Tradify vs ServiceM8 for a nine-person trades firm: the real yearly cost

Tradify and ServiceM8 are the two job-management apps small UK trades firms get asked about most. They charge in completely different ways, so a comparison of headline prices tells you nothing. The only fair way to compare them is to fix one example firm and price both for it. That is what we did.

What this is, and is not. This is a desk comparison of published prices, read from each firm's own UK pricing page on 1 October 2026. We did not sign up for a trial and we have not used either app on a live job, so we say nothing here about how good either one is. Prices change, and you should check both pages before you buy. ServiceM8's page says its UK prices do not include VAT; when we read Tradify's page for this comparison we did not find a statement either way.

The example firm

Nine people. Six are on the tools. Four of the nine need to log in: the owner, a partner who does the office two days a week, and two foremen who want to see their day's jobs and add notes. The firm sends about 60 jobs a month.

What each charges

From the pricing pages we read:

• Tradify charges per user per month: Lite £34, Pro £37 and Plus £44, with Custom on request.
• ServiceM8 charges by jobs per month with unlimited users on paid plans: Free £0 (30 jobs, one user), Starter £25 (50 jobs), Growing £59 (150 jobs), Premium £119 (500 jobs) and Premium Plus £269 (1,500 or more jobs). Texts are 5p each over the allowance.

The sums

For four logins, Tradify costs:

For ServiceM8 our firm sends about 60 jobs a month, which is over Starter's 50, so it needs Growing at £59 a month, or £708 a year, with every one of its nine people allowed a login.

Over three years, Tradify Pro for four users costs £5,328 and ServiceM8 Growing costs £2,124. The gap is £3,204.

Where the answer flips

The break-even is easy to work out. Tradify Lite at £34 a user matches ServiceM8 Growing at £59 once you have 1.74 users, so from a second login Tradify Lite is already the dearer of the two. If the firm is a sole trader with one login and 40 jobs a month, the picture reverses: ServiceM8's Free plan covers 30 jobs and Starter at £25 covers 50, while Tradify Lite is £34.

ServiceM8 gets expensive in the other direction. A firm that sends over 150 jobs a month moves to Premium at £119, which is £1,428 a year. At that size Tradify Pro for four users (£1,776) is only £348 dearer, and if the firm has only three logins, Tradify Pro (£1,332) comes out cheaper.

So the rule of thumb from the sums is: many logins and modest job volume favours ServiceM8; few logins and high job volume favours Tradify. What the page prices do not capture is anything else about the apps, which is the part you can only learn by trying them.

What neither price includes

Neither plan chases an unpaid invoice for you on a schedule, writes the quote from your site notes, or answers the enquiry that comes in while you are up a ladder. Both apps hold the data; someone still has to do the work. Our guide to what late payment interest a builder can claim is about the chasing, and the quote follow-up template is about the quoting. Both are jobs a person does in the evening today.

Where Overlyft fits

The AI staff Overlyft sets up use whichever job-management app you already have. We do not ask you to switch. If you are choosing between these two, choose on the sums above and a free trial, and we can set up an AI Quote Writer and Credit Controller to work inside the one you pick. They do not replace either app; it is the person who does the typing in them.