Search for free field service management software and you'll find plenty of pages that say "free" and mean "free for 14 days." That's fine if you know it going in, but a solo plumber or a two-person cleaning crew usually wants to know something simpler: is there a field service app I can use without paying, and what's the catch?
The short answer is yes, a few. This guide sorts the options into four groups: plans that stay free, free trials of paid software, open-source and self-hosted options, and the free tools people combine instead. Every price and limit comes from the vendors' own pages, checked on October 27, 2026. We compare published plans and limits; we haven't run each tool in a live business.
Quick comparison of free field service software
| Tool | What's free | Main limits on the free plan | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zoho FSM | Free edition | 30 appointments a month, up to 20 users | Small crews that want a full job-to-invoice app |
| Odoo | One App Free (hosted) | One app (plus the apps it depends on) | Teams happy to set up a general business app |
| Connecteam | Small Business Plan | Up to 10 users; no invoicing | Scheduling crews and tracking hours |
| Fieldwire | Basic plan | 5 users, 3 projects, 100 sheets | Construction and electrical jobs with plans |
| Wave | Starter plan | Card fees of 2.9% + $0.60 | Estimates and invoices for a solo pro |
| Invoice Ninja | Hosted Free plan, or self-host | 5 clients on the hosted free plan | Invoicing and time tracking |
| Housecall Pro, Kickserv, Tradify, GorillaDesk | Free trial only | Paid after the trial | Testing a full paid system |
Plans that stay free
Zoho FSM: the most complete free field service app
Zoho FSM has the most complete forever-free edition built specifically for field service: requests, estimates, work orders, scheduled appointments, service reports, invoices and payments, plus a mobile app for field techs. According to Zoho's plan comparison, the Free edition includes:
- 30 appointments a month. Unused appointments don't carry over to the next month.
- Up to 20 users.
- Work orders with up to 10 service and 10 part line items each, and one service report per appointment.
- Invoicing and payments, powered by Zoho Invoice, with payment gateway integration.
- A Gantt-style work planner with day and week calendar views.
- Three active workflow rules per module, 1 GB of file storage and 100,000 records.
What you give up: the map view, live location tracking of field agents, offline access in the app, custom reports, maintenance plans, and the Zoho Books, Zoho CRM and Zapier integrations all start on paid editions. There's a short free trial of the paid features (Zoho's page says 15 days in one place and 14 in another); when it ends, Zoho says your account moves to the Free edition rather than shutting off.
Thirty appointments a month is roughly one job a day. That's realistic for a part-time business or a one-truck operation that does longer jobs, and tight for anyone running several short calls a day.
Odoo One App Free: Field Service with unlimited users
Odoo is a suite of business apps, and its One App Free plan lets you use any one of them, hosted on Odoo Online, free for unlimited users. Odoo's Field Service app page says it directly: "Free, forever, with unlimited users." The app plans work in a Gantt view or organizes appointments by location on a map, so it covers free service scheduling as well as onsite work and billing. If the app you pick depends on other Odoo apps, Odoo says you get those required apps free too.
The catch is the word "one." Install a second app that isn't a dependency and you move to Odoo's paid Standard plan, which is priced per user. Odoo is also a general business platform rather than a tool built for home service trades, so expect more setup than with a trade-specific app. It suits a business that's comfortable configuring software and wants room to grow without changing systems.
Connecteam: free scheduling and time tracking for up to 10 users
Connecteam's Small Business Plan is $0 and "free for life" for businesses with up to 10 users. Connecteam describes it as including all hubs and all features, with some limits listed in its plan comparison: for example, a single schedule and a single time clock, and no payroll integration.
Connecteam is a workforce app, not a full field service system. Its Operations hub covers a time clock with GPS location stamps, job scheduling, checklists and forms, and quick tasks. It doesn't do estimates or invoices, so you'd pair it with an invoicing tool like Wave or Invoice Ninja (below). Teams with more than 10 people can drop to Connecteam's free Limited plan, for up to 30 users, after the 14-day trial, but that plan includes fewer features.
Fieldwire Basic: free for construction-style jobs
Fieldwire, owned by Hilti, has a Basic plan at $0 per user per month for up to 5 users, 3 projects and 100 sheets. It includes plan viewing, task management, specifications, files and photos, and checklists. Reports and exports start on Pro at $39 per user per month billed annually.
Fieldwire is built around construction drawings and punch lists, not recurring service calls. It's a reasonable free choice for an electrical or remodeling contractor running a few project-based jobs at a time, and the wrong tool for scheduling a day of HVAC tune-ups.
Free trials: most field service apps
Most trade-focused field service apps don't have a free plan. They have a free trial, then a monthly price:
- Housecall Pro: 14-day free trial with no credit card required; plans from $59 a month billed annually. See our Housecall Pro review.
- Kickserv: 30-day free trial; the Start plan for 5 users is $60 a month billed annually ($75 month to month).
- Tradify: 14-day free trial with all features; priced per user.
- GorillaDesk: free trial (its pricing page doesn't state the length). Admin, manager, sales and crew users are free on every plan, but each scheduled route needs a paid seat.
Not every vendor offers even that. FieldPulse, for example, sells seats upfront with no free trial (see our FieldPulse review).
A trial is still worth using well. Run a real week of jobs through it, from booking to payment, with your techs on the mobile app, before you decide. Our field service management app comparison lists the paid plans side by side.
Open-source and self-hosted options
People searching for free open-source field service management software usually hope to find a full system they can run on their own server. In our research, that's harder than it sounds:
- Odoo Community is Odoo's open-source edition, but Odoo's own editions comparison lists Field Service, Planning and Appointments as Enterprise-only. Community does include Invoicing, CRM, Sales, Project, Timesheet and Calendar, so a technical owner could build a basic job-tracking setup from those, without the dedicated field service app.
- Invoice Ninja publishes its code on GitHub under the Elastic License 2.0, which makes it source-available rather than open source in the strict sense. Invoice Ninja's self-hosting terms say all Pro and Enterprise features from the hosted app are included in the self-hosted code, and its GitHub page lists a $40-a-year white-label license to remove its branding. It covers quotes, invoices, online payments, projects and time tracking, but not dispatch.
Self-hosting isn't free in practice: you pay for a server and spend time on updates, backups and security. For most small home service businesses, a free hosted plan is the cheaper choice.
Free tools you can combine instead
If none of the free plans fit, plenty of small businesses run on a shared calendar for scheduling plus a free invoicing tool:
- Wave Starter is $0 and includes unlimited estimates, invoices, bills and bookkeeping records, with a mobile app for invoicing on the go. Online card payments cost 2.9% + $0.60 per transaction (3.4% + $0.60 for Amex). Wave Pro is $19 a month.
- Invoice Ninja's hosted Free plan is $0 forever for up to 5 clients with unlimited invoices, including recurring invoices, online payments, deposits and partial payments, a client portal, and project time tracking. Ninja Pro, with unlimited clients, is $14 a month.
If you'd rather not sign up for anything yet, our free contractor invoice template works for a handful of jobs a month. For a fuller look at invoicing tools, see our contractor invoicing software comparison.
How to choose free field service software
- Count your jobs, not just your people. Zoho FSM's limit is 30 appointments a month; Connecteam's is 10 users; Invoice Ninja's hosted free plan is 5 clients. Pick the plan whose limit you're furthest from.
- Decide what you can live without. Free plans usually leave out map-based dispatch, live technician location tracking and accounting sync (QuickBooks or Zoho Books). If you need one of those today, a free plan will only delay the switch.
- Check where your data goes later. Moving from a free plan to a different paid app means exporting customers and job history. Zoho and Odoo let you upgrade in place, which avoids that.
- Watch the payment fees. Free invoicing plans still charge card processing fees, and on a card-heavy business they add up fast. Wave Pro waives the $0.60 per-transaction fee only on the first ten card transactions each month; after that its rate is the same as the free Starter plan, so the subscription rarely pays for itself on fees alone.
- Know when free stops working. If you're turning away work to stay under a limit, or juggling three free tools that don't talk to each other, it's time to compare paid options. Start with our field service management app comparison or, if scheduling is the main pain, our guide to contractor scheduling software.
If all you need is free service scheduling software, match the tool to what you schedule: Connecteam for crew shifts and jobs (up to 10 users), Zoho FSM for customer appointments (30 a month), or Odoo Field Service for unlimited users on one app.
