Software for Trades

How we work

How we evaluate.

Concrete criteria, defined trade cuts, public skip-list bar.

Vendor criteria

Eight axes per vendor.

Every vendor in the index is evaluated on the same eight axes. Weights shift by trade and crew size — a solo plumber weights pricing transparency and per-seat economics; a 30-tech HVAC shop weights dispatch depth and integrations.

  1. № 01

    Vendors

    Pricing transparency.

    Whether the vendor publishes per-seat or per-tier pricing on the public site, hides it behind a quote, or uses opaque add-ons that surface only after the demo. We weigh published transparency heavily — opaque pricing has a measurable correlation with post-signup regret.

  2. № 02

    Vendors

    Per-seat economics.

    Per-seat cost at 1, 5, 15, 30 technicians. Whether per-seat fees punish growth, whether dispatcher seats are billed differently from technician seats, and whether the floor pricing assumes a customer-success bundle.

  3. № 03

    Vendors

    Mobile technician UX.

    Technician-facing app responsiveness, offline behavior, time-on-job logging, signature capture, photo workflows. Field techs use this app eight hours a day — quality compounds.

  4. № 04

    Vendors

    Dispatch and routing depth.

    Drag-and-drop dispatch, route optimization, automated rescheduling, customer-facing on-the-way notifications. The bar moves with crew size — solo operators don't need this; 30-tech HVAC shops do.

  5. № 05

    Vendors

    Quote-to-cash workflow.

    Quote builder, e-signature, deposit collection, invoice generation, payment capture. Whether the workflow keeps a tech on the job or pulls them to the desk.

  6. № 06

    Vendors

    Integrations.

    QuickBooks, Stripe, Twilio, marketing-automation, voice / call-tracking. We weigh whether the vendor supports the integrations a typical buyer at the relevant stage actually needs.

  7. № 07

    Vendors

    Implementation reality.

    Time from contract to first dispatched job, training burden, data-migration support, onboarding cost. We flag vendors where the implementation timeline kills momentum during the highest-leverage growth months.

  8. № 08

    Vendors

    Lock-in posture.

    Data export options, contract length, cancellation terms, rate-hike behavior at renewal. We flag patterns where leaving costs more than staying.

Trade cuts

Five trades, five lenses.

The same eight axes get reweighted per trade. A roofer weights job photography; a plumber weights recurring maintenance; an HVAC shop weights refrigerant tracking.

  1. Trade 01

    Plumbing.

    Service-call dispatch, parts catalog, recurring maintenance plans.

  2. Trade 02

    Electrical.

    Permit tracking, code-aware estimating, inspection workflows.

  3. Trade 03

    HVAC.

    Maintenance contracts, refrigerant tracking, multi-tech load balancing.

  4. Trade 04

    Roofing.

    Job photography, materials estimation, project-based scheduling.

  5. Trade 05

    Landscaping.

    Recurring-route scheduling, crew time tracking, seasonal pricing.

Stages, skip bar, conflicts, corrections

The rest of the system.

Stage cuts

Solo / small crew (2–10) / scaling (10–50+).

Stage thresholds reflect where vendor fit shifts: solo operators get crushed by per-seat pricing; small crews start needing dispatch; scaling shops need integrations and reporting depth.

Pricing freshness

Verified weekly against vendor pricing pages.

Every comparison page shows the date pricing was last verified. When vendors flip from public-tier to quote-only, the next refresh catches it. Always confirm pricing during your sales process.

Skip-list bar

Specific failure mode, not generic disclaimers.

An entry lands on the skip list only when there's a named failure mode the typical buyer at the relevant stage will regret — overengineering for crew size, hidden quote-stage cost, per-seat pricing that punishes growth, data export friction. We don't skip-list vendors for being “just OK.”

Conflicts of interest

No vendor pays for inclusion, rank, or recommendation.

No vendor briefings shape coverage, no embargoes apply, no sponsored placements. We participate in vendor partner programs — disclosed in full on the disclosure page. Affiliate compensation has no influence on which vendors appear, how they rank, or whether they land on the skip list.

Corrections

When we're wrong, we update the page.

Material corrections (wrong tier, wrong feature, reversed verdict) get a date stamp on the page itself. Email editor@contractorstack.co if you spot one.