AI quoting apps vs ChatGPT: Tradify, Jobber, Fergus and a free chat

Tradify, Fergus and ServiceM8, in pounds

Tradify. The UK pricing page (opens in a new tab) lists Lite at £34 per user a month, Pro at £37, and Plus at £44. Custom is price on request. The trial is 14 days and includes all the features. Billing is month to month, with no contract, and you can cancel any time.

Lite includes job notes, scheduling with Google Calendar, quoting and invoicing, markups, online and card payments, email tracking, and sync with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks Online. Pro adds branding, an enquiry form, photos and files, recurring jobs, appointment reminders, quote options with online acceptance, progress invoicing, quote and invoice reminders, templates, costing, timesheets, subcontractor scheduling and compliance certificates. Plus adds SmartRead for bills and SmartWrite, which Tradify describes as generating descriptions and improving writing, plus service reminders, purchase orders, bulk invoicing and kit bundles. Those Smart tools are Plus only. An Instant Website add-on is £10 a month under Lite and Pro.

One person on Lite is £34 a month. Two people on Pro is £74, because the price is per user. Certificates and automatic chasing sit on Pro, not Lite.

Fergus. The UK pricing page (opens in a new tab) lists Essentials from £39 a month and Professional from £45. Timesheet users are from £12 a month. More than 10 staff is an Enterprise conversation, not a published price. Billing is monthly with no lock-in. The trial is 14 days, with no card, and you can cancel any time. There is no setup fee. SMS is £8 per 100 texts. Card payments are 1.6% plus £0.20 a transaction. Contractor users are £2 per user per day.

The electrical estimating page (opens in a new tab) labels £39 and £45 as per user, per month. The pricing page says "from" those figures, so read the per-user line before a second login. Fergus describes Essentials as the paperwork plan and Professional as the tighter-control plan. A campaign page has said "from £35". The pricing page checked here does not. Use the pricing page.

ServiceM8. The UK pricing page (opens in a new tab) is in pounds. The FAQ says prices do not include VAT, that ServiceM8 issues reverse-charge invoices, and that you should confirm that with your accountant. Free is £0, one user, up to 30 jobs a month, SMS at 5p. Starter is £25 a month, unlimited users, 50 jobs, and 100 or more SMS. Growing is £59, unlimited users, 150 jobs, and 300 or more SMS. Premium is £119 a month and Premium Plus is £269. The job allowance on those two sits in the comparison table. It is not repeated here, because the plan cards did not state it in the same plain line as Free, Starter and Growing.

ServiceM8 says paid plans are not charged per user. The free plan is the one with a user cap. A job credit is used when you create a job card, and turning an accepted quote into a work order does not use a second one. Go over the allowance and you can carry on for 7 days, then you are asked to upgrade. The trial is 14 days and needs no card. Every plan includes job cards, scheduling, quotes, invoices, email and SMS, mobile payments and accounting connections.

Under 30 new jobs a month, ServiceM8's page says the software can be free. Tradify has a 14-day trial and no free plan. Fergus starts from £39. The gap closes when you need more job cards, or a higher ServiceM8 feature. Tradify does not cap quotes by job count. It charges per user instead.

Jobber, in dollars

Jobber's pricing page (opens in a new tab) prices everything in US dollars. Annual billing, it says, saves up to 25%. The trial does not need a card. There is no pound column.

For one user, no commitment, Core is $49 a month, Connect is $139, and Grow is $199. Billed annually those are $29, $99 and $149. A one-year commitment paid monthly sits between them, at $39, $119 and $169. Extra users are $29 a month. The smallest Plus column includes 5 users at $499 a month with no commitment.

Core includes booking and scheduling, professional quotes, invoices and online payments, a website, reporting, and an app marketplace. Connect adds automated client reminders, automatic payment collection, checklists, automated quote and invoice follow-ups, QuickBooks Online, and time and expenses. An AI receptionist is on the Plus list, not on Core.

$49 is not a pound you can put in a forecast. Jobber has not published a sterling price, and this guide will not invent one. If a fixed pound bill matters more than the feature list, use Tradify, Fergus or ServiceM8. Automated follow-up is Connect, at $139 a month for one user with no commitment, not the $49 Core plan. Annual billing lowers the dollar price and changes the commitment. Read that column before you tick it.

The free ChatGPT plan

OpenAI's pricing page (opens in a new tab) says the free version is available to everyone. Everyday text chats on the free plan are listed as unlimited, with an asterisk, and the page says unlimited text chats are subject to abuse guardrails. The free column also lists limits on uploads, images, voice, deep research, memory and some other tools. Go, Plus, Business and Enterprise are priced per user per month. The price of Plus, and the model names, change often enough that copying them here would date the guide. Check the page on the day.

For a quote, you type the customer, the address, the scope, the exclusions, the price, whether you are VAT registered, and when you want paying. Tell it not to change a number or add a promise. Read the draft and send it yourself. The free tools guide is the same habit for invoices and customer messages.

It will not email a link, mark a quote accepted, raise the invoice, or chase a late payer. Close the browser and you have what you copied out. Leave out card numbers, one-time codes, a UTR, and a customer's bank details.

Who each one suits

Free ChatGPT suits a sole trader who prices the job, wants a clear email a few times a week, and keeps the copy in sent mail. It is a poor fit once customers accept quotes in a portal, or you can no longer tell which version went out.

Tradify Lite, £34 per user a month, suits one person who wants quotes, jobs, invoices and a calendar in pounds, month to month. Pro, at £37, adds certificates, progress invoices and quote reminders. Plus, at £44, adds SmartWrite and SmartRead. Multiply by users before comparing a team with ServiceM8.

Fergus Essentials, from £39 a month, suits a pound price, a 14-day trial without a card, and no lock-in, once you have checked the per-user line. Professional, from £45, is the tighter-control plan. Add £8 per 100 SMS if you text, and 1.6% plus 20p if customers pay by card. There is no permanent free tier on the pricing page.

ServiceM8 free suits a sole trader inside 30 new jobs a month. Starter at £25 is 50 jobs with unlimited users. Growing at £59 is 150 jobs. Pay for volume, not for each login. It is a weaker fit if you do not want a job-credit cap.

Jobber Core, $49 a month for one user with no commitment, suits that app's quotes and scheduling if a dollar bill is acceptable. Connect, at $139, adds automated follow-up. It is a poor fit when you need a predictable pound cost.

The free chat can sit beside any of the apps. The app holds the price and sends the document. The chat helps with the covering email. Do not ask either to invent the number. The prompts in the quoting guide assume you wrote the price down first.

A fair trial

Take one quote you have already priced. Build it in a single app trial, and ask the free chat for the email that carries the same numbers. Look at three things. Did the app send something the customer can accept without retyping. Did the chat leave every figure alone. Could you find both the next day.

If you only send a handful of quotes, the free chat and your sent mail are enough. If acceptance still lives in a text thread, the app is the missing piece, and the figure above is the cost of it. Each of these apps says the trial needs no card. Check the pricing page on the day you subscribe. These figures are from 15 October 2026.