A field service business has three ways to get its software. It can buy a packaged tool like Jobber, Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan. It can commission custom software from a development agency. Or it can build its own with an AI app builder. Most comparisons cover only the first. This guide prices all three over three years, for shops with 3, 5 and 10 technicians, and lists the hard parts that decide which one works for you.
Prices come from each vendor's own page, read in October 2026, and from agency cost guides linked at the end. Where a number is an estimate, it is labelled as one.
The short answer
| Route | 3-year cost, 5 technicians | Ready in | Best when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buy: Jobber or Housecall Pro | About $9,300 to $10,800 | Days | Your work fits how the product works |
| Buy: ServiceTitan | Estimated $44,000 to $90,000+, plus implementation | Weeks to months | You are a large, established contractor |
| Commission a custom build | About $52,000 to $147,000 | 3 to 6 months | Your process is your advantage and you can fund it |
| Build it yourself with AI | From a few hundred dollars in subscriptions, plus your time | Days to weeks | You need something the packaged tools do not do |
Every figure is software only. Card processing, which is usually larger than the subscription, is covered separately below.
Route 1: Buy a packaged tool
Packaged field service software is the default for good reason. You sign up, import your customers, and you are scheduling jobs the same week. The trade-off is that you work the way the product works, and the bill grows with your team.
Here is three years of each, billed annually, with one office login on top of the technicians. Plan choice follows the features most shops need: QuickBooks sync, and for Housecall Pro, recurring service plans, which are only on its MAX plan.
| Technicians (+1 office) | Jobber Grow | Housecall Pro MAX | ServiceTitan (estimate) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 (4 logins) | $8,244 | $10,764 | $26,000 to $54,000 |
| 5 (6 logins) | $9,288 | $10,764 | $44,000 to $90,000 |
| 10 (11 logins) | $11,808 | $14,544 | $88,000 to $180,000 |
Jobber and Housecall Pro figures are from their published prices. ServiceTitan publishes none; its range uses the commonly cited third-party estimate of $245 to $500 per technician per month and excludes implementation, which estimates put at $5,000 to $50,000. Treat it as an order of magnitude. The detail behind each is in our guides to Jobber pricing, Housecall Pro pricing and ServiceTitan pricing.
Where buying falls short: per-seat pricing that rises with every hire, features held back for higher tiers, and work the product was not designed for. One long-time pest control customer left Jobber in 2026 because chemical usage could not be recorded on invoices or in the mobile app. If your trade has records like that, check them before you sign.
Route 2: Commission a custom build
An agency builds software that does exactly what your business does. That is the appeal. The cost is the problem.
- Build: agencies quote about $40,000 to $80,000 for a focused field service app over four to six months, and $45,000 to $105,000 for a single-operator platform with a dispatch board, an offline technician app, jobs and invoicing.
- Rates: US development agencies typically charge $50 to $99 an hour, according to Clutch's pricing survey, and fully US-based teams often more.
- Upkeep: a commonly quoted rule of thumb puts maintenance at 15% to 20% of the build cost every year, for fixes, updates, security and the changes you will want. There is no formal study behind that range, but no agency quotes zero.
Over three years that is about $52,000 at the low end ($40,000 plus two years of 15% upkeep) and $147,000 at the high end ($105,000 plus two years of 20%), before hosting and texting costs. Team size changes it less than with per-seat software, which is the one place custom software gets cheaper as you grow.
Where custom falls short: the time before you can use it, the risk that the agency builds the wrong thing, and your dependence on them for every change afterwards.
Route 3: Build it yourself with AI
The newest option, and the one most comparisons leave out. There are two kinds of tool, and the difference matters.
AI code generators
Tools like Lovable, Bolt, Replit and Base44 turn a description into an app. Their subscriptions are cheap: Lovable Pro and Bolt Pro are $25 a month, Replit Core $20, Base44 from $16 billed annually. What they leave to you is everything around the code: hosting (metered separately on Replit), your own Stripe account for payments, your own Twilio account for texting, and maintaining the code once it works. They are a strong choice if someone on your team is comfortable owning a codebase.
AI business-app platforms
Platforms like Unstack (ours, so weigh this) build on infrastructure that already exists: the database, logins and roles, payments, a customer portal, texting and the hosting. You describe the dispatch board or the maintenance-agreement tracker you want, and it is built inside that. Unstack is $49 a month (Starter) or $149 (Business, which adds QuickBooks and Xero sync, integrations and AI phone and texting), with unlimited users. Three years of Business on annual billing is $4,464 at any team size.
Where building with AI falls short: it is not finished software on day one. Someone has to describe the business well and check the result. Some things are hard on any platform (see below), and the support is a product's, not an implementation team's.
The hard parts nobody prices in
Whichever route you take, these decide whether the software works in the field:
| Need | What it involves |
|---|---|
| Texting customers | US carriers require business texting to be registered (A2P 10DLC): a one-time brand fee of $4.50 to $46, a $15 campaign vetting fee, then $1.50 to $10 a month, and campaign review takes 10 to 15 days. Messages cost about $0.008 each through Twilio, plus carrier fees. A custom build or a code generator leaves the registration to you; ask any packaged vendor how theirs handles it. |
| Working without signal | ServiceTitan's app keeps most workflows working offline. Jobber's support says its app does not. Most custom builds, AI-built apps and Unstack need a connection. If your techs work in basements or rural areas, test this first. |
| Route optimization | Google's route optimization API is free up to 5,000 stops a month, then about $10 per 1,000, but building good routing is real work. Several packaged tools offer it; Unstack does not. |
| QuickBooks sync | Intuit's API is free to write to and metered for reads, with a free tier of 500,000 reads a month, enough for a single shop. Building a reliable two-way sync is still a project. Unstack includes it on Business; Jobber from Connect; Housecall Pro from Essentials. |
| Card payments | Stripe's standard rate is 2.9% + 30¢ online. Jobber charges the same; Housecall Pro is "as low as 2.59%"; Unstack charges 3.9% + 30¢ on Starter and Business. On $40,000 a month of card payments, one percentage point is $400 a month, more than most subscriptions. |
The card fee deserves its own line in your comparison. Collect $20,000 a month by card through the software and a one-point difference in rate costs $2,400 a year, close to the price of a mid-sized plan.
How to decide
- Buy if your work looks like the product's demo, you want to be running this week, and per-seat pricing at your team size is affordable. For most shops under ten people this is the answer, and Jobber or Housecall Pro is a sensible place to start.
- Commission a build only if the way you operate is a real competitive advantage, you have a budget in the high five figures and a year to spare, and you have someone to manage the agency.
- Build it yourself with AI if the packaged tools miss something your trade needs, per-seat pricing is what hurts, or you want to own how the software works. Choose a code generator if you have someone technical; choose a platform if you do not want to run infrastructure.
Whatever you pick, take the free trial seriously. Run one real week through it, including a job in the worst signal spot you work in, before you pay for a year.
Frequently asked questions
How much does custom field service software cost?
Agencies quote about $40,000 to $105,000 to build a focused field service app, over three to six months, plus ongoing maintenance commonly put at 15% to 20% of the build cost each year.
Is it cheaper to build or buy field service software?
For a small team, buying is cheaper than commissioning: three years of Jobber Grow for five technicians and an office user is about $9,300, against $52,000 or more for an agency build. Building it yourself with AI can cost less than either in subscriptions, but takes your time and leaves some hard parts to you.
Can I build my own Jobber or ServiceTitan with AI?
You can build the parts most shops use: scheduling, a dispatch board, quotes, jobs, invoices, a customer portal and maintenance agreements. Offline use and route optimization are much harder, and are where packaged tools still lead.
Sources
- Jobber pricing guide, Housecall Pro pricing guide, ServiceTitan pricing guide
- Chop Dawg: building a field service app in 2026
- RaftLabs: build costs, including a single-operator field service platform
- Clutch: software developer pricing
- CodeStringers: software maintenance costs
- Twilio: A2P 10DLC fees and US SMS pricing
- Google Maps Platform pricing
- Intuit: platform service fees
- Stripe pricing
- ServiceTitan: offline capabilities and Jobber community: no cell service
- Lovable, Bolt, Replit and Base44 pricing
- Unstack pricing
See how this looks for your trade: HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, pool service and pest control each list the features their software needs and what the alternatives charge.