Choose Fergus if you want an assistant that creates jobs, drafts quotes from supplier files and answers questions about your numbers, included in the subscription for now. Choose Tradify if you want the AI's cost fixed and visible, $61 per user on Plus for SmartRead and SmartWrite, plus fully documented deposits and progress payments.
Neither app's AI is a reason to switch by itself. Fergus's assistant is documented across the whole job but is new, and its wider Fergus AI is still in beta. Tradify's SmartTools are two narrow tools that work today but sit on its top plan. Judge each by the moments in your week where it would remove a task you do at least weekly, and by whether it asks before it sends anything.
Eight moments in a trade firm's week, and who covers each
Here is what each vendor documents for the jobs that eat a small firm's admin time. "Documented" means the vendor's own pages say it; whether it works well on your jobs is what the trials are for.
| Moment | Tradify | Fergus | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. A new enquiry arrives | Enquiry form and email inbox on Pro; no AI documented | Assistant sets up the customer, site, job and a first quote draft from one sentence | Fergus |
| 2. Pricing from a supplier's list | Supplier price list imported as CSV; quotes built from templates and kits | Price books from CSV; Assistant turns an attached supplier quote into a draft with labour added and shows margin | Fergus |
| 3. Quote wording | SmartWrite writes line descriptions, fixes spelling, adjusts tone (Plus) | Assistant prepares quotes; no separate wording tool documented | Tradify |
| 4. Someone rings in sick | Scheduling with Google Calendar sync; no AI documented | Assistant lists the jobs a change affects and who is free to cover | Fergus |
| 5. A supplier bill arrives | SmartRead reads a photo of the invoice (Plus) | Supplier integration imports price books and invoices from supported suppliers (automatic on Pro, manual on Essentials); no photo-based capture documented | Tradify |
| 6. Logging time and notes on site | Timesheets, job photos and notes; no AI documented | Fergus Go Assistant updates jobs and time by typing or speaking | Fergus |
| 7. Invoicing and chasing | SmartWrite on descriptions; automatic reminders by email or text (not AI) | Assistant prepares the invoice and email for review, finds finished jobs not yet invoiced | Fergus |
| 8. Friday numbers | Job reports and reporting on Plus; no AI documented | Assistant answers in plain English: what we invoiced, who owes us, supplier spend | Fergus |
Fergus takes six of the eight and Tradify two. That is a count of documented features, not a verdict. The two Tradify wins are the narrow, concrete ones: a photographed bill becomes a cost, and a rough description becomes clean wording. Recurring maintenance is a tie that is not AI at all. Tradify lists service reminders on Plus, which send automatic reminders for services and scheduled maintenance such as annual inspections, and Fergus lists recurring jobs and email reminders on both its plans.
What each vendor says its AI does, and on what terms
Tradify SmartRead and SmartWrite. SmartRead takes a photo of an invoice and extracts the details. SmartWrite corrects spelling, grammar and formatting, adjusts tone between friendly and professional, and generates descriptions from your quote and invoice line items. Tradify's page says SmartTools are available on Plus only. It does not describe a review step or any limits, so the check is yours: read every field SmartRead fills before a cost lands on a job.
Fergus Assistant and Fergus Go Assistant. The assistant is built into Fergus on the web and into the Fergus Go app, where you can type or speak. Fergus's help says it follows your permissions, shows important work for review and asks for confirmation before supported customer-facing actions. Its examples include setting up a customer, job and first quote draft, finding a past job, handling a last-minute schedule change, building a quote from a favourite or price book and reviewing margin, preparing an invoice and email for you to check, marking bulk payments paid after you approve the proposed updates, and spotting missing timesheets. What it can do may differ between web and Fergus Go.
Fergus AI and the MCP server. Fergus AI, the wider experience, is labelled coming soon and in beta; you join through support. The MCP server connects Claude or ChatGPT to your account, with read and write on jobs, quotes, customers, sites, contacts, calendar events, enquiries, notes, stock and users, and read-only on invoices, time entries and price books. Because it needs a Full User with Master User permissions and gives the same access as a Master Admin, use it only after you have worked out what an assistant with admin reach should be allowed to do.
The cost terms differ more than the features. Tradify's AI costs the Plus plan price, so the number on the page is the number you pay. Fergus's is "included in your current monthly Fergus subscription at no extra cost for now", with a promise of clear notice before pricing changes. That is a good deal today and an unknown tomorrow.
Two short tests make this concrete. For Tradify, paste three real line items into SmartWrite, for example "replace 20A radial circuit, 10 mm cable, test and certificate", and compare the description with your lines. A typical fix is that it adds a standard or a guarantee you did not price. For Fergus, try this prompt in the trial and check the customer match, the labour rate and the margin against your own sum before confirming anything:
Create a job for [customer name] at [address]: no hot water, cylinder leaking. Add a first quote draft with two hours of labour and a replacement thermostat, and show me the margin. Do not send anything.Prices for one, three and five users
These are USD list prices per user per month from each vendor's dollar-priced pages. Fergus's figures are "from" prices, and its electrician page lists them per user per month.
| Users | Tradify Pro ($51) | Tradify Plus ($61) | Fergus Essentials (from $31) | Fergus Professional (from $44) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $51 | $61 | $31 | $44 |
| 3 | $153 | $183 | $93 | $132 |
| 5 | $255 | $305 | $155 | $220 |
Read the Fergus columns carefully. Its global page shows $53 and $75 for the same two plans, in a currency it does not name, so ask Fergus which price applies to your account; and its trial covers Essentials only. Fergus bills monthly with no lock-in and no set-up fee, and lists certificates ($30 for 1 to 9 staff), text messages ($15 per 100) and card payments (2.95% + $0.30) as add-ons, while its trade pages list certificate storage as a feature, so ask which applies. Tradify lists an Instant Website add-on at $12 a month; its pricing page shows monthly per-user prices and says nothing about contracts.
The AI premium is the useful comparison. On Tradify, Plus over Pro is $10 a user, which is $10, $30 or $50 a month for one, three or five users. On Fergus it is nothing for now. That does not make Fergus the cheaper tool in every case, because its Professional plan carries features such as checklists, tasks and purchase orders that an electrician doing certificates may need, but it does mean the AI is not what you are paying extra for.
For headcount ladders on the job-count apps as well, a tutorial on ServiceM8, Tradify and Fergus by business size goes through how the bill moves as a firm grows, and a tally of what plumbers pay each month by van count adds the receptionist and chat lines.
Timing a three-person plumbing firm's week against the AI price
Now put numbers on a plumbing firm: an owner, one technician and a part-time administrator. In a typical week it opens 14 enquiries, writes 9 quotes from supplier lists, sends 12 invoices, receives 6 supplier bills and reshuffles the diary once. These are illustrative minutes you should replace with your own timings:
| Task | Count a week | Minutes each | Minutes a week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Set up a job from an enquiry | 14 | 4 | 56 |
| Draft a quote from a supplier list | 9 | 15 | 135 |
| Polish quote wording | 9 | 4 | 36 |
| Key a supplier bill | 6 | 5 | 30 |
| Prepare and chase an invoice | 12 | 5 | 60 |
| Reshuffle after a sick day | 1 | 15 | 15 |
| Total | 332 (about 5.5 hours) |
The sum for Tradify is straightforward. Plus costs the three users $30 a month more than Pro, which is $360 a year. At $45 an hour that is 8 hours a year, or about 9 minutes a week. SmartWrite touches the 36 minutes of wording and SmartRead the 30 minutes of bill keying, so the two tools need to save about a seventh of those 66 minutes to cover their price. That is a modest bar, and the trial will tell you whether they clear it.
For Fergus the sum is different. The assistant is not priced separately, so the question is whether it removes minutes at all: the 56 of job set-up, a share of the 135 of quote drafting, the 15 of reshuffling, and the end-of-week reporting not shown here. If it saves a quarter of the 206 minutes in those three tasks, that is about 50 minutes a week, roughly 43 hours a year, or a little under $2,000 at $45 an hour. That is a sum to test, not a promise, and it falls to nothing if the first drafts need as much correcting as typing from scratch.
A switchboard upgrade, start to finish, in each app
The plumber's week above is mostly repairs. An electrician's bigger jobs look different, so follow one through: a consumer-unit upgrade quoted at $1,000 of materials marked up 25% to $1,250, 8 hours of labour at $85 ($680), $150 for testing and the certificate, and $120 for making good. The quote is $2,200, with half payable as a deposit and half on completion.
- The enquiry. A customer emails a photo of the old board. In Tradify the enquiry form and inbox (Pro) capture it and you create the job; in Fergus the assistant can set up the customer, site and job from a one-line instruction, after checking whether the customer already exists.
- The quote. In Tradify you pick a template, add lines from the imported supplier price list, and on Plus let SmartWrite write the four line descriptions. In Fergus you attach the supplier's quote, ask the assistant to bring the lines into a draft with 8 hours of labour added, and read the margin it shows. Check the markup came out at 25% and not the default.
- The materials. When the supplier's invoice arrives, SmartRead (Plus) reads a photo of it. Fergus documents no photo-based equivalent on the pages I read, so a bill is keyed in or arrives through its supplier integration where your supplier is supported.
- The certificate. Neither AI should touch the test readings. Fergus lists certificate storage, though its pricing page lists certificates as an add-on, and Tradify's electrician page does not mention certificates at all. Use your certification software and file the PDF on the job.
- The invoices. Tradify's progress invoicing (Pro) raises $1,100 as a deposit and $1,100 on completion, by percentage or fixed amount. Fergus documents staggered progress invoicing and a default deposit setting in its quote settings, which applies to single-phase jobs.
- The follow-up. Tradify's service reminders (Plus) can send an automatic reminder for regular inspections; Fergus's recurring jobs and email reminders handle repeat work. Neither is AI, and both are worth setting before the job closes.
Count where the AI touched this job. Tradify's two tools handled wording and one bill. Fergus's assistant handled the job set-up, the quote draft and the margin check, and could prepare the invoice for you to review. For an electrician whose week is mostly installations with long materials lists, the draft-from-a-supplier-file step is the one to test hardest, because it is where an extra hour sits.
Where each app's AI should stay out
Three jobs stay with a person whichever tool you choose.
- Certificates and test records. Anything you sign, or that records a reading, comes from the person who took the reading. Fergus lists certificate storage; storing a record is not the same as letting an AI write it. A guide to what AI can draft on an electrical installation certificate draws the line.
- The price. Both apps can show a margin. Neither should set your rate. Check the labour rate in any AI-drafted quote, because a draft that uses an old rate is quietly cheaper than you meant.
- Messages about faults, safety and liability. A reply to an unhappy customer or a note about a defect is read back in a dispute. Fergus asks for confirmation before supported customer-facing actions; Tradify's pages do not state a review step, so read every SmartWrite message before it goes.
If you connect Claude or ChatGPT to Fergus through its MCP server, add a fourth rule: start with read-only questions about jobs and invoices, and let it write records only after a week of watching what it does.
Switching cost: what moves, what stays and a two-week parallel run
Moving a live firm between apps is a week of habit change, not a day of data. What moves and what does not:
| What | Moving to Fergus | Moving to Tradify |
|---|---|---|
| Customers | CSV import from the Customers screen (required fields: customer or company name and first name), or an Import Customers button on the connected accounting package | The pages I read do not describe a customer import; ask Tradify support, and check whether the accounting sync brings contacts across |
| Price lists | Price books upload from a CSV file | A supplier price list imports as a CSV file |
| Open quotes and jobs | Re-create the live ones; leave closed history behind | Re-create the live ones; leave closed history behind |
| Invoice numbers | Email Fergus support your required starting number before sending invoices | Tradify says numbering can be matched with your accounting package |
| Accounting link | Reconnect; its help names specific regional QuickBooks editions, so confirm yours | Reconnect Xero or QuickBooks Online |
| Set-up and training | A 60-minute set-up guide and a free one-hour onboarding session | Free training and support, per its pages |
Run the two together for a fortnight. In week one, put every new enquiry into the new app and finish and invoice old jobs in the old one. In week two, close the old app to new work. Switch the accounting sync off in one of the two during the overlap, so an invoice cannot be pushed to the books twice. Keep the old subscription until the last old invoice is paid, and export what you want to keep, such as job photos and certificates, before you cancel.
A weighted scorecard for a small firm
When the features are close, weights decide. Score each criterion from 1 to 5 after the trials. The scores below are one possible set for a three-person plumbing firm that mostly repairs and does a few refits; replace them with yours:
| Criterion | Weight | Tradify | Fergus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quote speed and price-list handling | 25 | 4 | 4 |
| Deposits and staged invoices | 10 | 5 | 4 |
| Scheduling and sick-day changes | 15 | 3 | 4 |
| AI that works on your own job data | 15 | 2 | 4 |
| Certainty about what the AI costs | 10 | 5 | 2 |
| Price for three users | 15 | 3 | 4 |
| Ease of switching from the current tool | 10 | 3 | 3 |
| Weighted total out of 100 | 100 | 70 | 74 |
Tradify's total is (25 x 4 + 10 x 5 + 15 x 3 + 15 x 2 + 10 x 5 + 15 x 3 + 10 x 3) divided by 5, which is 70. Fergus's is 74. The gap is small, and moving a few weights flips it: raise the certainty about AI cost to 15 and cut price to 10, and the two tie at 72. That is the point of the exercise. A close result means your own priorities, not the vendors' feature lists, are what settle the choice.
When each one wins, and when neither does
Tradify tends to win when: you want the AI cost fixed and visible at $61 a user; you take deposits and staged payments often, since its progress invoicing is documented down to retentions; you photograph supplier invoices constantly and want them read; or you value a trial that includes every feature, so you can test Plus without paying for it.
Fergus tends to win when: you want to ask questions of your own job data in plain English; you quote from supplier files and price books and want a draft built for you; your crew would use voice updates on site; you want to connect Claude or ChatGPT to your jobs through the MCP server; or the lower per-user list price matters more to you than certainty about the AI's future price.
Neither wins when: your real leak is missed calls. Neither vendor's pages describe a phone receptionist, so look at the choice between built-in and standalone AI receptionists for a trades firm before you pay for either app's AI.
What to ask Tradify and Fergus before you commit
- To Fergus: what will the Assistant cost when "for now" ends, and which plan will it sit on?
- To Fergus: can my trial include the Professional features, since the trial covers Essentials?
- To Fergus: is my edition of QuickBooks supported, and how do certificates work on my plan?
- To Tradify: will SmartTools expand to other plans or other features, and how do I import customers and open jobs?
- To both: is my account data used to train AI models, and where is it processed?
- To both: what can I export if I leave, in what format, and for how long after I cancel?
Keep the replies with your trial notes. For a deeper look at Tradify's AI on electrical work, a guide to Tradify for electricians and its SmartTools set-up covers the set-up in steps, and a four-app scorecard of tradie apps and their AI features places both next to ServiceM8 and Jobber.
Tradify vs Fergus questions from small trade firms
Is Tradify or Fergus cheaper for a small plumbing firm?
On list prices Fergus is lower per user: from $31 on Essentials and $44 on Professional on its dollar-priced page, against Tradify's $47, $51 and $61. Fergus's AI is also free for now, while Tradify's needs Plus. Fergus's trial covers Essentials only, and its pages show more than one price set, so ask both vendors for a written quote for your user count.
Does Tradify have an AI assistant like Fergus?
Not on the pages I read. Tradify's SmartTools are two features, SmartRead, which reads a photo of a supplier invoice, and SmartWrite, which writes and tidies quote and invoice descriptions. Both sit on the Plus plan at $61 per user a month. Nothing documented creates jobs, answers questions about your figures or reshuffles a schedule.
Is Fergus's AI included in the price?
Fergus's help says its new AI tools are included in your current monthly subscription at no extra cost for now, and that it will say clearly before any new pricing applies. The wider Fergus AI experience is labelled coming soon and in beta, with access through support, so ask what it will cost before you build routines around it.
Can I connect ChatGPT or Claude to Fergus?
Fergus documents an MCP server that connects Claude or ChatGPT to your account. Setting it up needs a Full User with Master User permissions, because the server has the same data access as a Master Admin. It can read and write jobs, quotes and customers, and read invoices. Claude is its recommended starting point.
How long does it take to switch between Tradify and Fergus?
Plan a day to set up and a fortnight to settle. Fergus's help describes a 60-minute set-up and a CSV customer import, and both vendors offer a 14-day trial. Open jobs have to be re-created, closed history stays in the old app, and invoice numbering and the accounting link need care. Run both side by side for two weeks before you cancel.
Further reads
- Best AI for Plumbers: What a Solo, Two-Van and Ten-Van Firm Should Buy — Choose an AI stack for one, two or ten vans
- AI Software for Electricians: Monthly Cost in the UK and the US — Add up the monthly bill for an electrical firm
- Fergus for Builders: Job Costing and Progress Claims, With Fergus AI — Use Fergus phases and claims on staged jobs
- Tradify for Builders: Set Up Quotes, Variations and Stage Payments — Set up Tradify quotes and stage payments
- Best AI Receipt Scanning App for UK Tradesmen: Xero, Tradify, Powered Now — Test bill and receipt scanning on ten real receipts
- AI Electrical Certification Apps: What to Check Before You Pay — A pre-purchase checklist for electrical certificate apps: scheme acceptance, test-result links, AI wording controls, data ownership and a one-afternoon trial.
- 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.
- Heating Engineer Software Compared: What AI Adds for a UK Firm — Job management software for a heating firm of one to five people, compared on regional prices, gas and service records and the AI features each really offers.
- Is ServiceM8 AI Worth It for a Small Heating Firm? — ServiceM8's AI helpers are on every plan; job credits, 100 jobs of history and certificates decide whether they pay. Plus a five-job test.
- Property Maintenance Software: Jobber, ServiceM8 and Fergus Compared — Which job software suits a property maintenance firm? Tenants, managers and recurring visits compared, with a triage prompt for tenant texts.
- 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.
- Simpro Electrical Reviews: Is It Worth It for a Small Firm? — A crew-size rule for Simpro, how to read its reviews as a small electrical firm, and a demo script for job costing, quoting and compliance paperwork.
- AI App for Electricians: Do You Need One or Is ChatGPT Enough? — A decision rule by quotes, supplier bills and team size, with Tradify SmartRead for Bills, Jobber's AI and ChatGPT priced and compared.
- Best AI for Tradesmen: Seven Phone Apps for Quotes, Notes and Receipts — Seven phone apps that handle quotes, job notes and receipts from the van, what each one does, which plan carries the AI, and a 30-minute test to run first.
- AI Tools and AI Development: The Complete 2026 Guide — the AI hub, including every tutorial in the AI-for-business series.
Sources: Tradify pricing, SmartTools, quoting, plumbing and electrician pages; Fergus pricing, AI, industry pages and help centre (Assistant FAQs, MCP server, setup and customer import). All read in October 2026.