Best tradie apps in Australia: an honest overview by category

There is no single best tradie app, because the well-known ones are not priced on the same thing. ServiceM8 charges your business by the number of jobs a month, Tradify charges per user, Xero per organisation, and some pages show a dollar figure without saying whether GST is in it. So the honest way to choose is by category first — what the app is for — and then by the meter that matches how your business actually works.

Everything below was read from each vendor's own Australian page on 4 October 2026. Prices change; the date is there so you can check whether they have.

The four kinds of app a trade business ends up with

Most tradies need one from the first row and one from the third, and the question that decides the first is whether it talks to the third.

Job management: three meters, read off the pricing pages

ServiceM8 sells the business, not the seat. Its Australian page lists a Free plan (30 jobs a month, one user), then Starter at $29 for 50 jobs, Growing at $79 for 150, Premium at $149 for 500 and Premium Plus at $349 for 1,500 and more — users unlimited on the paid plans, and the page states: "Prices are in AUD and include GST". It names Xero, QuickBooks Online and MYOB as accounting connections.

Tradify sells seats. Lite $48, Pro $52 and Plus $62 per user per month, each marked Ex GST, month to month, with a 14-day trial. Accounting sync with Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks Online is listed from the Lite plan; progress invoicing, timesheets and compliance certificates start at Pro.

Fergus lists Essentials and Professional at $53 and $77 "per month", and an Enterprise tier for ten or more staff on request. The page does not name the currency or say whether GST is included, so no Fergus figure goes into the comparison below — a number with an unstated basis cannot be compared honestly. What the page does state: GPS tracking, forms, purchase orders and phone support are Professional features; timesheet users cost extra ("From $26" a month, again without a currency); integration with "Xero, QuickBooks & MYOB" is on both plans; and on 4 October 2026 the page ran a "Limited Offer: Get 90% off til December".

Zirko sells office seats with the site app included for that person. The Single package is $40.90 a month plus GST on monthly billing, each further field licence $12.90, and the scheduling board an add-on per business. What it does not have, in the same breath: no accounting connector, no GPS tracking and no card payments taken on your behalf. Line by line against each of the three: Zirko vs ServiceM8, Zirko vs Tradify, Zirko vs Fergus.

A worked cost: three people, sixty jobs a month

One owner in the office, two on the tools, sixty jobs in a typical month. Monthly billing, everything converted to ex GST so the figures compare:

At these inputs Zirko comes out lowest, $5.12 a month below ServiceM8 Growing. Change one input and the order changes. At 160 jobs ServiceM8 moves to Premium ($149 inc GST, $135.45 ex), while Zirko, which does not count jobs, stays at $66.70. Add a fourth person on the tools and Tradify Pro becomes $208, ServiceM8 stays at $71.82 and Zirko adds one field licence, to $79.60 — now $7.78 above ServiceM8, which does not charge per person. And the table compares the subscription, not what is in it — Tradify Lite has no progress invoicing, and the scheduling board in Zirko costs extra on the Single package.

The arithmetic behind the GST conversion is the one in section 9-70 of the GST Act: GST is 10 per cent of the value of the supply, so a GST-inclusive price is one eleventh GST. Why two vendors quote on opposite bases at all — and why the same rule decides how your own quote to a homeowner must look — is in ServiceM8 vs Tradify on price: the GST line in a tradie's quote.

Field service for bigger teams

AroFlo's pricing page reads "AroFlo field service software starts at $80 per month", with the footnote "*Minimum of 3 users". Like Fergus, the page does not say whether the figure is per user or whether GST is included, so treat it as the starting point of a quote rather than a price. This category earns its cost where you dispatch crews across many sites a day, run maintenance contracts or need asset registers; for a three-person business it is usually more structure than work.

Accounting: the app your job app has to talk to

Xero lists Grow at $78, Comprehensive at $107 and Ultimate 10 at $143 a month, with the note "Prices are in AUD and include GST" and a new-customer offer of 90 per cent off for the first three months. Its page lists "Track GST and lodge BAS" — the accounting app is where the BAS is prepared, whichever job app feeds it.

That makes the connector the real decision. If your bookkeeper reconciles in Xero or MYOB and your job app pushes invoices there automatically, nobody retypes them. If it does not, someone imports files — workable at twenty invoices a month, painful at two hundred.

The free one every tradie should use: ABN Lookup

The Australian Business Register's ABN Lookup is free and lets you "see the business type and GST status" of any ABN. Two moments to use it: before you pay a subcontractor whose invoice has no ABN or an ABN you have not checked — the withholding obligation is yours, see No ABN withholding: the duty is the payer's, over $75 — and before you rely on a supplier's tax invoice for a GST credit.

Five questions before you sign up for anything

1. What is the meter — jobs, users or the business? Count last month's jobs and the people who would need a login.
2. Is the price on the page with or without GST? Put every figure on one basis before comparing.
3. Does it push invoices into your accounting software? Ask your bookkeeper which one, not the vendor.
4. Can it bill a progress claim and hold back retention? On commercial work the payment claim starts the clock under your state's security of payment act — Security of Payment Act by state: eight sets of deadlines.
5. Does your tax invoice come out right at the $75 and $1,000 lines? What has to be on it is in Tradie invoice: the $1,000 line most jobs cross.

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Position as at 4 October 2026, read from each vendor's Australian pricing page and the ABN Lookup home page on that day. What will change: prices and plan names — ServiceM8, Tradify, Fergus and Xero have all re-cut their plans in the past, and introductory offers such as Xero's run for limited periods. Check the vendor's page on the day you decide; the dates in the source list show when each figure was last read here.

What Zirko does here: quotes, invoices with GST and your ABN, progress claims with retention, hours from the site app and a job file per project, in one application, priced per office seat with field licences on top. What Zirko does not do: it has no connector to Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks — documents, hours and customers go out as files; it does not track vehicles or plan routes; it takes no card payments; and it lodges no BAS. Whether those gaps matter depends on your business, not on our feature list. What it costs for a business your size: pricing.