that alone moves Housecall Pro from Basic to Essentials and Jobber from Core to Connect. Write down how your customers actually pay you. Then price who answers the phone as its own line, separate from whichever field service platform you pick, because none of the four platforms above do that job for you.
What a missed call costs a California electrician belongs in the same budget as the software comparison, and for most shops it is the larger number. Wirewoman is built to close that gap statewide, at a flat $95-$495 a month regardless of which field service tool ends up on your invoice. See what she actually does on a real call before you finalize either budget.
