This one started with real client work. One of our clients runs an appliance-repair and air-conditioning business — lots of small jobs, a small crew — and their job-management software put its prices up. When we sat down to compare the alternatives, we noticed something most comparison articles skip entirely: the platforms don't even charge the same way, so "which is cheaper" has no single answer.
ServiceM8 prices by how many jobs you complete a month, with unlimited users on every paid plan. Tradify and Fergus price by how many users need the app, with unlimited jobs. So a five-person crew doing 100 jobs a month and a two-person crew doing 200 jobs a month get completely different answers — even though they're both "small trade businesses" to a software marketing page.
Two pricing models, one trap
| Platform | Charges by | Punishes | Rewards |
|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8 | Jobs per month | High job volume | Big crews, fewer/bigger jobs |
| Tradify | Users | Big crews | Small crews, high job volume |
| Fergus | Users | Big crews | Small crews, high job volume |
| FieldPulse | Users (USD, quote-only) | Everyone who doesn't get it in writing | — |
The trap: appliance repair, drain clearing, air-con servicing and similar trades run high volumes of small jobs. Per-job pricing quietly climbs tiers underneath you. Meanwhile a bigger crew doing renovations or fit-outs completes fewer, larger jobs — and per-user pricing is what stings them. Neither model is a rip-off. They're just built for different business shapes, and the marketing pages won't tell you which shape you are.
The calculator
Two numbers. That's all it needs.
How the maths works
- ServiceM8 — AUD, inc GST, unlimited users on paid plans. We pick the cheapest plan that covers your job volume: Free $0 (1 user only, 30 jobs), Starter $29 (50 jobs), Growing $79 (150 jobs), Premium $149 (500 jobs), Premium Plus $349/mo (1,500 jobs, then 20c per extra job).
- Tradify — advertised AUD prices are ex GST, so we add 10%: Lite $48/user (crews up to 3), Pro $52/user (4+). Unlimited jobs. Feature needs may push you to a higher plan than we assume.
- Fergus — Basic plan "from" $53 per user/month as advertised, used as-is (GST treatment isn't stated on their pricing page). Professional is from $75/user. Timesheet-only staff are cheaper (~$26) — we count everyone at the full rate, so a crew with apprentices who only clock time may pay less than shown.
- FieldPulse — doesn't publish pricing and bills in USD. We estimate US$90 per user/month (the mid-point of 2026 reported quotes, roughly US$65–115) converted at US$0.65 to the Aussie dollar ≈ A$138/user. Treat it as indicative only — add-ons and post-year-one increases are commonly reported.
- Annual figures are the monthly cost × 12. SMS, card fees and add-ons excluded (see below). Pricing last verified 28 August 2026 from each platform's public pricing page — check before you buy.
Three real shapes
Solo appliance or air-con tech, 70 jobs a month
High volume, one user. ServiceM8 needs its Growing plan to cover 70 jobs — $79 a month, $948 a year. Tradify Lite for one user is about $634 a year inc GST. Per-user wins by around $314 a year, and it keeps winning as your job count grows, because one user is one user no matter how busy you get.
Two on the tools, 160 jobs a month
This is the appliance-repair shape that started this article. 160 jobs pushes ServiceM8 past its Growing cap into Premium — $149 a month, $1,788 a year. Tradify Lite for two users is about $1,267. Per-user wins by around $520 a year. Note what happened there: at 150 jobs ServiceM8 would've been $948 and the answer flips the other way. Ten extra jobs a month changed the winner.
Five-person plumbing crew, 120 jobs a month
Bigger jobs, more people. ServiceM8's Growing plan covers 120 jobs for $948 a year — with all five users included. Tradify Pro for five users is about $3,432. Per-job wins by around $2,480 a year. This is ServiceM8's home turf: unlimited users is a genuinely unusual deal in this category, and crews that quote big jobs rarely hit the job caps.
The rule of thumb
Divide your monthly jobs by the number of people who need the app.
- Over about 50–60 jobs per person per month — per-user pricing (Tradify, Fergus) will usually be cheaper. High-volume service work lives here.
- Under that — ServiceM8's per-job tiers will usually be cheaper, and the advantage grows with every extra person on the crew.
- Four or more users — ServiceM8 is very hard to beat on price alone, unless your volume pushes past 500 jobs a month, where its Premium Plus tier hands the advantage straight back to per-user pricing.
Watch the tier cliffs. ServiceM8's caps sit at 30, 50, 150, 500 and 1,500 jobs. If you're sitting just under one, seasonal spikes — a heatwave for air-con techs, storm season for sparkies — can bump you into a tier you didn't budget for. The calculator flags this when you're within cooee of a cap.
What the price doesn't tell you
Cheapest isn't automatically right. Four things worth checking before you commit either way:
- ServiceM8 is Apple-only in the field. The field app runs on iPhone and iPad. If half your crew is on Android, the price comparison is academic. Tradify and Fergus run on both.
- Plan features move the numbers. We priced Tradify's Lite/Pro tiers and Fergus Basic. If you need job costing, forms or timesheet approvals, you may land a tier up — re-run the numbers at that price before deciding.
- SMS costs differ. ServiceM8 charges about 10c a text, Tradify about 20c. If you send booking reminders on every job, a high-volume business sends thousands of texts a year — small per-message, real in total.
- Switching has a cost too. Exporting job history, re-templating quotes and invoices, retraining the crew — budget a slow fortnight. A few hundred dollars a year of savings may not clear that bar. A thousand or more usually does.
If you're on FieldPulse
FieldPulse is the odd one out in this comparison, for three reasons. It doesn't publish pricing — you get a quote. It bills in US dollars, so your real cost moves with the exchange rate. And 2026 reporting consistently mentions price increases landing after the first year, plus add-ons (VoIP, AI dispatching, fleet tracking) that push the total well past the quoted seat price.
None of that makes it bad software. It does make it hard to compare — which is worth remembering when the renewal email lands. Before you re-sign, do the two-minute exercise above: your last month's job count, your user count, and the calculator. If the AUD-billed alternatives come in thousands cheaper for your shape, that's your negotiating position even if you stay.
Frequently asked questions
Is ServiceM8 or Tradify cheaper?
It depends on your shape. ServiceM8 charges per job with unlimited users — usually cheaper for bigger crews with modest volume. Tradify charges per user with unlimited jobs — usually cheaper for small crews doing lots of jobs. Past roughly 50–60 jobs per person per month, per-user pricing tends to win.
How much does ServiceM8 cost in Australia?
As at August 2026: Free $0 (1 user, 30 jobs a month), Starter $29 (50 jobs), Growing $79 (150 jobs), Premium $149 (500 jobs), Premium Plus $349 a month (1,500 jobs, then 20c per extra job). AUD inc GST, unlimited users on all paid plans, SMS about 10c.
Does Tradify charge per job?
No — per user. As at August 2026: Lite $48, Pro $52, Plus $62 per user per month ex GST, all with unlimited jobs, quotes and invoices. SMS about 20c.
What's a good FieldPulse alternative in Australia?
Tradify, ServiceM8 or Fergus, depending on your shape (use the calculator). All three publish pricing, and Tradify and ServiceM8 bill in AUD — so the number you sign up at is the number you pay.
Pricing last verified 28 August 2026 from servicem8.com (AU pricing), tradify.com (AU pricing), fergus.com/pricing, and 2026 published reporting on FieldPulse quotes. Software pricing changes without notice — treat this page as a starting point and confirm on the platform's own pricing page before you buy.
Where we fit in this
We don't sell job-management software and we don't take referral kickbacks from any platform on this page. Tradieboost builds the lead system that sits in front of whichever one you run — the website, the missed-call text-back, the follow-up, the reviews. But "which software should I be on" comes up in nearly every onboarding call, and this calculator is the answer we kept scribbling on paper.
If you're weighing up a switch and want a second opinion on the numbers — or on where the leads feeding that job list come from — that's a quick chat.