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What Field Service Software Really Costs in Year One
Every comparison ranks these platforms by subscription price. For a solo operator taking cards through the software, that is the smaller half of the bill. We modelled the whole thing — subscription plus payment processing — with every assumption shown so you can re-run it on your own numbers.
The finding
Modelling a solo operator invoicing $120,000 a year on Jobber’s mid-tier Connect plan: subscription $1,188, payment processing $2,732, year-one total $3,920.
Processing is 70% of the total. On the entry-level Core plan it reaches 89%, because the subscription shrinks while the processing bill does not move at all.
Subscription $1,188Processing $2,732Total $3,920What this study covers
Three findings that change how you chooseOur model and its assumptionsProcessing rates as publishedYear-one totals comparedWhat the sticker price leaves outHow to run this on your own numbersFAQThree findings that change how you choose
The processing number is not a rounding error on top of the subscription. It is the main event, and it behaves differently from the price you were comparing.
1. Choosing on subscription price optimises the smaller number. The gap between the cheapest and dearest subscription here is roughly 5.6x. Once processing is included, the gap between real year-one totals compresses to well under 2x.
You can agonise over $30 a month and lose more than that to your payment mix in a single quarter.
2. Moving customers from card to bank payment beats switching platforms. Going from a 70% card / 20% ACH split to 30% card / 60% ACH cuts processing from $2,732 to $1,788.
3. Instant payouts are the most expensive button in the app. The extra ~1% for immediate deposit costs $840 a year at this volume, around 70% of what the whole subscription costs.
Waiting the standard two days is one of the highest-return decisions available to a one-truck business.
Our model and its assumptions
We are showing these in full because the conclusions depend entirely on them. Change the revenue and the processing figure scales almost linearly; change the payment mix and everything moves.
Processing rates as published
The card rate is not one number. It depends on how the card is entered — tapped in person is cheaper than keyed in by hand or charged from a card on file.
Both Jobber and Housecall Pro charge roughly 1% extra for instant payouts. Housecall Pro’s spread between its best and worst card rate is nearly a full percentage point, worth $756 a year at our modelled volume.
That three of these six do not publish a processing rate at all is itself a finding. If a vendor will not tell you the rate before you sign up, you cannot calculate your real cost until you are already committed.
Year-one totals compared
Read the first and last columns together. Jobber Core’s subscription is a fraction of Workiz Kickstart’s, but the totals sit far closer than the sticker prices suggest.
Processing is the constant that does not care which logo is on the invoice. It is set by your revenue and your payment mix, not by your choice of platform.
What the sticker price leaves out
Processing is the biggest omission, but it is not the only one. Four others move the number for a solo operator.
Add-ons that sound like core features. Jobber publishes three: Marketing Suite at $79/mo, Sales Pipeline at $49/mo, and an AI Receptionist at $29/mo. Markate’s $39.95 headline excludes automated review requests, online booking, a branded customer portal and a business phone number — each about $10/mo.
A Markate user who wants reviews and online booking is realistically at $60–$70 a month, not $39.95.
Extra users. Housecall Pro charges roughly $35/mo per user beyond your plan’s cap. Irrelevant while you are solo, and the fastest-growing line the moment you hire.
Text messaging. Both platforms price customer SMS per message above an included allowance. Small per message, real over a year for a business that texts every appointment.
Your time. Not a fee, but the largest real cost of switching. Rebuilding a price book and migrating client history is days of unbilled work.
How to run this on your own numbers
Take your last twelve months: total revenue, average invoice, and roughly what share of customers paid by card. Apply the rates in the table above.
If your processing number is bigger than the subscription you were agonising over — and for most solo operators it will be — then the decision is not really about which platform is cheapest.
It is about which one you will actually use to send invoices promptly, and how many customers you can move onto bank payment. Pick on workflow and features, then spend your energy on the payment mix, because that is where the money is.
Want to price individual jobs with your real overhead and margin folded in? Our free Job Pricing Calculator does the per-job maths and exports a branded PDF quote — no signup.
How we researched this
We subscribe to every platform we write about and run a full solo-operator job cycle through it — quote, schedule, invoice, payment — rather than working from marketing pages. That is how we know which features sit behind which tier, and where each tool actually creates friction for a one-person business.
Subscription prices were read directly from each vendor’s live pricing page in August 2026, at one user on annual billing. The cost model above then applies each vendor’s published processing rates to the revenue scenario set out earlier.
Where a vendor does not publish a processing rate, we have said so rather than estimating. Rates vary by card entry method and are often negotiable at higher volume, so treat these figures as a sourced baseline rather than a quote for your business.
FAQ
Is payment processing really bigger than the subscription?
For a solo operator taking most payments by card, yes. At $120,000 of annual revenue with 70% paid by card, processing runs about $2,732 a year against $1,188 for Jobber Connect — roughly 2.3 times the subscription. The lower your plan tier, the more lopsided it gets.
Can I avoid processing fees entirely?
Only by taking cash or cheques, which costs you speed and creates chasing work. The practical lever is shifting customers toward bank or ACH payment at around 1%, rather than card at roughly 2.9%. On our modelled operator that shift is worth about $944 a year.
Are these processing rates negotiable?
At solo volume, generally not — published flat rates are what you pay. Rates typically become negotiable at higher processing volume, which is worth revisiting once you are consistently above six figures in card payments.
Why do Markate, Workiz and FieldPulse have no processing rate listed?
Because none of them publish one. We have left those cells blank rather than estimate. If you are considering any of the three, ask for the processing rate in writing before you commit, since it will likely be a bigger line than the subscription.
Does the cheapest plan give the cheapest year?
In this model Jobber Core produces the lowest year-one total, but that is only useful if Core does what you need. Core has no automated payment collection, so an operator who upgrades to Connect for auto-pay may collect faster and lose less to late invoices than the $840 difference in subscription.
Last verified: August 6, 2026 against each vendor’s live pricing page.
Jobber Pricing 2026
Every Jobber tier at one user, what the promotion actually costs from year two, and which plan a solo operator needs.
Housecall Pro Pricing
Basic, Essentials and MAX compared for a one-person business, including what each tier locks behind an upgrade.
Free Tools
Job pricing, hourly rate and house cleaning calculators — free, no signup, and embeddable on your own site.