Is there a free invoicing plan for electricians?

ServiceM8 publishes a Free plan at $0/mo, limited to 1 user, 30 jobs per month, and 10 AI uses per day. It includes quoting and invoicing, credit card payments, and accounting integrations. Kickserv publishes no free tier; its cheapest published plan is Start at $60/mo for up to 5 users. For a solo electrician doing fewer than 30 jobs a month, ServiceM8 Free costs $0 while Kickserv Start still costs $60/mo — a $720/yr gap even though the two plans differ in feature depth, not just price.

Does ServiceM8 charge per user?

No. ServiceM8's Free plan caps out at 1 user, but every paid tier (Starter $29/mo through Premium Plus $349/mo) includes unlimited users. The published limit that scales with price is jobs per month, not headcount: 50 on Starter, 150 on Growing, 500 on Premium, 1,500+ on Premium Plus. A 5-person crew on Starter pays $29/mo total, or $5.80/user/mo; the same crew on Growing pays $79/mo, or $15.80/user/mo, but unlocks 150 jobs/mo instead of 50.

Does Kickserv charge per user?

Kickserv's three published plans are capped by user count rather than sold per seat: Start includes 5 users for $60/mo, Run includes 10 users for $119/mo, and Scale includes 20 users for $199/mo. There's no published price for adding a single extra user beyond a plan's cap — a 6-person team must move from Start to Run, going from $12/user/mo at the Start cap to $11.90/user/mo on Run, even though only one seat was added.

What are Jobber and Housecall Pro's electrician invoicing prices?

Their public pricing pages returned HTTP 403 errors when checked on 2026-08-06, so no verified figures are available. Contact each vendor directly for a quote rather than relying on third-party estimates, and check back as their pages may become accessible later. Until then, any per-user or per-job number attributed to either vendor should be treated as unconfirmed and excluded from cost comparisons like the ones above.

Does text messaging cost extra on these platforms?

On ServiceM8, SMS costs 10c per message on the Free plan; it's included free on Starter, Growing, Premium, and Premium Plus. Kickserv's published pricing page lists automated email and text reminders as a Start-plan feature but does not publish a per-message SMS fee. Practically: a Free-plan electrician texting customers 100 times a month pays $10/mo in SMS fees on top of $0, while the same volume is free the moment they upgrade to Starter at $29/mo — meaning heavy texters break even on Starter once SMS volume exceeds roughly 290 messages/mo.

Best Invoicing Software for Electricians: Published Prices

ServiceM8 and Kickserv both publish electrician-relevant invoicing pricing as of 2026-08-06. ServiceM8 starts at $0/mo for 1 user (30 jobs/mo) and unlimited-user paid plans from $29/mo. Kickserv starts at $60/mo for up to 5 users, with no free tier. Jobber and Housecall Pro pricing could not be verified today.

What’s actually published

Two vendors returned working pricing pages during this check. Two others didn’t:

Electricians wearing safety gear work on power lines in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand.

ServiceM8 — full plan grid with monthly prices, job caps, and per-SMS/per-job overage fees.
Kickserv — three named plans (Start, Run, Scale) with monthly prices tied to a maximum user count, plus a discretionary “Kickback” discount.
Jobber — pricing page returned HTTP 403. No figures verified.
Housecall Pro — pricing page returned HTTP 403. No figures verified.

Nothing below covers Jobber or Housecall Pro pricing, because nothing was retrievable to confirm.

ServiceM8 published plans

ServiceM8 sells by job volume, not by user count. Every paid tier includes unlimited users.

Plan	Monthly price	Users	Jobs per month	AI uses per day
Free	$0	1	30	10/day
Starter	$29	Unlimited	50	Unlimited
Growing	$79	Unlimited	150	Unlimited
Premium	$149	Unlimited	500	Unlimited
Premium Plus	$349	Unlimited	1,500+	Unlimited

Published add-on fees on ServiceM8:

SMS: 10c per message on the Free plan; free (included) on all paid plans.
Extra jobs beyond the Premium Plus allowance: 20c per job.
ServiceM8 Phone: “From $19/mo” on every plan, sold as a flat add-on with no per-user fee.

Because users are unlimited from Starter upward, the number of electricians on the team doesn’t change the ServiceM8 bill. What changes the bill is how many jobs the crew closes in a month.

Kickserv published plans

Kickserv prices by a combination of a flat monthly fee and a hard user cap per plan.

Plan	Monthly price	Annual price (20% off, published)	User cap
Start	$60/mo	$576/yr ($48/mo equivalent)	5 users
Run	$119/mo	$1,142.40/yr ($95.20/mo equivalent)	10 users
Scale	$199/mo	$1,910.40/yr ($159.20/mo equivalent)	20 users

Kickserv also publishes a “Kickback” discount: users on Start, Run, or Scale who process a minimum card-payment volume each month get 5% off their monthly fee. The published minimums are $1,000/mo for Start, $2,000/mo for Run, and $3,000/mo for Scale (multiplied by 12 for annual-plan customers). On Run at $119/mo, a 5% Kickback discount works out to $5.95/mo off, taking the effective price to $113.05/mo. On Start, the same 5% works out to $3.00/mo off ($57/mo effective), and on Scale it’s $9.95/mo off ($189.05/mo effective).

Kickserv’s Run plan also lists a $50/mo add-on fee for QuickBooks Desktop integration specifically (QuickBooks Online integration is included on Start with no extra fee listed).

Cost per user, worked out

Because ServiceM8’s paid plans don’t charge per seat, its per-user cost falls as headcount rises. Kickserv’s per-user cost is fixed by whichever plan tier the headcount forces the buyer into.

A technician precisely cuts and organizes colorful wires using pliers, showcasing expertise in wiring tasks.

At 1 user:

ServiceM8 Free: $0/mo (capped at 30 jobs/mo).
ServiceM8 Starter (if 30 jobs/mo isn’t enough): $29/mo.
Kickserv Start: $60/mo (no cheaper published tier exists, even for 1 user).

At 3 users:

ServiceM8 Starter: $29/mo total = $9.67/user/mo.
Kickserv Start: $60/mo total = $20/user/mo (still inside the 5-user cap).

At 5 users:

ServiceM8 Starter: $29/mo total = $5.80/user/mo.
Kickserv Start: $60/mo total = $12/user/mo (at the cap; a 6th user forces an upgrade to Run).

At 8 users:

ServiceM8 Starter or Growing (depending on job volume): $29-$79/mo total = $3.63-$9.88/user/mo.
Kickserv Run: $119/mo total = $14.88/user/mo (inside the 10-user cap).

At 10 users:

ServiceM8 Starter or Growing: $29-$79/mo total = $2.90-$7.90/user/mo.
Kickserv Run: $119/mo total = $11.90/user/mo (at the 10-user cap; an 11th user forces an upgrade to Scale).

At 15 users:

ServiceM8 Growing or Premium (depending on job volume): $79-$149/mo total = $5.27-$9.93/user/mo.
Kickserv Scale: $199/mo total = $13.27/user/mo (inside the 20-user cap).

At 20 users:

ServiceM8 Premium: $149/mo total = $7.45/user/mo.
Kickserv Scale: $199/mo total = $9.95/user/mo (at the cap; a 21st user has no published Kickserv tier).

On published list prices, ServiceM8 is cheaper per user at every headcount checked, because its price is driven by job volume rather than seats. Kickserv’s price is predictable per plan but doesn’t fall as fast per user once a crew grows, and it resets sharply upward the moment headcount crosses a cap (e.g., $12/user/mo at 5 users on Start jumps to $14.88/user/mo the moment a 6th hire is added under Run, before per-user cost falls again as Run fills up).

Where job volume changes the answer

ServiceM8’s caps matter for shops that write a lot of invoices. A 3-person electrical outfit doing 60 jobs/month exceeds the Starter plan’s 50-job limit and needs Growing at $79/mo, which is still less than Kickserv’s $119/mo Run plan for the same headcount. A shop doing 200 jobs/month needs Premium at $149/mo. A high-volume shop doing 1,600 jobs/month on Premium Plus ($349/mo, 1,500+ included) that runs 100 jobs over whatever cap applies pays an extra $20/mo at the published 20c/job overage rate, bringing that month’s total to $369.

Kickserv’s plans don’t publish a job cap; the constraint is user count, not job volume, on its pricing page. That makes Kickserv simpler to budget for high-job-volume, low-headcount operations, and ServiceM8 simpler to budget for high-headcount, moderate-job-volume operations.

Break-even points

ServiceM8 Starter ($29/mo) vs Kickserv Start ($60/mo): ServiceM8 is cheaper for any team of 2+ users, and for a 1-user team once job volume exceeds the Free plan’s 30/mo cap.
ServiceM8 Growing ($79/mo) vs Kickserv Run ($119/mo): ServiceM8 is cheaper for teams up to 10 users doing under 150 jobs/mo. Above 150 jobs/mo, ServiceM8 needs Premium at $149/mo, which is still cheaper than Run for the same headcount.
ServiceM8 Premium ($149/mo) vs Kickserv Scale ($199/mo): ServiceM8 stays cheaper up to 20 users doing under 500 jobs/mo; beyond 500 jobs/mo it needs Premium Plus at $349/mo, which then exceeds Scale’s flat $199/mo for the same headcount — the one scenario in this comparison where Kickserv’s flat pricing wins on a straight monthly-total basis.
Kickserv annual billing: the published 20% annual discount brings Start down to an effective $48/mo, Run to $95.20/mo, and Scale to $159.20/mo, each still above the equivalent ServiceM8 monthly tier at matching headcounts.

Annual vs monthly totals

Paying Kickserv monthly instead of annually costs a predictable premium at every tier:

Person using pliers to cut through colorful electrical wires, showcasing DIY electronics work.

Start: $60/mo × 12 = $720/yr paid monthly, vs $576/yr paid annually — a $144/yr difference.
Run: $119/mo × 12 = $1,428/yr paid monthly, vs $1,142.40/yr paid annually — a $285.60/yr difference.
Scale: $199/mo × 12 = $2,388/yr paid monthly, vs $1,910.40/yr paid annually — a $477.60/yr difference.

No annual-billing option is published on ServiceM8’s pricing page, so its plans are compared here on monthly terms only. A shop weighing the two should factor in that Kickserv’s annual discount only pays off if the shop is confident it won’t need to change plans or cancel mid-term, since the published discount is tied to committing upfront.

SMS and payment fees on realistic volume

ServiceM8 Free-plan SMS at 10c per message: an electrician on Free sending 100 texts/month (job confirmations, on-the-way alerts) pays $10/mo in SMS fees. That $10 alone narrows most of the gap to Starter’s $29/mo flat rate, which includes SMS free. At 200 texts/month on Free, the SMS fee alone hits $20/mo — close enough to Starter’s $29/mo that the free-plan advantage largely disappears once job or messaging volume climbs.

Kickserv’s Kickback discount rewards payment volume rather than penalizing SMS use. A Run-plan business processing exactly the published $2,000/mo minimum in card payments qualifies for the 5% discount, saving $5.95/mo off the $119 fee — a saving that only offsets a fraction of the $59/mo gap versus ServiceM8 Growing at the same headcount.

What couldn’t be verified

Jobber’s and Housecall Pro’s pricing pages both returned HTTP 403 errors on 2026-08-06 and no figures could be confirmed for either. Any number attributed to Jobber or Housecall Pro elsewhere should be treated as unverified until their pricing pages are accessible again. This article excludes both from its price tables and comparisons for that reason.

What to check before buying

Confirm current prices directly on the vendor’s own pricing page, since figures change and this snapshot is dated 2026-08-06.
Ask whether SMS, extra jobs, or QuickBooks Desktop integration carry per-use fees on the specific plan being quoted, since these are billed separately from the base monthly price on both platforms checked here.
Get the exact user cap and job cap in writing for the plan under consideration, since exceeding either forces an upgrade mid-contract.
Ask Jobber and Housecall Pro for a written quote rather than relying on secondhand pricing, since their published pages weren’t accessible during this check.
Confirm whether annual billing (Kickserv’s published 20% discount) requires a contract term or allows cancellation partway through the year.