Contractor Scheduling Software: 9 Scheduling and Dispatch Apps Compared by Price

Contractor scheduling software replaces the whiteboard and the morning phone calls. Jobs go on a shared calendar or dispatch board, you drag each one onto a tech or crew, and the details land on their phones. The customer gets a reminder the day before and an on-my-way text when the truck leaves.

Almost every tool here also does estimates, invoices and payments, and we compare those all-round features in our field service management app roundup. This article looks only at the scheduling and dispatch side: what each contractor scheduling app gives you on the calendar, which plan unlocks routing, recurring jobs and online booking, and what it costs. Prices come from each vendor's own pages as of October 27, 2026. We compare published plans; we haven't run each tool on a live dispatch board.

What to look for in a contractor scheduling app

• A calendar or dispatch board with drag-and-drop. Moving a job from one tech to another, or from Tuesday to Wednesday, should take one drag, and the tech's phone should update.
• Recurring jobs. Maintenance visits, tune-ups and route work should repeat on their own instead of being re-entered.
• Routing. Some tools only show jobs on a map; others reorder a tech's day by drive time. Check which plan has which.
• A technician mobile app. Techs need the address, job notes, photos and customer history on their phone, and a way to mark the job started and finished.
• Customer reminders and on-my-way texts. These are the cheapest way to cut no-shows, and they're on the entry plan of most tools here.
• Online booking. Customers pick a slot from your website or Google, and the job lands on the calendar.
• GPS. Seeing where techs are lets you send the nearest one to an urgent call.

Quick comparison

Housecall Pro: drag-and-drop scheduling from the entry plan

Housecall Pro's calendar lets you drag and drop appointments, filter views and color-code by area or employee, and schedule one-time or recurring jobs. Customers get automatic reminders and on-my-way texts (with live GPS tracking from Essentials up), and they can book and pay online from Google or your website.

• Basic: $59/mo billed annually ($79 monthly), 1 user: online booking, scheduling and dispatching, estimates, invoicing, payments and review management
• Essentials: $149/mo ($189 monthly), 5 users: adds routes (group and sequence a day's jobs to cut drive time), checklist automations, employee GPS tracking from techs' phones and QuickBooks Online sync
• MAX: $299/mo ($329 monthly), 8 users ($35/mo per extra user): adds recurring service plans and one-click route optimization based on real drive time and live traffic

There's a 14-day free trial of MAX with no credit card. Full details in our Housecall Pro pricing guide and Housecall Pro review.

Best for: small residential crews that want booking, scheduling and invoicing in one app from day one.

ServiceM8: free plan, priced by jobs instead of users

ServiceM8 charges by the number of new jobs you create each month, not by user. Prices in USD:

• Free: $0, 1 user, 30 jobs a month
• Starter: $29/mo, unlimited users, 50 jobs
• Growing: $79/mo, 150 jobs
• Premium: $149/mo, 500 jobs
• Premium Plus: $349/mo, 1,500+ jobs (20 cents per additional job)

Every plan, free included, has scheduling with push notifications to staff, online bookings, booking confirmations and reminders, recurring jobs and maintenance scheduling, staff GPS tracking, urgent dispatch (see who's closest and available), and a dispatch map that optimizes a tech's route for the day. It can also import techs' busy times from their personal calendars. Texts are included on paid plans (ServiceM8 mentions a monthly cap but doesn't publish it) and 10 cents each on the free plan. There's a 14-day free trial.

Best for: small teams with many users but a modest number of jobs, such as an electrical or plumbing shop doing larger jobs rather than dozens of service calls a day.

GorillaDesk: priced by route, built for recurring work

GorillaDesk charges for each schedule (a tech who runs their own route; crews that ride together share one). Admin, manager and office users are free and unlimited. For one route, paid monthly:

• Basic: $49/mo: job and customer mapping from the calendar, basic routing up to 25 stops, automated email and text appointment confirmations and reminders
• Pro: $99/mo: adds online booking from your website or customer portal, routing with Drive Matrix (real-time street routing and drive times), GPS device tracking and time clocking
• Growth: $149/mo: adds drive time shown between jobs, "Best Available Time" suggestions when you add or move a job, and "Job Magnet" to pull nearby jobs together

Extra routes cost $50/mo each on Basic for routes 2–3 and $30 from route 4; $50 each on Pro; and $100 for route 2 then $50 each on Growth. Texting is $5 a month plus SMS credits. There are no setup fees or contracts.

Best for: route-based trades with recurring visits; HVAC maintenance routes fit too.

Kickserv: low-cost scheduling for teams up to 20

Kickserv's scheduling includes calendar views, one-click scheduling, automatic customer reminders before a job, on-the-way notifications, and job alerts to techs through the mobile app. Its FAQ says a job can repeat on schedules from every day to every other year. Prices billed annually, monthly in parentheses:

• Start: $60/mo ($75), 5 users: embeddable contact form, automated email and text reminders, time and expense tracking, QuickBooks Online integration
• Run: $119/mo ($149), 10 users: adds dispatch mapping and GPS check-ins
• Scale: $199/mo ($249), 20 users: adds custom templates and reviews

There's a 30-day free trial.

Best for: small teams on a budget who want reminders and a map-based dispatch view with a user cap instead of per-seat pricing.

Service Fusion: unlimited users for a full dispatch office

Every Service Fusion plan includes scheduling and dispatching and unlimited users, so a dispatcher, office staff and every tech cost the same as one person:

• Starter: $208/mo billed annually ($245 monthly): customer management, estimates and jobs, scheduling and dispatching, payments, invoicing, QuickBooks integration and text message alerts
• Plus: $325/mo ($382 monthly): adds job photo uploads, inventory management, job costing and integrated voice and text
• Pro: $533/mo ($627 monthly): adds a customer web portal (available as an add-on on lower plans), among other features

GPS fleet tracking (trips, distance, idle time and location on a map) is an add-on. Annual billing saves 15% and is charged as one upfront payment; plans are otherwise month to month. See our Service Fusion review.

Best for: companies with five or more people, where unlimited users beat per-seat plans.

Workiz: AI scheduling on higher plans, price on request

Workiz has a drag-and-drop calendar that shows each tech's route, lets you text or email the client from their calendar slot, and sets up recurring jobs. Online booking, team location tracking and fleet tracking are on every plan. Workiz doesn't publish prices; it lists three plans:

• Standard: scheduling, jobs, estimates, invoices, online payments and five automations
• Pro: adds "Genius scheduling", where AI suggests the best time for a call based on techs' availability and skills, plus ten automations
• Ultimate: adds multi-day jobs, service plans, checklists and 30 automations

Best for: small and mid-size shops that want AI help filling the calendar and don't mind a sales call to get a price.

FieldPulse: drag-and-drop dispatch with GPS, quoted per seat

FieldPulse's scheduling uses a drag-and-drop calendar to assign jobs to techs or multiple teams, with real-time dispatch notifications and status changes, and GPS technician tracking to send the nearest tech (FieldPulse sells Fleet Tracking as an add-on; ask which is in your quote). It also has a customer booking portal and maintenance agreements. Pricing is seat-based: you buy a set number of seats upfront for a contract term, and the quote comes from a demo; FieldPulse says it doesn't offer a free trial. Our FieldPulse review covers the rest.

Best for: HVAC, electrical and plumbing shops with a dispatcher, recurring maintenance agreements and room in the budget for a quoted plan.

ServiceTitan: the full HVAC dispatch board

ServiceTitan prices per technician across three packages (Starter, Essentials and The Works), all with scheduling and dispatching, and quotes on request. Its dispatch board is drag-and-drop. Two Pro Products, sold as upgrades, go further:

• Dispatch Pro recommends or automatically assigns the best tech for each job based on skill, location and performance, and can prioritize drive time, average ticket or both.
• Scheduling Pro adds online booking from your website, Google and social channels, with availability taken from the dispatch board.

See our ServiceTitan pricing guide.

Best for: larger HVAC, plumbing and electrical companies with a dispatch team.

Connecteam: crew scheduling only

Connecteam isn't field service software. It schedules employees: shifts with job information, repeating shifts and templates, availability, time-off requests, a GPS time clock and real-time notifications of schedule changes. It has no estimates, invoices or customer reminders.

• Small Business plan: free for up to 10 users, with all hubs included
• Operations Basic: $29/mo billed yearly ($35 monthly) for the first 30 users, then $0.80 per extra user ($1.00 on monthly billing)
• Operations Advanced: $49/mo billed yearly ($59 monthly): adds repeating shifts and templates and a shareable live link to your schedule
• Operations Expert: $99/mo billed yearly ($119 monthly): adds auto-assigning shifts and up to 12 schedules

There's a 14-day free trial with no credit card.

Best for: general contractors and construction crews that need to know who's on which job site each day, and already invoice elsewhere.

Scheduling software for electricians and electrical contractors

Electrical work splits into two scheduling problems. Residential service calls (a panel swap, a dead circuit) look like HVAC and plumbing: short jobs, a dispatch board, reminders and on-my-way texts. Housecall Pro, Kickserv, Workiz and ServiceM8 cover that well on their entry plans.

Commercial and new-construction work is different: jobs run for days or weeks with a crew, so you need multi-day jobs and crew scheduling more than routing. Workiz includes multi-day jobs on its Ultimate plan, and Connecteam schedules crews by job site for free up to 10 users. For pricing those jobs, see our estimating software for electricians guide, and for getting more of them, our electrician marketing ideas.

HVAC service dispatching software

HVAC dispatching adds two things to plain scheduling: seasonal call spikes, when the board has to be rebuilt by the hour, and maintenance agreements that generate recurring tune-ups. Recurring jobs are on every ServiceM8 and GorillaDesk plan and in Kickserv; packaged maintenance or service plans sit on Housecall Pro MAX, Workiz Ultimate, FieldPulse and ServiceTitan's memberships. Look for GPS so you can send the closest tech to a no-heat call, and online booking that respects your real availability. Our HVAC field service software guide goes deeper.

How to choose contractor scheduling software

Picking a contractor scheduling program comes down to five checks.

1. Count who needs to be scheduled, and who doesn't. Plans with user caps (Housecall Pro's 1, 5 or 8 included users, Kickserv's 5, 10 or 20) count office staff too; GorillaDesk charges only for routes, ServiceM8 by jobs, and Service Fusion has no user limit.
2. Check which plan has routing. Seeing jobs on a map is common; reordering a day by drive time often sits on a higher tier.
3. Turn on reminders first. Automated reminders and on-my-way texts are on the entry plan of most tools here, and they pay off immediately.
4. Test the tech app with your techs. Use the free trial to dispatch a real week of jobs and ask your techs what they'd change.
5. Decide where calls come in. If you miss calls on jobs, an answering service can book straight onto the calendar. If you need lead tracking and follow-ups beyond the schedule, see our CRM for contractors guide.

Jobber is a popular alternative, but its site blocks our requests and we couldn't confirm its current pricing, so it isn't included.