Blog
Field service ops: leads, dispatch, quotes, and payment in one loop.
How to Handle Overflow Work as a Contractor
Compare rescheduling, referrals and subcontracting when your crew is booked out. Includes a copyable scope brief and a checklist for a clear customer handoff.
How to Find Subcontractor Work in the Skilled Trades
Find better-fit subcontract work with a clear trade profile, GC outreach tips, and bid/no-bid questions for independent pros and small crews.
What Is Tradecraft Network? How Joining and Bidding Work
Learn who Tradecraft Network is for, how invitations and bids work, what participation costs, and how independent trades, existing shops and GCs get started.
How to Price a Plumbing Job: Labor Rate, Overhead, and Markup
A worked example from a $30/hr wage to a profitable flat-rate task price: labor burden, billable hours, overhead, markup vs margin.
ServiceTitan vs Jobber vs Housecall Pro vs FieldEdge vs Workiz
Compare five field service platforms by workflow, pricing model, included users, and AI options. Includes a cost worksheet for eight techs and two office users.
Why the Phones Still Sound Like a Phone Tree
Shop software owns the board and rents the phones. How to tell an AI receptionist from a phone tree that writes the job your tech opens after hours.
AI Agents in the Trades: What Actually Works for Plumbing, HVAC, Roofing & Cleaning
How AI agents help trades shops capture jobs and run the day, plus when to pick Tradecraft vs phone-layer AI like Avoca or Broccoli.
Tradecraft vs ServiceTitan, Jobber, and Housecall Pro
How a flat-fee trade OS with unlimited technicians and a coordinated AI agent stack stacks up against per-tech enterprise FSM and seat-based SMB tools.
Seven capabilities before you buy trade software
What trade shops should demand before paying for another tool that schedules trucks but still leaves the whiteboard in charge.
Where the day goes on the road
How trade shops claw back billable hours from windshield time, weak dispatch, and invoices that leave the truck days late.
From the first call to the paid invoice
How trade shops close the gap between a ringing phone, a crew on the road, and money in the bank without stitching five tools together.