Tradecraft vs ServiceTitan, Jobber, and Housecall Pro

If you have sat through a ServiceTitan demo, you already know the pitch: the industry standard, the deep feature set, the promise that your shop will finally look like a real company. Then the quote arrives priced per technician, with an implementation project attached, and suddenly "standard" looks like a second mortgage.

Tradecraft is built for a different bet: flat platform pricing, unlimited technicians, and a full HelioNova AI stack (voice, dispatch AI, inventory AI, internal assistant, and a field mobile voice app) inside one trade operating system. Here is a clear comparison against the legacy heavyweight and the two SMB names shops shortlist most often.

The three questions that matter

Ignore feature bingo. Score vendors on technology that closes the loop, pricing that does not punish hiring, and ease of use that does not require a certified expert living in your office.

ServiceTitan: powerful, and priced like it

ServiceTitan does not publish a simple public price list. Operator-reported ranges in 2025-2026 contractor writeups commonly land around $245 to $500 per technician per month, with implementation fees often cited from about $5,000 into the tens of thousands, plus annual contracts and add-on modules. A ten-tech shop can see several thousand dollars a month in base seats alone before Pro modules stack.

That model can make sense for large, multi-million-dollar operations with dedicated office staff whose job is the software. For a growing HVAC or plumbing shop, per-tech math is the trap: every hire raises the software bill even when the hire is the person who makes you money.

Technology-wise, ServiceTitan is deep. The tradeoff is weight: longer onboarding, more process change, and a learning curve that rewards specialists. If your team needs a full-time admin to keep the system honest, budget for that human too.

Jobber and Housecall Pro: clearer stickers, still seat gravity

Jobber and Housecall Pro publish tiered plans that start much lower than enterprise FSM (industry pricing roundups often show Jobber entry around the high thirties per month and Housecall Pro entry around the high fifties to seventies, with higher tiers as teams grow). That honesty is refreshing.

Watch the second bill. Higher tiers, user allocations, and add-ons (proposals, GPS, price books, marketing packs) are how common SMB stacks climb. You can win on sticker and still lose on the all-in number once the whole office needs logins and the trucks need modules.

Both are capable scheduling and invoicing platforms. Where they usually stay thinner is always-on AI voice that books against your real board as a core product. A separate phone AI that syncs into Jobber or ServiceTitan (the pattern many voice startups sell) still leaves you paying for two brains: the answering layer and the FSM.

Where Tradecraft is built to win

Pricing. Shop is $199 per month and Business is $399 per month on our public pricing page, with unlimited technicians and zero per-tech fees. Admin seats are capped by plan (3 on Shop, 10 on Business). Run an eight- or ten-tech shop through per-tech enterprise math, then compare to a flat $199-$399 platform fee. The gap is not subtle.

Technology. AI inbound voice and chat, CRM, live dispatch map with scored suggestions you approve, inventory AI, Good-Better-Best quotes into Stripe payments, customer portal, and an internal assistant on the same data. Field techs get a voice-first mobile assistant on the same stack for jobs, en route updates, notes, and photos. That is an operating system with an agent fleet, not a calendar with invoices.

Ease of use. No mandatory five-figure implementation circus on Shop and Business. Cancel-anytime language on those tiers. You should be able to walk a real job in a demo without a partner consultant translating the UI.

Who should still shortlist the others

Choose ServiceTitan if you are already a large operation that wants that ecosystem and can staff it. Choose Jobber or Housecall Pro if you want a lighter SMB tool and do not need always-on AI voice as the front door. Choose Tradecraft if hiring techs should not raise your software tax, and if voice, dispatch, inventory, field mobile, and money need to live in one place. If the demo voice is the question, not the seat price, read Why the Phones Still Sound Like a Phone Tree.

For the buying checklist behind this comparison, read Seven capabilities before you buy trade software.

See pricing or book a demo and put your real headcount on the spreadsheet before you sign anyone's contract.