Best job management software for UK trades (2026)

Inclusion criteria: publicly available in the UK; pricing verifiable (in GBP wherever the vendor publishes it); credible evidence of real UK trade usage; and a self-serve trial or free tier so you can verify our findings yourself. We assessed six products against these criteria and shortlisted three, with three more covered honestly below.

This shortlist's ranking is a desk assessment: verified pricing, official documentation and attributed user evidence, not a scored hands-on test. That's why you won't see scores out of ten here. Tradify and ServiceM8's own linked review records do now include genuine first-hand TBV trial evidence (screenshots from real trial accounts, using fictional data); Powered Now remains desk-assessed pending safe direct access. What you will see below is which business shape each tool is priced for, which is the decision that actually matters.

Divide your monthly jobs by your headcount. High number (busy solo, lean pair): pick a per-user tool: Tradify for ecosystem and integrations, Powered Now if VAT/MTD in-app matters most. Low number (crews, apprentices, office staff): ServiceM8's unlimited users can cost a fraction of per-user pricing. ServiceM8 now has native iOS and Android apps, but its newer Android FAQs and older live Apple-first/Lite pages conflict on exact feature parity, so Android-heavy teams should prove their required workflow on trial. Six or more staff and contracted rollout: talk to Commusoft. Then use whatever trial access the vendor offers to prove the choice on representative jobs before committing.

A sole trader does not need the same software economics as a six-person firm. Start with what one person actually pays and what happens after the first month: ServiceM8 has a genuine £0 single-user tier capped at 30 jobs a month; Powered Now's Business plan is £28 a month flat for one user; Tradify starts at £34 per user a month. Those models behave very differently once you become busier or hire.

The next question is workload. A low-volume sole trader may fit ServiceM8's free cap, but a busier month can push the business onto a paid job-volume tier. Powered Now and Tradify do not impose that same monthly job-credit model, so a one-person business with a high number of small jobs should compare the full-year cost rather than the entry headline.

Then check the workflow that actually matters to your business. Powered Now is the clearest of these three if keeping UK VAT/MTD work close to the job-management system matters; Tradify has the broad accounting-integration story and a mature trade workflow; ServiceM8 can be exceptionally cheap for one person but its current Android documentation still conflicts on exact feature parity, so Android-first sole traders should test their required functions before relying on it.

Finally, price the first employee before you buy. Tradify's cost rises per user; Powered Now moves from the flat one-user Business plan to per-user Professional or Premium if you need team features; ServiceM8's paid tiers allow unlimited users but charge by job volume. That first-hire cost can change which product is actually cheapest long before you think of yourself as a 'team'.