A heat pump installer needs software for three separate jobs: survey capture, a room-by-room heat loss calculation in the method the certification body expects, and a quote and job record that carries the paperwork. Few products do all three well. AI helps with notes, wording and admin, but it should never produce the heat loss figure.
Most pages that rank for this keyword are vendors describing their own product, so start from the other end: list what each job needs, then read each product's own page against that list, with prices as the vendor publishes them (in pounds or euros, written GBP and EUR). Where a page claims MCS compliance, read the wording closely, because 'supports MCS requirements' and 'is MCS-compliant' are different statements.
Three jobs, three kinds of tool
The confusion starts because one product name often covers more than one job. Sorting the jobs first makes the vendor pages easier to read.
| Job | What it must produce | Kind of tool | Examples from vendor pages |
|---|---|---|---|
| Survey capture | Room dimensions, fabric, glazing, existing emitters and pipework, photos tied to rooms | Field app with forms and photo capture | OpusFlow's field data forms (checklists, photos, signatures); Payaca's site surveys captured and signed offline; Instaltrack's stage photos and sign-off |
| Heat loss and design | A room-by-room calculation, emitter sizes, flow temperature and a heat pump selection with its seasonal efficiency | Design tool | MCS Heat Load Calculator; Heat Engineer's Forge; OpusFlow's heat loss module; Heatpunk, one of the design tools Payaca lists as an integration |
| Quote, job and paperwork | Priced proposal, deposit, schedule, handover documents, invoices | CRM or job management tool | Payaca (proposals with e-signatures, handover documents); OpusFlow's quoting and planning; Staff-Track and Instaltrack for general jobs and stages |
Three practical conclusions follow. First, a design tool is not a job tool: Heat Engineer's pages describe surveys, heat loss, system design and proposals, and say nothing about your diary or invoices. Second, a job tool is not a design tool: the pages I read for Staff-Track and Instaltrack describe job and stage tracking, with no mention of heat loss, quotes for heat pumps or MCS paperwork. Third, the products that span all three are the expensive ones, so you should know how many designed quotes a month justify them. The worked example further down puts numbers on that.
Survey capture: the fields a heat loss calculation cannot do without
A heat loss figure is only as good as the survey behind it. Before looking at any tool, write down what you need to capture on the doorstep, then check that a survey app can hold it without free-text workarounds. The list below is general survey practice rather than a quotation from the standard.
- Every room, one record each. Length, width, ceiling height, whether it is heated, and which rooms are above, below and beside it. Unheated neighbours change the answer.
- Construction of each external element. Wall type and thickness, insulation if known, roof or loft insulation depth, floor type, window and door type with sizes. Mark what you measured and what you assumed.
- Existing emitters and pipework. Radiator type and size, pipe diameter and route, valve types, and which radiators could stay.
- Hot water. Cylinder size and position, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, current usage if the customer can say.
- The outdoor unit and the practical constraints. Proposed location, distances to boundaries and openings, access for delivery, electrical supply and consumer unit photos.
- Photos with labels. Each photo attached to the room or item it shows, not a camera roll of 80 pictures.
The capture tool should work offline, let you flag assumed values, and export the data in a form the design tool can use without retyping. Retyping is where errors enter. Some design tools now take the survey in directly: Heat Engineer's home page lists six capture methods, including 3D LiDAR scans, CAD plans and MagicPlan, and a phone and tablet app. Whichever route you use, check that a flagged assumption survives the import and is still marked as an assumption in the design. A filled-in room record shows the level of detail that makes the downstream calculation sound; the values are illustrative.
| Field | Living room (illustrative) |
|---|---|
| Size | 5.2 m by 3.8 m, ceiling 2.5 m, heated |
| Neighbours | Bedroom above (heated), hallway on the internal side, solid floor below |
| External walls | Two, solid brick 225 mm, no insulation found (assumed, to confirm from a drilled sample) |
| Windows | One 1.8 m by 1.4 m double glazed; one 0.9 m by 1.2 m single glazed |
| Emitter today | Double panel radiator, 1,000 mm by 600 mm, 15 mm pipework in the floor void |
| Photos | Seven, labelled: walls, windows, radiator, pipe route, fuse board position |
| Flagged unknowns | Wall build-up; floor insulation; whether the chimney breast is sealed |
Heat loss tools: eight things to check before you pay
The standard that governs MCS heat pump design is MIS 3005-D. The 2025 issue (Issue 2.0, dated 5 December 2025) says compliance is mandatory for contractors certified to the 2025 scheme, and it asks for a heat load calculation that follows BS EN 12831-1:2017, with internal temperatures not below the standard's Table 1 and external design temperatures from its Table 2. MCS uses the term heat load; most installers say heat loss, and I use both. Whatever the tool, check these eight things.
- The method and its version. Does the tool name BS EN 12831-1:2017, and does it say which issue of MIS 3005-D it follows? OpusFlow's page says 'DIN EN 12831', a national edition of the same EN standard, so ask how the tool treats the design temperatures the MCS tables require.
- Room-by-room output. Each room's heat loss in watts and in watts per square metre. The standard requires the specific room heat losses in writing for the installer.
- Visible assumptions. Every U-value, air change rate and temperature should be shown and editable, with a note when you have accepted a default. A hidden default is how an undersized radiator ends up in a bedroom.
- Heat pump selection against the load. The standard expects the unit to provide at least 100 per cent of the calculated load at the design flow temperature, without help from a supplementary electric heater, supported by performance data from the manufacturer and the emitter designer. Does the tool compare the unit's output at your flow temperature with the load, or leave that to you?
- Seasonal efficiency at the design flow temperature. The installation's SCoP or SPER is to be taken from the MCS website for the chosen unit at that flow temperature. Check whether the tool pulls from the listing or asks you to type it.
- A report you can hand over and audit. One PDF with inputs, assumptions, results and a date, which can be attached to the job and shown to an assessor.
- Emitter sizing. Radiator and underfloor selection per room, at the flow temperature you chose, with a shopping list.
- Export and ownership. Can you get your designs out in a usable form, and what happens to them if you cancel?
Now compare what you are paying for with what MCS gives certified installers for nothing. The MCS Heat Load Calculator is described on its own page as free, as available only to certified installers and those in the process of certification, and as producing room-by-room calculations that comply with BS EN 12831-1:2017 and a report saved on the platform or downloaded for quotations, audits and compliance checks. The page also says the old Excel tool was removed from the Standards and Tools Library on 1 April 2026 and is available only in the archive. If your calculations still sit in that spreadsheet, move them. The sensible question about any paid design tool is what it adds beyond this: speed, drawings, emitter sizing and proposals are fair answers.
A mistake worth learning from: an installer buys a design tool on the strength of 'MCS compliant' marketing, then finds the heat loss runs on default air change rates and a design temperature chosen for a different region. The report looks authoritative and is wrong by a margin that only shows after install, when the customer reports cold rooms. The defence is a benchmark. Run one house you have already designed carefully through the tool, compare room by room, and investigate any room that differs by more than about 10 per cent. That is my own rule of thumb, not a standard, but it finds problems quickly. For what AI can and cannot do inside the calculation itself, the heat loss calculation tutorial goes deeper.
The paperwork trail: what the standard asks for, and where it lives
The documents a heat pump job generates are the real reason software choice matters. MIS 3005-D:2025 says that before installation begins the installer is to be given, in writing, the information below. If you design and install in one firm, you still need to produce it, because your assessor will ask for it.
- All specific room heat losses (in watts per square metre).
- The calculated daily hot water demand.
- The type and dimensions of each emitter.
- The design emitter temperature, based on the worst-performing room.
- The specification of any new hot water cylinder and its recovery rate.
- The design flow temperature leaving the heat pump, before any blending valve.
- The installation's SCoP or SPER, taken from the MCS website for that flow temperature.
- Any metering that can be installed and may be needed to access a financial incentive.
- For ground source systems, a site plan and the completed ground heat exchanger design table.
Alongside it, the standard says the heat pump must be listed on the MCS website, that for hybrid systems the contract states what share of space heating and hot water the heat pump is designed to provide, that building-control notification is completed before handover where you are responsible for it, and that the installation is notified to the network operator, with permission to connect sought before installation where that is necessary. The standard's reference list also includes MCS 031, the heat pump system performance estimate. I have not checked every document your certification body wants at handover, so confirm the current list with them.
This is the test that separates tools. A design tool should produce the first list as one pack. A job tool should hold that pack, the signed proposal, the notification records and the handover documents against one customer record. Payaca's home page says MCS handover documents and network operator applications can come from the job itself, and its pricing page does not say which plan includes them, so ask. The same applies to every claim in this section: the question is not whether a vendor says it covers the paperwork, but which document, in which plan, produced how.
Where AI earns its place, and where it should not touch a number
Sensible uses sit at the edges of the calculation. Four are worth trying.
Turning messy survey notes into a checklist of gaps
This is the safest and most immediately useful use of a general assistant. You dictate notes on site, and the AI structures them and lists what is missing, so you do not discover a missing window size back at the desk.
I am surveying a house for a heat pump. Below are my voice-note transcripts.
Turn them into one table with a row per room: size, ceiling height, external
walls, windows, floor, ceiling/neighbours, existing radiator, photos.
Do not guess any value. If something was not said, write MISSING.
Then list every MISSING item as questions for me to check on a revisit.
[paste transcript]A realistic output, shortened, would give a living room row that matches the table above and a bedroom row with 'windows: MISSING' and 'floor/ceiling: loft above, insulation depth MISSING'. The question list at the end would read: 'Bedroom 2: window size? Loft: insulation depth and whether boarded? Hall: is there a radiator?' What you would fix: check that no cell has been filled with a plausible value you never said. Assistants sometimes helpfully complete a wall as 'solid brick' because the house is old. If a cell is not in your notes, it should say MISSING.
Explaining the options in the quote
Once the calculation is done and checked by you, AI is good at turning the options into plain English for the customer: why a larger radiator in the bedroom, what a lower flow temperature means for running costs, what the install day looks like. Keep it to the figures in your design pack and ban savings promises. The heat pump quote tutorial gives the wording and the rules.
One rule in MIS 3005-D:2025 makes this step more than polish. Where a design proposes a flow temperature above 55 °C, the standard says an alternative design at 55 °C or lower should also be provided, with the difference in efficiency explained to the customer. So a quote for an older house with small radiators often carries two designs, and the customer needs to understand why the cheaper-looking one costs more to run. Give the assistant both designs' figures (flow temperature, seasonal efficiency, which radiators change) and ask for a side-by-side explanation in plain words that uses only those numbers. Then check that it has not rounded a seasonal efficiency or swapped the two columns, which is the mistake that slips through when the figures are similar.
What the vendors' AI claims amount to
Treat these as vendor statements, and test each on a real job.
| Product | AI named on its page | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Heat Engineer | AI-assisted radiator and emitter sizing, 'room by room' | Does the sizing show its working, and can you override it? Compare with a manual size on one room. |
| Payaca | Agent Dave builds proposals from your catalogue after checking with you, writes documents such as handover packs and commissioning certificates, and builds automations switched off for you to review | Read every generated document before it leaves. A commissioning certificate is a record of what was done on site, and only you know that. |
| OpusFlow | OpusAI answers questions, generates reports, flags at-risk projects and can trigger actions such as rescheduling jobs, assigning staff and sending emails | Which actions need your approval? The pricing page includes OpusAI in every contract with a usage rate limit, and higher limits cost extra at a price it does not state. |
| Staff-Track | An admin assistant for receipts and bills, an AI voice receptionist add-on, and AI that turns uploaded PDFs into fillable certificates | Test the PDF conversion on your own forms; check every field. |
What it should never do
Do not let an assistant produce U-values, air change rates, design temperatures or a seasonal efficiency from its own memory. These come from the standard's tables, your survey and the MCS listing. A confident wrong figure is worse than a blank, because it travels into the quote, the design pack and the customer's expectations.
What the named products cost, as published
Prices below come from each vendor's own pages in October 2026, in the currency shown there, and exclude sales tax where the page says so. They are list prices, not quotes.
| Product | Published price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| MCS Heat Load Calculator | Free | Certified installers and those in certification only |
| Heat Engineer (The Forge) | GBP 40 a month for one user; GBP 80 for a team of two; bespoke from six users | The pricing page has a user selector for two to five users but prints a price only for two, while the home page lists extra users at GBP 40 each, so confirm the price for your team size. Yearly billing is advertised as 10 per cent off. The home page offers one full design project free with no card, and says instant heat loss, whole-house surveys and heat-source estimates stay free and unlimited |
| OpusFlow | EUR 99 a user a month on a yearly payment, EUR 119 monthly, both on an annual contract | Three-licence minimum; onboarding from EUR 1,500; all modules and OpusAI included |
| Payaca | Growth GBP 1,199 a month, or GBP 999 on annual billing, with 25 users included. Accelerator GBP 299 a month, or GBP 249 annual | Onboarding GBP 1,500 on Growth; Accelerator is for businesses of eight or fewer employees incorporated within 24 months and moves to Growth pricing after 12 months; texts GBP 0.04 each on every plan |
| Instaltrack | Free for 10 projects; Professional EUR 25 a month annual or EUR 35 monthly; Enterprise EUR 75 or EUR 95 | Project and stage limits, not user limits; no heat loss or quoting described |
| Staff-Track | Home page shows EUR 15, 20 and 25 a month; pricing page shows EUR 30, 40 and 50 | Two seats included, extra seats EUR 6; the pages disagree, so confirm before buying |
Payaca's figures deserve a second look, because they are in a different class from the others. Its pricing page says it is current as of October 2026, and its price data is valid to 31 December 2026. A firm of three would struggle to justify the Growth plan on a handful of quotes a month, and the Accelerator discount ends after a year, so check the price you will pay in month 13 before you sign.
A three-person installer costed: designed quotes a month decide it
Take an MCS-certified firm made up of a designer-owner, an installer and a part-time office person, which produces 12 designed quotes a month from surveys and wins four. The table gives the monthly cost per designed quote for four ways of working, using the published prices above and the annual billing rate where there is one.
| Set-up | Monthly cost | Per designed quote at 12 a month |
|---|---|---|
| MCS Heat Load Calculator plus Instaltrack Professional (annual) | EUR 25 | EUR 2.08 |
| Heat Engineer for two users plus a general assistant subscription | GBP 80 plus about $20 | GBP 6.67 plus the assistant |
| OpusFlow, three licences on a yearly payment | EUR 297, plus EUR 1,500 onboarding once | EUR 24.75 |
| Payaca Growth on annual billing | GBP 999, plus GBP 1,500 onboarding once | GBP 83.25 |
| Payaca Accelerator on annual billing, first 12 months | GBP 249 | GBP 20.75 |
Now add time, which is the larger number. Assume your own stopwatch says a heat loss and design pack takes 150 minutes in a spreadsheet and 60 in a design tool. That is an assumption for the sum, not a vendor figure, so measure it. Ninety minutes saved on 12 quotes is 18 hours a month. At GBP 40 an hour that is GBP 720 of your time. On those numbers a design tool at GBP 80 pays for itself nine times over, and OpusFlow or Payaca Growth would need other benefits to justify their fee, such as a single record for the customer, automated proposals and handover documents.
The sum changes with volume. At four designed quotes a month the time saved is six hours, or GBP 240, and a GBP 999 platform is an expensive way to save it. At 40 designed quotes a month the same platform is GBP 25 a quote against time saved worth GBP 2,400, and the argument turns. That is the whole reason to count your quotes before reading any vendor page. For a view of how neighbouring trades solve the same split, the air conditioning survey-to-quote tutorial works through a lighter version, and the heating engineer software comparison covers the job-management side for boiler work.
Eleven questions for a demo that the sales page will not answer
- Which version of the MCS design standard does the calculation follow, and who updates the tool when it changes?
- Does it use the standard's internal and external design temperatures, and can I see them in the report?
- Can I see and edit every assumption, and does the report show which are defaults?
- Does it produce the written design information the installer needs before work starts, in one document?
- How does it get the unit's output and seasonal efficiency, and does it use the MCS listing?
- Can I import a survey from my capture app, or do I retype it?
- Which documents does it generate for handover, and which plan includes them?
- What does the AI do, which actions need my approval, and is there a usage limit?
- What are the price in month 13, the contract length and the onboarding fee?
- Can I export my designs and jobs if I leave?
- Can I trial it on one real house, with the benchmark comparison described above?
Ask for the answers in writing and keep them with the benchmark result. If a vendor cannot answer the first four, the product may still be useful for quoting, but it should not be where your heat loss comes from. For the rest of your toolkit, work out what the cheapest working chain is, then add paid tools only where your stopwatch shows they save time or where a document you must produce cannot be made any other way.
Questions installers ask before choosing heat pump software
Do I need a paid heat loss tool if I am MCS certified?
Not necessarily. MCS offers a free Heat Load Calculator to certified installers and those in the process of certification, built around BS EN 12831-1:2017 with room-by-room results and a downloadable report. Paid design tools earn their fee through speed, radiator sizing, drawings and proposals, so time yourself on a real house before paying.
Can general job software handle heat pump work?
It can run the diary, quotes, invoices and photos, which is a large part of the work. On the pages I read, products such as Staff-Track and Instaltrack describe general job or stage tracking and mention no heat loss or MCS paperwork. Pair them with a heat loss tool and check that the design pack can be attached to the job.
Is an AI-written heat loss calculation acceptable?
No. The standard expects a calculation to BS EN 12831-1:2017 using its own temperature tables, and your certification body will inspect it. AI is useful around the calculation, for tidying survey notes or explaining options to the customer, but the numbers should come from a calculation tool you can audit.
What should I ask a vendor who says it is MCS compliant?
Ask which version of the standard the tool follows, whether its design temperatures match the standard's tables, whether it produces the written design information the installer needs before work starts, and whether the claim is the vendor's or your certification body's. Heat Engineer's home page, for example, says it is aligned with MCS and BS EN 12831-1:2017 and that its outputs are designed to support relevant MCS requirements: a vendor statement, not a certificate.
How much should a small installer expect to pay?
On published prices, from nothing (the MCS calculator for certified installers) to around GBP 40 to 80 a month for a design tool such as Heat Engineer, to EUR 99 to 119 a user for OpusFlow with a three-user minimum, up to GBP 999 to 1,199 a month for Payaca's Growth plan plus onboarding. Match the price to how many designed quotes you produce each month.
Further reads
- Solar Installer Software: CRM, Design and Tracking, and Where AI Helps — The same split of design, CRM and tracking for solar firms.
- Boiler Installation Checklist: AI Sorts the Photos, You Sign the Records — Photo evidence and handover records for boiler jobs.
- AI Solar Design Software Compared: Cost per Proposal for Small Installers — Cost per proposal for design tools, from a neighbouring trade.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: MCS Heat Load Calculator page and MIS 3005-D:2025 Issue 2.0 (MCS); product and pricing pages for Heat Engineer, Payaca, OpusFlow, Instaltrack and Staff-Track. All read in October 2026. Heatpunk's own site would not load, so it is not described.