ServiceM8 bills by job volume with unlimited users ($29 for 50 jobs, $79 for 150, $149 for 500), so it usually wins from three people upwards. Tradify ($47 to $61 per user) and Fergus (from $31) bill per person, which suits one or two people doing many small jobs. Tradify's AI needs its $61 plan.
For tradies, meaning self-employed tradespeople and small trade firms, the AI features differ less than the pricing mechanics, so count your people and your monthly jobs before comparing anything else. Prices below are dollar list prices read from each vendor's own pages on 29 October 2026: ServiceM8's and Tradify's pages name USD, while Fergus's shows only a dollar sign. ServiceM8 and Fergus publish pages by region, and Fergus's global page showed higher figures than its regional dollar page, so check the page for your own region before you trust a number here, including mine.
What each app charges for: jobs, people or both
Three pricing models sit behind three similar-looking products. ServiceM8 sells job volume: every new job card uses one of your monthly job credits, and every paid plan has unlimited users. Tradify and Fergus sell seats: you pay for each person with a login, however many jobs they do.
| ServiceM8 | Tradify | Fergus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What you pay for | Jobs a month; unlimited users on paid plans | Each user a month | Each user a month |
| Prices | Free $0 (1 user, 30 jobs); Starter $29 (50 jobs); Growing $79 (150); Premium $149 (500); Premium Plus $349 (1,500, then 20 cents a job) | Lite $47, Pro $51, Plus $61 per user; Custom by request | Essentials from $31, Professional from $44 per user; Enterprise for 10+ staff by quote |
| Extras | Office Agent Pro $39; ServiceM8 Phone from $19 | Instant Website $12 | Timesheet users from $26; contractor users $2.50 a day; texts $15 per 100; card payments 2.95% + $0.30 |
| Trial and terms | 14 days, full access, no card; no lock-ins | 14 days with all features | 14 days, no card, free one-hour onboarding; month to month |
Two details change how to read that table. Fergus's page shows both plans with a crossed-out list price and $5.30 and $7.50 figures under a "90% off til December" banner that doesn't say which December or what the discount covers, and those two figures are exactly 90% off the global page's $53 and $75, not off the $31 and $44 shown. Plan on the crossed-out $31 and $44, and ask what the offer includes before it influences your choice. The page shows only "from" figures, and its FAQ talks about adding and removing users month by month, so ask what a second and third full user cost. And ServiceM8's limits are soft: its FAQ says you can keep creating jobs and working as normal for another 7 days after hitting the cap, after which you are prompted to upgrade or your plan resets.
Plan contents matter too, because the cheapest tier of each app leaves out things trades often need. ServiceM8's electronic forms builder, proposals and asset management start at Growing, and job costing at Premium. Tradify's Lite plan doesn't list job photos, timesheets or the quote and invoice reminders that it says chase themselves, all of which arrive on Pro. Fergus's Essentials plan lacks checklists, forms, hazard records, SWMS (safe work method statement) records and most reporting, which Professional includes, along with phone support. Read the plan you would really buy, not the headline price.
What every plan shares, so you can ignore it
Before weighing differences, strike off what doesn't differ. ServiceM8's FAQ says every plan includes job cards, scheduling, quotes, invoices, email and SMS, mobile payments and accounting integrations. Tradify's Lite plan lists job management, scheduling with calendar sync, quoting and invoicing, pricing and markups, online and card payments and Xero and QuickBooks Online sync. Fergus's two plans both list quoting and estimating, price books, job cards, a calendar, a mobile app, invoicing, payments and Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB sync. If a salesperson leads with any of those, they are the price of entry, not a reason to choose.
What does differ is narrower: how the price grows (jobs or people), where the AI sits (every plan, Plus only, or unstated), and which plan includes the things trades need on site, such as forms, safety records, photos and timesheets, and job costing. Those three questions decide nearly every case.
Three firms, one price ladder
Here are three illustrative firms, with job counts that include quotes you send, because ServiceM8 treats a quote as a job card: a solo security installer with about 40 jobs a month, a three-person solar installation crew with about 110, and an eight-person HVAC contractor with about 350 (owner, an office person and six in the field).
| Firm | ServiceM8 | Fergus (list prices) | Tradify (Pro, then Plus) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Solo security installer, 40 jobs | Starter $29 (Free's 30 jobs is too few) | Essentials $31, Professional $44 | $51, then $61 |
| Three-person solar crew, 110 jobs | Growing $79 | Essentials $93, Professional $132 | $153, then $183 |
| Eight-person HVAC firm, 350 jobs | Premium $149 | Essentials $248, Professional $352 | $408, then $488 |
The gap widens with headcount because two of the three tools multiply by people and one doesn't. Add ServiceM8's $39 Office Agent Pro and the solar crew's total is $118, still below Tradify Pro with no AI at all. For the solo installer the ranking is different: ServiceM8 and Fergus sit within $2 of each other, and the choice rests on features and whether 40 jobs a month will stay 40.
Over a year the gap is easier to feel. The three-person solar crew pays $948 on ServiceM8 Growing, $1,584 on Fergus Professional and $2,196 on Tradify Plus. The eight-person HVAC firm pays $1,788 on ServiceM8 Premium, $4,224 on Fergus Professional and $5,856 on Tradify Plus. ServiceM8's and Fergus's pages show monthly prices only and Tradify's lists no annual rates, so these are simply twelve times the monthly list figures.
A firm growing from one person to eight
Most tradies pick for the size they are becoming, not the size they are. Here is the same illustrative firm as it hires, with jobs rising by roughly 40 a month for each extra person:
| People | Jobs a month | ServiceM8 | Fergus Professional | Tradify Plus |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 40 | Starter $29 | $44 | $61 |
| 2 | 75 | Growing $79 | $88 | $122 |
| 3 | 110 | Growing $79 | $132 | $183 |
| 5 | 200 | Premium $149 | $220 | $305 |
| 8 | 350 | Premium $149 | $352 | $488 |
Two patterns show up. The first hire raises every bill by a similar amount: $50 on ServiceM8, $44 on Fergus and $61 on Tradify. So a first hire shouldn't push you into a per-user app you would regret at five people. And ServiceM8 moves in steps tied to jobs: when a second hire takes the firm from two people to three, its price doesn't move at all, whereas the per-user apps rise with every new login, including the part-time person who only checks the diary.
The job-count rule that flips the answer
ServiceM8 beats the per-user apps only when you have enough users to spread its job-based price across. This table shows the head count at which its price drops below each rival, for the job volume each plan allows:
| Jobs a month | ServiceM8 plan | Cheaper than Tradify Plus from | Cheaper than Tradify Pro from | Cheaper than Fergus Professional from |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 150 | Growing, $79 | 2 users | 2 users | 2 users |
| Up to 500 | Premium, $149 | 3 users | 3 users | 4 users |
| Up to 1,500 | Premium Plus, $349 | 6 users | 7 users | 8 users |
The rule runs the other way for people who do many small jobs. A solo electrician doing three jobs a day creates about 66 job cards a month, which is already past Starter's 50 and into Growing at $79. Tradify Plus at $61 and Fergus Professional at $44 both cost less. A two-person drain-clearing firm making 440 call-outs a month pays $149 on ServiceM8 Premium against $88 on Fergus Professional or $102 on Tradify Pro. Many small jobs per person favour per-user pricing; fewer, bigger jobs per person favour ServiceM8.
Counting your jobs correctly is the step people get wrong. ServiceM8's FAQ says every new job card uses a credit, jobs can start as a quote or a work order, and a quote that is accepted and changed to a work order doesn't use another one. Here is an easy miscount, invented for this example: a three-person crew counted only the 45 jobs it won and chose Starter at 50 jobs. Quotes it lost were job cards too, 38 of them, so the real figure was 83, the limit arrived in the third week, and they moved to Growing at $79. Pull three months of quotes and visits from your current system, count both, take the busiest month, and add a margin of 15% to 20%.
What AI each plan includes, and what getting it costs
This is where the vendors' pages differ most, and where the plan you need for the AI may not be the one the headline price suggests.
- ServiceM8: an AI Writing Helper is on every plan, with 10 AI Helper assists a day on Free and unlimited on paid plans. It drafts emails and texts to clients, revises messages, generates quotes and invoices, and summarises jobs. Its AI Quote and Invoice feature drafts a job description and billing items, and AI image generation turns site photos into visualisations for quotes. A Smart Report Helper builds a report from a typed request. Paid plans include Office Agent Standard, and Office Agent Pro is $39 a month extra: it chases quotes, drafts replies and flags overdue tasks, with notifications and approvals so you stay in control.
- Tradify: its SmartTools are on the Plus plan only. SmartRead for Bills captures costs from bills using AI, and SmartWrite generates descriptions and improves writing. The AI therefore costs the $10 a user between Pro and Plus: $10 for a solo trader, $30 for three people, $80 for eight.
- Fergus: Fergus Assistant works at the desk to find information, set up jobs, build and review quotes and prepare invoices. It acts only when asked and shows a confirmation step before creating, changing or sending anything. Fergus Go Assistant is for the site, where you type or speak to update jobs and time. Fergus AI is billed as AI that handles your admin, and the AI pages give example questions such as which jobs are under 30% margin and who owes you the most. Fergus's pages don't say which plan includes these or whether they cost extra, so that is the first question to ask.
Put those next to your size. A solo trader gets the broadest AI cheapest on ServiceM8, because the writing helper is available even on the Free plan. A crew that buys materials on account and re-keys supplier bills should look hard at Tradify's SmartRead for Bills, the one feature on this list that attacks a specific chore, and test it on ten of its own bills. A firm that wants to ask questions of its own numbers should compare ServiceM8's Smart Report Helper with Fergus AI on the same question.
The tutorial on whether ServiceM8's AI is worth it for a small heating firm goes deeper on that app, and Tradify's SmartTools set-up for electricians does the same for Tradify.
Set up the price list before judging any AI
An AI draft is only as good as the prices it can see, and loading them is the real setup job. Fergus lists price books on both plans, and says its supplier integrations reconcile supplier invoices and credits and sync prices into those books. Tradify's Lite plan lists pricing and markups, and Plus adds kit bundles. ServiceM8 builds quotes from the materials and labour you add, with bundles (several items under one description) from Growing and markup billing from Premium.
Spend an hour on twenty items before the trial's first draft: the ten you quote most, your hourly labour rate, your call-out fee, and the extras you forget to charge, such as disposal, parking and small fixings. Then every AI draft is tested against prices you set, not prices the AI guessed. The security installer's list might hold a four-camera kit, a recorder, a cable-and-fixings allowance per metre, a loft-run supplement and a handover line, so the AI can only choose among them, which is exactly what you want.
Three AI tasks to run in every 14-day trial
All three apps offer a trial, so test the AI on your own work, with the same three tasks in each. Use real jobs from last month, so you know the right answers.
- A quote from a spoken description. Speak or type a 30-second job description into each app's AI and compare the draft with the quote you actually sent.
- A quote chase. Ask for a polite follow-up to a quote sent a week ago. Check the tone and whether it invents a discount, a deadline or a promise you wouldn't make.
- A question about your numbers. Ask which jobs last month earned less than 30% margin. Check the answer against a spreadsheet you trust.
Here is task one filled in for the security installer, with invented details. The description spoken: "Four outdoor cameras and a recorder at a corner shop, cable through the loft and rear wall, a day and a half for two of us, phone viewing set up, power points already there." A typical AI draft: a description of "supply and installation of a four-camera CCTV system with recorder, cabling, phone viewing set-up and handover", with lines for four cameras, a recorder, a cable and fittings kit, and 12 hours of labour.
Three things to fix in a draft like that. The labour should be 24 hours, since a day and a half for two people at eight hours a day is 24, not 12. Check every unit price against your price book, because any price that isn't in it came from the app's guess. And watch for phrases you never said, such as "includes a five-year warranty". A draft that needs three corrections in a quote is still faster than typing it, but only if you read every line before it goes out.
Add one check that has nothing to do with AI: do one real job from your phone alone, from enquiry to paid invoice, in each trial, and note the minutes. ServiceM8's page says its iOS and Android apps create and schedule jobs, email clients, quote, invoice and accept payments, and Fergus describes running the whole job from the truck. If a step needs a laptop, you want to find out in week one.
Where the AI should stay out of the paperwork
Quotes and messages are where AI earns its keep. Compliance paperwork is not. ServiceM8 offers electronic forms for reports, procedures and certificates, with over 250 pre-made forms in its Form Store on any plan and a form builder from Growing, and Fergus keeps hazard and SWMS records on Professional. Those documents carry your name. Let an AI tidy a sentence if you must, but never let it fill in test readings, tick safety boxes or sign anything. The same goes for numbers: the totals on a quote, deposit amounts and sales-tax lines are yours to check, because a confident wrong figure looks exactly like a right one.
Which app suits which headcount
- One person, up to 30 jobs: ServiceM8 Free, which also lets solo users earn bonus jobs by accepting card payments, according to its FAQ (the page doesn't give the rate). From 31 to 50 jobs, Starter at $29.
- One person, 51 to 150 jobs: price Fergus Essentials at $31 and Tradify Pro at $51 against ServiceM8 Growing at $79. If you want Tradify's AI, add $10.
- Two people: ServiceM8 Growing at $79 if you stay under 150 jobs; above that, Fergus Professional at $88 or Tradify Pro at $102.
- Three to ten people: ServiceM8 Growing or Premium unless jobs per person are very high. Tradify Plus across a crew is $183 for three people and $488 for eight, so choose it only if SmartRead for Bills pays for itself.
- More than ten: ServiceM8 describes itself as built for small trade businesses up to about 20 staff; Fergus asks 10+ firms to talk to sales; Tradify has a Custom plan priced by request.
The worked choice: the solo security installer starts a ServiceM8 trial first, because $29 and a writing helper beat the alternatives at 40 jobs, and runs Fergus second because its on-site assistant suits someone working alone in a van. The solar crew trials ServiceM8 Growing first and Fergus Professional second, because checklists, forms and hazard records matter on roof work. The HVAC firm trials ServiceM8 Premium and Fergus Professional side by side, with the ten-bill SmartRead test on Tradify only if supplier bills are its main chore.
What to avoid is switching on every AI feature in week one. Start with drafting, add the quote chase once drafts are reliable, and leave agents that send things unattended until you have watched them work. For tools that sit outside these three, the tutorial on quote, schedule and invoice apps compared covers more options, and Fergus for builders covers progress claims. For the Tradify-against-Fergus question on its own, see Tradify against Fergus for plumbers and electricians.
Questions about plans, staff and trials
What happens if I go over ServiceM8's job limit?
ServiceM8's page says you can keep creating jobs and working as normal for another 7 days. If your monthly plan resets in that time, the job credits reset; if not, you're prompted to upgrade. Premium Plus lists 20 cents for each job beyond its 1,500 included, and the other plans list no extra-job price.
How do part-time staff and subcontractors affect the price?
ServiceM8's paid plans have unlimited users, so extra people cost nothing there. Tradify charges per user, so everyone with a login counts. Fergus charges per user too, with separate timesheet users from $26 a month and contractor users at $2.50 per user per day on its pricing page.
Can I try all three before paying?
Yes. ServiceM8 offers a 14-day trial with full access and no card needed, Tradify's page says its 14-day trial includes all features, and Fergus offers 14 days with no card plus a free one-hour onboarding session, although its FAQ says the trial is of the Essentials plan, so ask to see Professional's checklists and forms. Use the same three real jobs in each so the comparison is fair.
Can I switch plans or leave if it doesn't fit?
ServiceM8 says there are no lock-ins and you can upgrade or downgrade at any time. Fergus bills month to month with no annual plans or lock-in contracts. Tradify's page shows monthly per-user prices and doesn't state contract terms, so ask before you commit to anything longer than a month.
Further reads
- Best AI for Tradies: Seven Tools by Job, Price and Setup Effort — Seven AI tools for tradies, sorted by job and price.
- Property Maintenance Software: Jobber, ServiceM8 and Fergus Compared — Jobber, ServiceM8 and Fergus for work-order-heavy firms.
- AI Automation for Tradies: Quote Follow-Ups That Run Themselves — Automating quote follow-ups inside whichever app you pick.
- AI Apps for Contractors: A Phone-Only Setup for One-Truck Firms — Which AI apps a one-truck contractor can run from a phone on site, in what order, what each costs, and how to check every step is working.
- AI Quote Generators for UK Tradesmen: Built-In or ChatGPT? — What the AI in four job-software tools really does with a quote, what a general assistant adds, and a scored three-job test to settle it.
- AV Integrator Software: Quotes, Projects and Service, AI Compared — D-Tools Cloud, Specifi and XTEN-AV compared stage by stage for a five-person AV integrator, with first-year costs and a way to test their AI.
- Appliance Repair Software Compared: Scheduling, Parts, Warranty and AI — Twelve parts and warranty fields, checked against what five vendors' own pages say, with four-user prices and what AI adds.
- Best AI App for Carpenters: Measuring, Quoting and Invoicing Compared — One wardrobe job, run through measuring, cut-list, quoting and invoicing apps, with the right answers to check and vendor-page prices.
- Best AI for Small Businesses: What a Three-Van Trades Firm Buys First — What a three-van trades firm should buy first, what free tiers cover, and a four-week trial with a stop rule for each purchase.
- Glazier Software: Quoting and Scheduling Tools With AI Features — Three glass-specific tools compared on measure, quote, order and fit, with published prices, vendor AI claims to test and a one-week trial checklist.
- Is Checkatrade's AI-Powered TradeMore App Right for a Heating Engineer? — TradeMore's free plan has no AI, and a second engineer costs GBP 200 a month: a switch-or-stay test with certificates and data export checked first.
- Mobile Mechanic Software for One Van: Jobber vs ServiceM8 With AI — One van, about 60 jobs a month: what Jobber and ServiceM8 charge, how each handles vehicles and parts, and what their AI does for a mechanic.
- Seven Best AI Tools for Electricians, From Calls to Certificates — Seven AI tools grouped by calls, quotes, certificates and admin, with prices from vendor pages, an example for each and a list of what to skip.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: ServiceM8's USD pricing page, Tradify's pricing page, and Fergus's pricing and AI pages (regional and global versions). All read on 29 October 2026.