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What a five-person crew pays for field service software

Seven field service apps priced for a five-person trade crew with 350 jobs a month. The headline price understates the bill up to five times.

Dispatch Math Research26 October 20267 min readEditorial policy

On this page
  1. The figures
  2. Why the headline is the wrong number
  3. The crew we price
  4. Which plan counts
  5. What each one costs a crew
  6. Limits of the figure
  7. Sources

Priced for a crew of five, six field service apps cost $75 to $249 a month. The cheapest paid plans on their pricing pages start at $29. For four of the six, the crew’s bill is 2.4 to 5.1 times that cheapest plan.

We read the pricing pages of Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceM8, GorillaDesk, Kickserv, Service Fusion and Joist on 26 Oct 2026 and priced the same month for each: one office user, four technicians, 350 jobs, and invoices that sync to QuickBooks Online. Every figure is the regular monthly price, with no annual commitment and no promotion.

The figures

Product Cheapest paid plan on the pricing page 1 person Crew of 5 Crew of 10 Plan for the crew of 5
Kickserv $75 $19 $75 $149 Start (5 users)
ServiceM8 $29 $79 $149 $349 Premium (500 jobs a month)
Housecall Pro $79 $79 $189 $399 Essentials (5 users included)
Jobber $49 $49 $199 $299 Connect (5 users)
Service Fusion $245 $245 $245 $245 Starter (unlimited users)
GorillaDesk $49 $49 $249 $499 Pro, $99 + 3 added routes at $50
Joist $10 $100 none none No plan dispatches a crew

Prices in US dollars a month, billed monthly, read on each vendor’s own pricing page on 26 Oct 2026. Card processing, setup fees and sales tax are not included. The crew of 10 is one office user and nine technicians with 780 jobs.

Ranked by headline, the order is ServiceM8, Jobber, GorillaDesk, Kickserv, Housecall Pro, Service Fusion. Ranked by what the crew pays, it is Kickserv, ServiceM8, Housecall Pro, Jobber, Service Fusion, GorillaDesk. At ten people it changes again: Service Fusion moves from fifth to second, because its price does not grow with the team.

Why the headline is the wrong number

Three things push a crew’s bill above the price on the plan card.

The headline is one user. Jobber Core at $49 and Housecall Pro Basic at $79 are priced for one person. Jobber counts everyone: “A user is anyone who accesses your account at the office or in the field.” Its plans are sold for 1, 5, 10 or 15 users, with “Add users for $29/mo each.” Housecall Pro includes 5 users on Essentials and 8 on MAX, and sells more only on MAX at “$35/mo per additional user.” GorillaDesk prices each technician’s route and leaves office users free. ServiceM8 and Service Fusion sell unlimited users.

QuickBooks sync sits on a higher plan. A trade that hands its books to an accountant needs its invoices in QuickBooks Online. Jobber Core, Housecall Pro Basic and GorillaDesk Basic do not sync. The crew needs Jobber Connect at $199 for five users, Housecall Pro Essentials at $189 and GorillaDesk Pro at $99 for the first route. ServiceM8 and Kickserv sync on every plan.

Some plans cap the jobs. ServiceM8 prices by “new jobs per month”: 30 on Free, 50 on Starter, 150 on Growing, 500 on Premium and 1,500+ on Premium Plus. A crew of five at 350 jobs a month needs Premium at $149, five times the $29 Starter price. Ten people at 780 jobs need Premium Plus at $349.

The crew we price

Every figure prices the same business, so the numbers compare.

  • Five people. The US Census Bureau’s County Business Patterns 2023 counts 98,606 plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors with fewer than 20 employees. They are 88.7% of the trade and average 4.32 paid employees. Electrical contractors of that size average 4.25. Four employees and an owner make five.
  • One in the office, four in the field. One person books, schedules and bills, often the owner.
  • 350 jobs a month. ServiceTitan’s field service benchmarks put a technician at “three to five jobs per day.” Four jobs a day for four technicians over 21.67 working days is 347, rounded to 350.
  • Ten people is the next size band in the Census file. Nine technicians at the same rate do 780 jobs.
  • One person is a solo operator at 90 jobs a month who needs scheduling, quotes, invoices and card payments, without dispatch or QuickBooks sync.

The same Census file puts small pest control firms at 4.63 paid employees, janitorial firms at 3.90 and landscaping firms at 3.21. One crew of five is used for every trade, so a plumber and a lawn care firm read the same kind of figure.

Which plan counts

A plan counts when its price is published, it is not a trial, and it does the whole job: a calendar of jobs, dispatch to technicians on a mobile app, quotes, invoices, card payments and invoice sync to QuickBooks Online. Every limit it states must hold the month.

The figure is the cheapest such plan, plus every recurring fee the buyer cannot decline, plus users past the plan’s allowance at its price per added user. Where a plan is sold in team sizes, each size is compared. Jobber Connect for 5 users at $199 beats Connect for 1 user plus four at $29, which is $255.

Left out, and shown on each listing on its own line: setup and onboarding fees, card processing, optional add-ons such as GPS hardware or AI call answering, sales tax, and promotions. On 26 Oct, Jobber showed “Save up to 40% Offer ends October 30th,” and Housecall Pro offered “$26 /mo for 1 month.” A lower price for a year’s commitment is shown as the contract term and never used for the figure. Jobber Connect for 5 users is $169 a month on a one-year commitment against $199 with none.

What each one costs a crew

Kickserv, $75 for five. Start is sold for 5 users, Run for 10 at $149 and Scale for 20 at $249, each billed monthly. QuickBooks Online sync is on every plan. A solo operator can take Flex at $19 a month, which is not on the pricing page but on Kickserv’s own blog with a sign-up link.

ServiceM8, $149 for five. Unlimited users on every paid plan, and a free plan for one user with 30 jobs. The jobs cap decides the plan: Premium holds 500 jobs a month, so it fits five people and not ten.

Housecall Pro, $189 for five. Essentials includes exactly five users. Ten people need MAX: $329 with 8 users, plus two at $35, which is $399.

Jobber, $199 for five. Core has no QuickBooks sync, so the crew starts on Connect. The 10-user tier at $299 is cheaper than the 5-user tier plus five added users at $29 ($344), which is why Jobber moves from fourth to third between five and ten people.

Service Fusion, $245 at every size. Starter has unlimited users and syncs to QuickBooks. A solo operator pays what a crew of ten pays.

GorillaDesk, $249 for five. Pro is $99 for the first route and “+$50/mo per added route.” Office users are free, so four technicians are four routes. Ten people with nine routes pay $499.

Joist, no crew figure. Joist quotes and invoices for one person and has no dispatch. Run at $100 is its only plan with a schedule of jobs, so that is the solo figure.

Limits of the figure

The figure prices software, not the whole cost of running a crew. Card fees depend on a trade’s sales: Kickserv, for example, charges 2.9% + $0.30 for tap to pay in its app, and each listing gives its vendor’s rate. Products sold only by quote, such as ServiceTitan, FieldEdge and Workiz, have no figure and are listed after the ranked products. Prices change: every listing shows the day its price was read and the vendor page it came from.

Sources

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