Seven are worth paying for. Calls: Smith.ai's AI Receptionist (free for 25 calls, then $3 each) and Quo ($15 to $19 a user). Quotes: ServiceM8 ($29 to $79) and ChatGPT ($20). Certificates: an app that reads board photos. Admin: Xero's receipt capture and drafted review replies. Expect roughly $90 to $580 a month by crew size.
The test for each is whether it removes a job you do every week and whether you can see it working inside a month. Certificate apps are the exception to cheap and quick: they are built around one region's forms, so check that yours issues the exact certificates your scheme accepts before reading anything else about it. Prices are USD list prices from each vendor's page in October 2026, except for the two certificate apps, which price only in GBP.
Calls: two tools that catch work while you are up a ladder
Electricians lose phone work in two ways. Calls go unanswered because both hands are on a job, and calls that are answered end up as details scribbled on the back of a quote pad. The first tool answers; the second acknowledges and buys you the time to ring back.
1. Smith.ai AI Receptionist: free to start, $3 a call after 25
Smith.ai's AI Receptionist answers in your business name, asks what is wrong, collects the area and a callback number, and sends you a written summary. Its pricing page lists a free plan with 25 calls a month and $3 for each call after that. Pro is $150 for 75 calls and $2.50 a call beyond, with larger Pro tiers of 150 and 300 calls at $270 and $500. Every call the AI answers counts by default. Known spam is filtered out before it answers, and you can remove up to 10 per cent of a billing cycle's calls for selected spam. Plans are month to month, 30 days' notice cancels, and a plan change starts billing the following month.
The free plan is cheaper than Pro all the way to 75 calls, where both cost $150. After that Pro wins, so count your calls before choosing:
| AI-answered calls a month | Free plan | Pro, cheapest tier |
|---|---|---|
| 25 | $0 | $150 |
| 40 | $45 | $150 |
| 60 | $105 | $150 |
| 75 | $150 | $150 |
| 100 | $225 | $212.50 |
| 150 | $375 | $270 |
The free plan also includes 25 test calls and 50 simulated calls a month. Use them to ring your own number as a nervous customer would, before you forward a single real call.
A quick sum shows what to measure. Suppose 40 calls a month reach the answerer, so the free plan costs $45. If one in five becomes a booked job (eight jobs) and each leaves $150 after materials and labour, that is $1,200 of margin. The number that really decides it is how many of those eight would have rung another electrician after hitting voicemail. Log your unanswered calls for a month and note which callers you reached too late; that count, not a vendor's claim, tells you whether $45 or $150 is cheap.
Electrical calls fall into three kinds and the answerer must treat them differently: emergencies (sparks, a burning smell, smoke, water near electrics), urgent faults (no power, tripping) and quote requests. The rule to write first is the emergency one: tell the caller to contact the emergency services, then alert you. Nothing the answerer says should sound like a diagnosis. The tutorial on call-outs versus quote requests has the script. A good summary for an urgent fault looks like this (illustrative output):
Urgent fault, answered 7:15 pm
Caller: [first name], callback number captured
Problem: upstairs lights tripped twice today, reset holds for a few hours
Safety: no burning smell, no sparks, no water near the board
Property: two-storey house, board in the hallway cupboard
Booking: Wednesday 8 to 10 am offered, caller to confirm by text
Decide in advance whether it may offer booking windows or only collect when the customer is free. A cautious start is "collect availability, never promise a time". Three other pricing shapes exist if Smith.ai does not suit: Dialzara sells minutes ($29 for 60, $99 for 220, $199 for 500, $349 for 1,000); Jobber's Receptionist is a $29 add-on, included on Jobber's Plus plan, that Jobber's help article says covers 30 conversations before charging $0.79 each; and Quo's Sona (below) has tiers from $0.
2. Quo: a business number that texts back, from $15 a user
Quo is a business phone number with texting, run from an app. For an electrician it does a smaller job than an AI receptionist and often a more useful one: when you cannot pick up, the caller gets a text within seconds saying you will ring back, instead of silence. Auto-replies are on all three plans and cover texts, missed calls and voicemails. Seats cost $19 monthly or $15 on annual billing for Starter, $33 or $23 for Business, and $47 or $35 for Scale. Starter shares one number among up to 10 paid users. Call transfers and automatic call summaries start at Business; on Starter, summaries cover only calls its AI handled. Extra numbers are $5 a month, carrier setup is a one-time $19.50 and messaging fees run $1.50 to $3 a month.
The AI part is Sona, an answering agent sold in tiers on top of any seat: $0 for 10 calls, $25 for 40, $49 for 100, $99 for 250 and $199 for 600, with overage from $1.00 down to $0.45 a call. The $0 tier is a fair way to learn whether your callers tolerate an AI before paying anything. Quo's page does not say whether tier prices are per user or per workspace, so ask before you scale up.
The reply you set up first is a text, not an AI conversation:
Hi, thanks for calling [business name]. I'm on a job and can't pick up. Text me what you need and the area you're in, and I'll reply by [time]. If anyone is in danger, or there is smoke, sparks or a burning smell, call the emergency services first.
Two practical points. A new number means customers who ring the old one still reach voicemail, so forward the old number or move your van signage, website and Google profile over together. And texting rules differ where you work: text people who have contacted you, and give an easy way to stop messages.
Quotes: two tools that draft the scope while you set the price
An electrician's quote is mostly words: what is included, what is not, what the customer must supply and what happens if the board turns out to be worse than it looked. Writing those words at 9 pm is where AI saves the most time, so long as the price stays yours.
3. ServiceM8: drafted quote lines and forms, from $29 to $79
ServiceM8 charges for job volume rather than headcount. The Free plan covers one user and 30 jobs a month. Paid plans step up by volume, $29 for 50 jobs, $79 for 150, $149 for 500 and $349 for 1,500 and over, and every one of them allows unlimited users. Each new job card costs one job credit, but an accepted quote that becomes a work order is not counted twice.
AI turns up in three places. A writing helper comes with every plan (Free caps it at 10 assists a day). AI Quote and Invoice turns a short note into a job description and billing lines. Office Agent Pro, an extra $39 a month on any paid plan, is described by ServiceM8 as chasing quotes and flagging overdue tasks once you approve. Forms and certificates begin at Growing: ServiceM8's pricing page says you want Growing or higher to build your own forms, so $79 is the plan step that matters for compliance paperwork.
Per-person pricing flips the sums. Tradify charges $47, $51 or $61 per user a month on Lite, Pro and Plus, and puts its AI writing (SmartWrite) and bill reading (SmartRead) on Plus only. Four electricians on Tradify Plus cost $244 a month; the same four on ServiceM8 Growing cost $79, provided you stay under 150 new jobs a month. A one-electrician firm sees the reverse: $61 against $29 to $79. The comparison in Tradify against Fergus for plumbers and electricians goes further on features.
A before and after. The electrician's note, then the draft the software returns (illustrative):
Note: swap main board, 10 way, protective device each circuit, test + cert, make good excl, 1 day 2 men
Draft:
Supply and fit a new 10-way distribution board with a protective device on each circuit.
Test the installation and issue the certificate on completion.
Time on site: one day, two electricians.
Making good of plaster and decoration is excluded.
All work complies with current regulations.
The last line has to go. The note never said it, and a quote cannot promise compliance in advance; your tested and signed certificate does that afterwards. The exclusion also deserves to be bold near the top of the quote rather than the fourth line of a description, because making good is an easy thing to argue about after a job. Keep the prices in your own price book so the draft cannot change them.
4. ChatGPT or Claude: scope wording and bid checks for $20
A general chat assistant is the second drafting tool because it handles the jobs your job app does not: scope and exclusions for unusual work, a cover email, a summary of a supplier's terms. On price, ChatGPT Plus lists at $20 a month, ChatGPT Business at $20 a seat annually or $25 monthly (two seats minimum), and Claude Pro at $20 monthly or $17 annually; confirm at checkout, because list prices move. Keep your standard scope blocks, exclusions and tone in a ChatGPT Project or a Claude Project so you paste facts rather than instructions. Skip custom GPTs: OpenAI closed creation of new ones in late September 2026 and plans to switch existing ones off on 11 December 2026.
The prompt and a realistic first draft for a different job, an EV charger:
Draft the scope and exclusions for a domestic quote from these facts only. Do not say the work complies with any regulation. Do not add prices or dates. List anything to confirm on site under "To confirm".
- Wall-mounted EV charger on an outside wall
- Cable run about 12 metres from the board, surface-mounted in conduit
- Board has a spare way; we supply the protective device
- We supply and fit the cable, test and issue the certificate
- Customer supplies the charger unit
- Not included: groundwork, making good of decoration
Scope: Fit the customer-supplied charger to the outside wall. Supply and install about 12 metres of cable in surface conduit from the board, using the spare way and a protective device supplied by us. Test and issue the certificate.
Includes any necessary groundwork.
Excludes: making good of decoration.
To confirm on site: the rating of the incoming supply, the route past any obstructions, the position of the charger.
The "Includes any necessary groundwork" line contradicts the facts, which listed groundwork as excluded. Nothing in a prompt prevents that kind of slip, so read exclusions line by line every time. The "To confirm" list, on the other hand, is the useful part of the draft.
The second use is a bid check. Paste a main contractor's subcontract scope and ask for three lists: anything that could be read two ways, anything an electrician would normally price that is missing, and anything that moves risk to you. One catch to look for is "all necessary builder's work" with nothing saying who cuts the wall channels and makes good. It is a second pair of eyes, not a lawyer. The tutorial on whether ChatGPT can answer code questions safely sets out where the line sits.
Certificates: one tool reads the board, you test and sign
Certificate apps are the one category where AI does something a general chat assistant cannot safely do: read a photo of a distribution board and turn it into a circuit schedule.
5. A certificate app with AI board reading, priced per user
Two I priced from the vendors' own pages, both priced only in GBP and both built around one region's certificate formats:
- Tradecert: one paid plan at GBP 18 a month before tax, plus GBP 7 for each extra user (office users are free), including 250 AI tokens a month; extra tokens are pay-as-you-go. A free tier gives 200 tokens to start, and its PDFs carry a watermark. Its pages list inspection reports, installation certificates and minor works, plus EV charger, fire alarm and emergency lighting certificates. The AI reads circuit data from a board photo, places your notes next to the matching values and suggests observation wording, and a Validate step flags fields you missed.
- RhinoCert: a single plan at GBP 14.99 a month before tax, with extra seats at GBP 9.99, and a free plan for drafting whose previews are watermarked as drafts. The paid plan has no per-certificate fees and no AI credits. It states that board photos are never sent to third-party AI services. That is the vendor's claim, so ask what it keeps and for how long.
Other apps in this category read boards too; I only priced the two that showed a price on their own pages. If your region's certificate formats are not covered, ServiceM8's forms from Growing at $79 are the generic fallback, and the checklist in what to check before you pay for an AI certification app goes deeper.
The working order matters more than the brand:
- Photograph the board square-on with the cover off and the labels readable.
- The AI proposes each circuit's device rating, type and label.
- You check every rating against the board itself, not the photo.
- You carry out the tests and enter the results; the AI can only place your notes beside the right fields.
- The AI suggests observation wording; you decide the classification of each one.
- You sign.
The step people skip is the third. Faded labels cause misreads, and a 6 amp lighting breaker read as 16 amp is an easy one to picture. That changes the cable size you would expect and the test values that count as acceptable, and the app has no way of knowing it is wrong. Ten minutes of checking per board is the cost of using the tool safely, and it is still shorter than typing the schedule by hand.
Observation wording needs the same scrutiny. Suppose you note that cables entering the board are not clamped. The app might suggest: "Cables entering the enclosure are not secured against strain at the point of entry; recommend fitting suitable glands or clamps." That is a good draft, because it names the fault and the fix in plain words. How urgent it is, and whether it makes the installation unsatisfactory, is still your decision on the day with the board in front of you. If an app proposes a classification, treat it as a prompt to think, never as an answer.
Before paying, ask four things: does it issue the exact certificates your scheme accepts, and in the digital form they accept; where are photos and records stored and for how long; what does a board read cost in tokens when the monthly allowance runs out; and can you export every record before you cancel.
Admin: two tools that clear the evening pile
Admin is where a day's work becomes money, and where it usually waits until the evening. Two tools that cost little shorten it.
6. Xero's Smart Document Capture for van receipts and bills
Xero's pricing page lists Smart Document Capture on all three plans: Early is $27 a month, Growing $59 and Established $97 at list prices (it often runs introductory discounts). Early allows 20 invoices and entering 5 bills, so a van that buys from two wholesalers on account will outgrow it; automatic bank reconciliation is a $5 optional extra on Early and included from Growing. Xero says its AI pulls the key details into draft bills that wait for approval, so nothing posts until you accept it.
A routine that holds up: on Friday at 4 pm, photograph the week's till receipts and delivery notes in one go. Each comes back as a draft with the details Xero read; you approve or correct. Expect to correct some. Misses to watch for include a print date read as the purchase date, or two overlapping receipts read as one. At about 15 receipts a week, saving two minutes of typing each is 30 minutes a week, roughly two hours a month. The capture comes with a plan you need anyway, so the saving is close to free. If you use QuickBooks Online instead, check receipt capture on your own plan: its pricing page lists beta AI chat features but did not mention receipt capture when I read it. The tutorial on Xero for electricians covers the set-up.
7. Review replies drafted by ChatGPT, posted by you
The cheapest tool on the list is a reply drafted in the chat plan from tool 4. Google's rules matter more than the drafting. Its help page says a reply is usually checked within 10 minutes but can wait up to 30 days, and its review policy forbids paying or rewarding for reviews, cherry-picking whom you ask, discouraging bad ones and leaning on customers to review on the spot. A review link or QR code is allowed, and asking every customer in the same neutral way keeps you inside the policy.
Take a three-star review that reads "Good work but arrived 90 minutes late and nobody called." A generic first draft says "We're so sorry for the inconvenience and strive to provide excellent service", which says nothing. Give the assistant your facts and ask for something shorter: "Thanks, [first name]. You're right that we arrived later than the window we gave you, and we should have called to say so. The work itself was signed off on the day. If you would like to tell us anything else, please ring the office." Paid review tools such as NiceJob (about $75 and $125 a month) only make sense once you finish a few jobs every day; until then a saved text with your Google review link does the same job.
Five buys an electrician can skip for now
- Enterprise field-service systems sold by quote, when you run fewer than four or five vans. They can be right at larger sizes; the checks in Simpro electrical reviews for a small firm show how to test one.
- AI takeoff from drawings, unless you price tenders from plans. Kreo's Pro plan lists $175 per user a month billed annually, and its Essential plan at $100 has no AI takeoff at all. Domestic work does not need it.
- Chatbots that claim to answer electrical code questions. Wrong clause numbers are a liability.
- Retainers for "AI lead generation". Fix missed calls and quote follow-up first; leads you cannot answer are wasted.
- Anything that quotes prices to customers on its own. Prices come from your price book.
Your first two picks, by the job that eats your week
Seven tools is a catalogue; a van needs two to start, chosen by the job that costs it most each week. Read across the row that sounds like your week:
| If your week looks like this | Start with | Add second | Leave for now |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls ring out while you are on site, and you ring back too late | Quo text-back on a Starter seat | Smith.ai's free plan, once a month of call logs shows the volume | The certificate app, until calls are under control |
| Quotes go out days late because the scope takes an evening | ServiceM8 on the plan your monthly job count needs | ChatGPT or Claude for unusual scopes and bid checks | An AI answerer |
| You issue certificates most weeks and type every board schedule | A certificate app with board reading, tested on three boards | Quo text-back, so calls stop interrupting the paperwork | Takeoff software |
| Receipts and supplier bills wait for the weekend | Xero capture on your current plan | Drafted review replies from your chat plan | Paid review tools |
Walk one firm through it. A two-van business doing mostly domestic rewires and board changes takes 30 to 40 calls a month, sends about 20 quotes and issues a certificate on almost every job. Its biggest weekly costs are the evening spent typing board schedules and the callers lost to voicemail, so its first two are a certificate app and Quo text-back: two Tradecert users come to GBP 25 a month before tax, and two Quo Starter seats to $30 a month on annual billing. ServiceM8 waits until quotes, not calls or certificates, become the thing that slips. A sole trader doing small call-outs, by contrast, might stop at one tool, the text-back, until a month of logs says otherwise.
Three budgets, from one van to five electricians
These are monthly list prices, excluding the certificate app (roughly GBP 15 to 25 a month for one or two users) and any job software you run beyond what is listed:
| Tool | Sole trader | Two vans, part-time admin | Five electricians |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calls: Smith.ai | Free plan, $0 to $45 | Free plan at 60 calls, $105 | Pro 150-call tier, $270 |
| Texts: Quo | Starter, $15 to $19 | Two Starter seats, $30 | Five Business seats, $115 |
| Quotes: ServiceM8 | Starter, $29 | Growing, $79 | Growing, $79 |
| Chat assistant | ChatGPT Plus, $20 | Business, two seats, $40 | Business, three seats, $60 |
| Accounts: Xero | Early, $27 | Growing, $59 | Growing, $59 |
| Total | $91 to $140 | $313 | $583 |
The two-van total uses the free Smith.ai plan at 60 calls; on Pro it would be $358 with the same other lines. The five-electrician column assumes annual billing for Quo and Xero. Calls and quotes are where most of the money goes, and calls are also where you can cap the bill, because Smith.ai's per-call pricing follows your volume. Start with one tool from each of the first two groups, run them for a month, and add the certificate app only if you issue certificates every week.
A four-week scorecard before you pay for any of them
Every tool above has a free tier, a trial, a short pass or a monthly plan you can cancel, so test before you commit. Pick one number per tool and write it down in week one:
- Answerer: calls it handled, bookings that came from them, and any call where the safety rule should have fired. One miss on safety means you stop and fix the script.
- Quo text-back: missed calls that received a text, and how many of those customers replied.
- Quote drafting: minutes to produce five quotes the old way, then five with the draft, and how many drafts needed an exclusion corrected.
- Chat assistant: a rough count of hours saved on emails and scopes, and the number of invented facts you caught.
- Certificate app: minutes per board before and after, plus the misreads caught at the checking step.
- Xero capture: receipts approved without correction as a share of those captured.
- Review replies: how many reviews got a reply within two days.
At the end of four weeks, keep anything that moved its number and drop anything that did not. Expect the answer to be two or three of the seven, which is a sensible result rather than a failure of the others.
Questions electricians ask about AI tools
Do I need all seven tools?
No. You will probably get the first payback from two or three: something that answers or texts back missed calls, something that drafts quotes and, if you issue certificates, an app that reads board photos. Add the admin tools once the evening paperwork is the thing that bothers you most.
Can AI fill in an electrical certificate for me?
It can draft parts of one. Apps can read a board photo into a circuit list, place your notes next to the right values and suggest observation wording. You still carry out the tests, enter the results, decide the classification of every observation and sign. The signature is yours.
Is Smith.ai's free plan enough for a sole trader?
It is enough if fewer than about 25 calls a month reach the AI. Each call after the first 25 is $3, and the free plan stays cheaper than Pro until 75 calls a month, where both cost $150. Count a month of missed and after-hours calls before you decide.
Can I ask ChatGPT which regulation applies to a job?
Use it for wording, not for code answers. It can quote the wrong edition, invent clause numbers or sound certain when it is not. For regulation questions read the current text, or ask your scheme provider or inspector, and keep the AI to quotes, emails and notes.
Further reads
- AI Software for Electricians: Monthly Cost in the UK and the US — Monthly cost of a full electrician software stack
- AI App for Electricians: Do You Need One or Is ChatGPT Enough? — Whether a trade app is needed or ChatGPT is enough
- AI App for Tradies: ServiceM8, Tradify or Fergus by Business Size — Which job app fits which size of firm
- Six AI Automations an Electrician Can Set Up in a Weekend — Six automations ranked by weekend effort
- 10 ChatGPT Prompts for Electricians: Quotes, Emails and T&Cs — Ten ChatGPT prompts for quotes, emails and terms
- EV Charger Installer App or Software: AI and Features Beyond Quotes — A neutral checklist for EV charger installers: survey forms, certificates, handover packs, scheduling, what a general job app can do and where AI helps.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: vendor pricing pages for Smith.ai, Quo, Dialzara, Jobber, ServiceM8, Tradify, Tradecert, RhinoCert, Xero and QuickBooks; Tradecert and RhinoCert home pages; Xero's bills page; Kreo and NiceJob pricing pages; Google Business Profile help and review policy; OpenAI and Anthropic pricing pages. USD list prices checked October 2026; the two certificate apps price only in GBP.