Usually not below four or five people on the tools. Simpro's own guides place it with systems for roughly five to fifty-plus technicians, pricing is by quote and set-up is a project. A smaller firm should buy it only for job costing, supplier-priced quoting or compliance paperwork that cheaper apps cannot match. Test those three in a demo.
I have not quoted star ratings: scores move, and the review sites would not let me check them this month. Everything attributed to Simpro below is the vendor's own description, read through search extracts because its site blocked direct access, so each point is a claim to see working in a demo, not a fact to bank. What follows is a way to read the reviews, a crew-size rule, and a short list of things to test on your own jobs.
What does Simpro say it is for, and who is it built around?
Simpro's pricing page says pricing is tailored to team size, in the office and in the field, plus the add-ons you choose, with monthly or annual billing. Its pages describe a base plan with add-ons, a one-off set-up fee that its FAQ says covers onboarding, training and data migration, and implementation consultants who run set-up remotely or on site. Training topics include importing supplier catalogues, setting rates, managing quotes and jobs, and setting up the mobile app. Elsewhere data migration is described as a separate professional service with a package priced for each business. Two descriptions of the same cost make a good first question: which of the two applies to you, and what is the figure?
On fit, Simpro's own guides are fairly candid. One places Simpro among tools for operations of about five to fifty-plus technicians, especially those with commercial work, several locations or advanced job costing. Another says it suits structured workflows better than solo operators and has a higher learning curve. One of its published reviews says every mobile user needs a separate paid licence, which is a question for your quote, not a settled fact.
The feature claims relevant to electricians are these, all vendor statements:
- Quoting that ties labour, materials, supplier pricing and approvals together, with prebuilt assemblies for jobs such as EV charger installs and switchboard upgrades.
- Job costing with more than 70 pre-built reports, including work in progress, and material use tracked against the quoted bill of materials.
- A mobile app with safety forms, checklists and certificates of compliance, job-costed time tracking, travel time, field invoicing with on-site card payment, and offline use that syncs on reconnection.
- JobScribe, an AI feature that turns voice notes into structured job records, with a claimed saving of 30 to 60 minutes per electrician per day.
That last number is a claim from a vendor, and it is worth testing rather than assuming; there is a way to do that further down.
How do I read Simpro reviews when I run four vans, not forty?
Ignore the star average. A review of any heavy system mixes three different experiences, and only one of them predicts your daily life:
| What the review is about | Typical wording | Weight for a small firm |
|---|---|---|
| Set-up and migration | Data import, training days, time to go live, cost of consultants | High: this is the project you must fund and survive |
| Technician daily use | Speed on a phone, offline behaviour, forms on site, timesheets | Highest: if the crew will not use it, nothing else matters |
| Office and reporting | Job costing views, supplier price feeds, invoicing, integrations | High for job costing, lower for reports you will never open |
Then filter: reviews from the last twelve months, from firms of your size and trade, written by someone in your role. A complaint about a 90-day set-up and praise for job costing can both be true of the same firm; so can a technician's frustration with the app and an owner's satisfaction with the margin reports. The question is which of those two people you are.
The fastest way to replace a stranger's review with evidence is a reference call. Ask Simpro for two or three customers in electrical work with 4 to 10 staff who have been live more than a year, and put the same questions to each (the full list is near the end). Pay most attention to what they paid in money and in hours before it worked, and what they were not told in the first quote.
Where is the line for crew size?
This is my rule, built on Simpro's own positioning and on what lighter tools publish as prices. Count the people who will log hours or fill in forms, not the people on the payroll:
| People on the tools | Where I would look first | Published prices to anchor on |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 2 | A flat-priced job app: ServiceM8 Free or Starter, Tradify Lite | $0 to $29 a month; Tradify $47 per user |
| 3 to 4 | ServiceM8 Growing (forms), Tradify Pro or Plus, Jobber Connect or Grow | ServiceM8 $79; Tradify $204 to $244 for four users; Jobber from $149 annual for five users |
| 5 to 10 | Run a Simpro demo alongside ServiceM8 Premium and Service Fusion Plus | ServiceM8 $149; Service Fusion Plus $325 annual, $382 monthly; Simpro by quote |
| 11 and over | Simpro and similar quote-led systems | By quote |
Two things move a firm up a band: commercial or multi-stage jobs where you must see costs against budget before the job ends, and several people in the office who currently re-key the same job into three places. Two things move it down: a mostly domestic call-out business with one person doing the paperwork, and no one with the time to own a system. The side-by-side in Tradify against Simpro for a growing trade firm covers the crossover in more detail, and Simpro against Fergus compares quoting and invoicing.
What should job costing show by the end of week two?
Job costing is the main reason to pay for a heavy system, so test it with a number, not a screenshot. Take a real job and ask the vendor to reproduce it. Here is one to use, as an illustration: a whole-house rewire quoted at 96 labour hours (two electricians for six days) at an internal cost of $46 an hour, $3,900 of materials and a price of $10,800. Cost is $8,316 and margin 23 per cent.
By the end of day three, the system should show you something like this:
| Measure | Planned | Actual | What you should see |
|---|---|---|---|
| Labour hours | 48 | 56 | 8 hours over, 17 per cent |
| Materials, first fix | $2,340 | $2,350 | On budget |
| Projected margin | 23.0% | 16.2% | If the same overrun continues to day six |
The projection is simple arithmetic: eight hours over after three days, sixteen after six, makes 112 hours and a cost of $9,052, which leaves $1,748 on a $10,800 job. The point of the exercise is the moment: you learn this on day three while you can still change the plan, not on invoice day. If a system can only produce that view after the job closes, it is a diary, not a costing tool. Then check how much typing it took to get actual hours and supplier invoices into the job. A costing report that depends on someone keying in every timesheet will quietly be wrong.
Ask also whether materials come from the supplier invoice or from what was ordered, because the two differ whenever stock comes off the van. Simpro says it tracks material use against the quoted bill of materials; make the demo prove it with a job where you used something from stock.
What should I test in quoting?
Simpro's electrical pages stress assemblies and supplier pricing. The questions are practical: how long does it take to build your first assembly, who keeps supplier prices current, and does your wholesaler's catalogue connect at all? Ask for the supported supplier list in writing and check it against the two or three counters you buy from.
A good test is a three-option quote for a board upgrade. Build it live during the demo, with these lines:
- Option 1: replace the board, test and certify.
- Option 2: option 1 plus surge protection and extra circuits.
- Option 3: option 2 plus smoke alarm interlinking and labelling of every circuit.
Time it, then ask them to change the cable cost and watch every option reprice. Compare against a flat-priced app: ServiceM8 lists an AI Quote and Invoice feature that drafts the description and billing items in seconds, without naming a plan restriction. If your quoting is simple and fast already, a system with deep assemblies adds cost without removing work. If you quote from hundreds of component lines, the assembly library is where the time goes, and it can take weeks to load. That loading is the hidden part of set-up; a chat assistant can help you draft assembly lists from your past quotes, but every line needs checking against the supplier's price.
What should I ask about certificates and compliance paperwork?
Simpro says its mobile app carries safety forms, checklists and certificates of compliance. Whether that includes the exact certificates you issue, in the layout your scheme accepts, is the question that decides this section. Ask to see each of your certificate types completed on a phone with the signal switched off, then signed, saved and sent. Check where the signed copies are stored, whether a retest date can drive a reminder, and whether you can export every record if you leave.
One workable split is to issue certificates in a dedicated app and keep job software for everything else. It costs little and keeps your options open. The checklist in what to check before you pay for an AI certification app covers the dedicated route, and Simpro form builder: job sheets and safety checklists with ChatGPT shows the drafting side if you stay in a single system.
For the voice-note feature, JobScribe, run your own test. Take five jobs: time the notes the old way, then dictate the same jobs and time the structured record the system returns, including your corrections. If the saving is 10 minutes per electrician per day rather than 30 to 60, that is still real money, but it changes the payback sum below.
Do maintenance contracts and periodic testing change the answer?
They can, more than crew size does. A firm with commercial clients often carries recurring work: emergency lighting tests, periodic inspections, fire alarm servicing where it holds that contract, and planned visits written into a service agreement. Simpro markets a Maintenance Planner for this; in the descriptions I could reach, it schedules recurring jobs against a contract, tracks service levels and flags renewals. As with everything else here, I could not open the page itself, so make the demo prove it.
The number that matters is visits a month, not contracts. Take a firm with 40 commercial sites, each with two planned visits a year: 80 visits, about 7 a month. A shared calendar, or the recurring jobs most lighter apps offer, copes with that. Now take 150 sites with quarterly visits: 600 visits a year, 50 a month, each needing a test sheet, an invoice and the next date set. At that volume a missed visit is a breached contract, and a planner that raises the job, the paperwork and the invoice from the contract earns its keep. My rule of thumb: below about 15 recurring visits a month a calendar is enough; above about 40, test a planner seriously, whichever system you choose.
In the demo, set up one contract with three visit types on different intervals. Then ask to see the next twelve months of visits generated, one visit completed on a phone with the test sheet attached, the invoice it raises, and the renewal flag 60 days before the contract ends. If any step needs someone to re-type a date, the planner is a calendar with a higher price.
Does the payback sum work for a six-person firm?
Skip the vendor's savings claim and build your own. Take four electricians and two office staff. Assume each electrician saves 10 minutes a day on paperwork (14 hours a month over 21 working days) and the office saves five hours a week (about 21.7 hours a month). That is roughly 35.7 hours. At a loaded cost of $30 an hour (an assumption) it is $1,070 a month; if only half the time saved turns into real capacity, it is about $535 a month. That figure is what the all-in monthly cost can justify.
All-in monthly cost is the monthly licences and add-ons, plus the set-up fee and your own set-up hours spread over 36 months. Suppose you expect 60 hours of your own time at $30, or $1,800. Two made-up quotes show the sum; they are not Simpro's prices:
| Monthly licences and add-ons | Set-up fee | All-in monthly | Against $535 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Made-up quote A | $380 | $2,500 | $499.44 | Passes on time savings alone |
| Made-up quote B | $620 | $5,000 | $808.89 | Short by $273.89, needs another reason |
When a quote fails on time saved, the other reason has to be a number too: a margin you recover on jobs you currently overrun, or a tender you could not price. Take margin recovery as the example. If three of your 20 monthly jobs overrun by 12 labour hours at $46, that is $1,656 a month lost against the quote. If seeing the overrun on day three halves it, that is $828 a month, enough to carry quote B on its own. If your overruns are rare or small, the number is small, and so is the case. The companion tutorial on what to ask when Simpro is quote-only goes through the quote line by line and shows how to set a ceiling from published prices.
Can AI help me prepare for the demo?
It can help with the preparation, not with the verdict. Give a chat assistant an anonymised summary of your last ten jobs (job type, number of visits, who did the paperwork and where information was re-typed or phoned across) and ask for the repeated hand-offs. The output becomes your requirements sheet, and then the six demo tasks. Leave out customer names, addresses and phone numbers; the job type and the steps are enough. A prompt that works:
Below are summaries of my last ten electrical jobs, with no customer details. Each lists the job type, the number of visits, and the steps where information was re-typed or phoned across.
[paste]
List the five most frequent hand-offs where information is re-keyed. Then write six demo tasks I can give a software vendor that would prove it removes those hand-offs on one of these jobs. Do not describe any vendor's features.
An illustrative result: the repeated hand-offs are site notes to quote, quote to job card, supplier invoice to job costs, test sheet to certificate, and completed job to invoice. The demo tasks follow from those, such as "show a supplier invoice arriving and reaching the job's costs without re-typing". What to fix: assistants pad lists, so it may add "schedule the job" as a hand-off even when your notes show nothing re-typed there. Delete anything your own summaries do not support.
A second use comes once a written quote arrives. Paste its text, stripped of personal details, next to your requirements sheet and ask which requirements the quote does not mention. It knows nothing about Simpro's terms, but it is quick at spotting the missing lines, such as no mention of mobile licences or data migration, which you then put to the vendor in writing.
What should the written go-live plan say before I sign?
Set-up is the part reviews complain about most, in any heavy system, so make it a document, not a promise. Ask for a plan that names who does each step and by when:
- Data import: who loads customers, sites and price lists, from what file formats, and who checks the result.
- Training: how many days, for which roles, remote or on site, and whether the office and technicians are trained separately.
- A pilot: one job type or one crew first, for two or three weeks, before everyone moves.
- The switch-off date for your current system or spreadsheets, and what runs in parallel until then.
- Slippage: what happens to fees and to your licence start date if go-live runs late for reasons on their side.
Simpro's own articles quote different timelines, from a few weeks to 30 to 90 days for a full rollout, so plan against the long end and avoid the weeks when you are busiest. As an illustration, a six-person firm might spend weeks one and two tidying price lists and loading customers, weeks three to five building assemblies and forms and training the office, weeks six to eight piloting with one crew, and weeks nine to twelve moving everyone across. If a vendor's plan is shorter than that, ask what is left out.
Which five numbers prove Simpro is working by day 90?
Agree the measures before you sign, record them for the month before go-live, and look again 90 days after. Five suit an electrical firm; the figures below are an illustration of a filled-in sheet, not results to expect:
| Measure | Month before | Day 90 | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Days from job completion to invoice | 6 | 2 | Whether field invoicing and job cards are in daily use |
| Jobs showing cost against budget before they closed | 0 of 20 | 14 of 20 | Whether hours and supplier invoices reach the job without re-keying |
| Timesheets entered on the day | 40% | 85% | Whether technicians have accepted the app |
| Hours to build a three-option board-upgrade quote | 1.5 | 0.5 | Whether the assembly library was loaded properly |
| Certificates still completed on paper | 12 a month | 2 a month | Whether the forms match what your scheme accepts |
Read the sheet by its weakest row. If fewer than half of timesheets go in on the day, the job costing view is built on guesses and every other figure is suspect, so fix adoption before you judge the reports. If invoices go out faster but costs are still invisible, supplier invoices are not reaching jobs, which is usually a set-up gap the vendor should close under the go-live plan. And if little has moved by day 90, raise it at once, while the slippage terms you agreed still apply.
Which questions go to the demo and the reference call?
Use these ten, to Simpro and to each reference customer:
1. How many office and field users, and how long have you been live?
2. What did set-up cost in money, and in your own hours?
3. How long from signing to the first job run properly in the system?
4. What was the first thing the technicians complained about?
5. Do you see job margin before a job closes? Show me.
6. How do you issue certificates, and is any of it still on paper?
7. What was not in the first quote and had to be bought later?
8. What happened to the price at renewal?
9. How quick is support when a technician's app fails on site?
10. At your size, would you choose it again?
I would expect questions 2, 7 and 8 to produce the surprises. If the reference customer hesitates on question 10, ask why before you ask anything else.
When is a cheaper tool the better answer?
Choose a lighter app when any of these is true, and revisit in a year:
- Fewer than four people will use it daily.
- Your work is mostly domestic call-outs and small projects with a short quote cycle.
- You cannot spare 60 or more hours of your own time to set it up before your busy season.
- Nobody in the firm is willing to own the system, including price lists and templates.
- You cannot get a written three-year total.
What you give up is depth: fewer costing reports, simpler stock handling and less control over multi-stage jobs. What you gain is a tool a new starter is likelier to pick up quickly. ServiceM8 prices by job volume with unlimited users on paid plans, Tradify by user with AI writing on its top plan only, and Jobber by plan with extra users at $29 each. If you run the demo script above on those too, the comparison stops being about brochures. For a view of the lighter route as a whole, see the seven AI tools electricians pay for, with prices.
Questions small electrical firms ask about Simpro
Is Simpro too big for a one-van electrician?
Usually yes. Simpro's own published comparisons describe it as better suited to structured workflows than to solo operators, with a learning curve and more platform than a lean team needs. A one-van firm is normally better served by a flat-priced job app that does quotes, invoices and forms for under $100 a month.
How long does Simpro take to set up?
Simpro's own articles disagree: one says to budget 30 to 90 days for a full rollout of platforms like it, another says up to a few weeks. Ask for a written timeline for your firm, including data import and training, and avoid starting in your busiest weeks.
Does Simpro publish its prices?
Its pricing page says pricing is tailored to team size and the add-ons you choose, with monthly or annual billing. Review and comparison sites publish guesses, which are not Simpro's figures. Ask for a written quote that separates licences, add-ons and set-up, and compare the three-year total.
Can I try Simpro before committing?
I could not confirm a standard trial from the pages I could read. Ask for a demo on your own jobs, a reference call with a firm of your size and trade, and whether a pilot or staged start is possible before you sign a term.
Further reads
- Tradify vs Fergus for Plumbers and Electricians: AI Features Compared — Two cheaper per-user alternatives compared
- AI App for Tradies: ServiceM8, Tradify or Fergus by Business Size — Which job app suits which size of firm
- AI Software for Electricians: Monthly Cost in the UK and the US — What a full electrician software stack costs a month
- AI for Electrical Estimating: Set Fitting Allowances and Provisional Sums — Setting fitting allowances and provisional sums
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Simpro's own pricing, industry, implementation and guide pages as read through search extracts (its site returned access errors on every page tried in October 2026, so claims are the vendor's); ServiceM8, Tradify, Jobber and Service Fusion pricing pages. Review-site ratings are deliberately not quoted.