ServiceM8 vs LMN: Setup Fees for Electrical Contractors

ServiceM8 publishes no setup or onboarding fee on its pricing page — plans start at $0/mo and scale to $349/mo. LMN publishes a “one-time onboarding fee” note against its plan prices and lists a separate Launch/Onboarding add-on at $75 one-time plus $30/mo. For an electrical contractor comparing first-year cost, that difference in disclosed fees matters as much as the monthly subscription price.

Plan pricing at a glance

Figures below come directly from each vendor’s published pricing page as of 2026-08-11.

Plan	Monthly price	Users included	Notes
ServiceM8 Free	$0/mo	1	30 jobs/mo, 10 AI uses/day
ServiceM8 Starter	$29/mo	Unlimited	50 jobs/mo, unlimited AI uses/day
ServiceM8 Growing	$79/mo	Unlimited	150 jobs/mo
ServiceM8 Premium	$149/mo	Unlimited	500 jobs/mo
ServiceM8 Premium Plus	$349/mo	Unlimited	1,500+ jobs/mo, extra jobs at $0.20 each
LMN Starter	$297/mo	1 office/crew lead + 5 crew	Additional licenses “available for a fee,” amount not published
LMN Professional	$648/mo	3 office/crew lead + 15 crew	Additional licenses “available for a fee,” amount not published
LMN Enterprise	Contact sales	100+	No public price

Source: ServiceM8 pricing, LMN pricing

What ServiceM8 charges to get started

ServiceM8’s pricing page advertises a 14-day free trial with full feature access and states plainly there is “no lock-in” — a contractor can change plans at any time, with unused credit from the previous plan applied to the new one on a pro-rata basis. No setup fee, onboarding fee, or implementation charge appears anywhere on the page. The only per-user restriction is on the Free plan, capped at 1 user; every paid plan (Starter through Premium Plus) allows unlimited user logins at the flat monthly price shown above.

Add-on costs that could affect a real setup: Auto Time Tracking and Bundles are each listed at “From $19/mo,” and SMS messaging is free within plan limits but billed at 10 cents per SMS when a plan’s cap is exceeded (Free plan). Additional jobs beyond a plan’s monthly allowance are only priced on Premium Plus, at 20 cents per job.

What LMN charges to get started

LMN’s pricing page marks its Starter and Professional monthly prices with an asterisk reading “*After a one-time onboarding fee.” Separately, the same page lists a line item called “LMN Launch / Onboarding — Dedicated new customer training to set you and your team up for success with LMN,” priced at “$75 one-time fee + $30/mo,” and marks this item “Available as add-on” under all three plan columns (Starter, Professional, Enterprise).

The page does not clarify whether the $75 one-time plus $30/mo Launch/Onboarding line is the same “one-time onboarding fee” referenced by the asterisk on the plan prices, or a separate optional service on top of a different mandatory onboarding charge. Because this is ambiguous on the scraped page, contractors should ask LMN sales directly to confirm total first-month cost before signing.

LMN’s Starter and Professional prices also do not include unlimited users. Starter covers 1 office/crew lead license plus 5 crew member licenses (6 total); Professional covers 3 office/crew lead licenses plus 15 crew member licenses (18 total). Additional licenses beyond those included are “available for a fee,” but no dollar figure is published.

Cost at 1, 3, 5, and 8 users

Because ServiceM8 charges a flat monthly fee regardless of user count on any paid plan, its per-user cost falls as a crew grows. LMN charges by license count with a fixed number of licenses bundled per plan, so its effective per-user cost is fixed within a plan’s included range and undefined beyond it (no published overage rate).

Users	ServiceM8 Starter ($29/mo flat)	ServiceM8 Growing ($79/mo flat)	LMN Starter ($297/mo, 6 licenses included)	LMN Professional ($648/mo, 18 licenses included)
1	$29.00	$79.00	$297.00 (license unused)	$648.00 (license unused)
3	$9.67/user	$26.33/user	$99.00/user	$216.00/user
5	$5.80/user	$15.80/user	$59.40/user	$129.60/user
8	$3.63/user	$9.88/user	Exceeds 6 included; extra license fee not published	$36.00/user

At 5 users, ServiceM8 Starter works out to $5.80 per user per month against LMN Starter’s $59.40 per user per month on published figures — but the two products are not directly comparable feature-for-feature; LMN’s plans bundle estimating, budgeting and overhead recovery tools that ServiceM8’s base plans do not list. At 8 users, an electrical contractor on LMN Starter would need additional licenses beyond the 6 included, at a fee LMN does not disclose on its pricing page — this is a real gap a buyer needs to close with LMN sales before budgeting.

Break-even and first-year cost

Using only the fees each vendor discloses:

• ServiceM8 Starter, 5 users, one year: $29/mo × 12 = $348. No setup fee shown, so $348 is the full disclosed first-year cost.
• ServiceM8 Growing, 5 users, one year: $79/mo × 12 = $948.
• LMN Starter, 6 licenses, one year, assuming the Launch/Onboarding add-on applies: ($297/mo × 12) + $75 one-time + ($30/mo × 12) = $3,564 + $75 + $360 = $3,999.
• LMN Professional, 18 licenses, one year, same onboarding assumption: ($648/mo × 12) + $75 + $360 = $7,776 + $75 + $360 = $8,211.

These LMN totals assume the Launch/Onboarding add-on is taken and billed for a full 12 months; the page does not state whether the $30/mo continues indefinitely or for a fixed term, so this is presented as a disclosed-rate calculation, not a confirmed annual figure. Contractors should ask LMN whether the $30/mo onboarding line has an end date.

What could not be verified

Both vendors’ pricing pages were fetched in full for this article, and no vendor from the request list was missing a public price. Specific items on each page that remain unclear from the source text itself:

• LMN additional license fee — both Starter and Professional plans state extra licenses are “available for a fee,” with no dollar amount published.
• LMN Enterprise price — listed only as “Contact sales for pricing,” with a stated minimum of 100 users.
• Whether LMN’s Launch/Onboarding add-on is mandatory — the asterisk note on plan prices and the separate add-on listing are not reconciled on the page.
• LMN’s fit for electrical work — the source page’s “Who We Serve” content lists full-service landscaping, landscape design and build, landscaping maintenance, tree care and snow and ice. Electrical is not mentioned anywhere on the LMN pricing page supplied for this article.

What to check before buying

1. Ask LMN directly whether the $75 one-time plus $30/mo Launch/Onboarding charge is required for new accounts or genuinely optional, and get the total first-invoice amount in writing.
2. Confirm LMN’s per-license fee for crew members beyond the 6 (Starter) or 18 (Professional) included in each plan, since this is not published.
3. Confirm with LMN whether its budgeting, estimating and job-costing tools are built for electrical scope of work, since its public pricing page markets to landscaping and tree care trades.
4. If evaluating ServiceM8, check current job-per-month usage against the Starter plan’s 50-job cap and the Growing plan’s 150-job cap before committing, since exceeding a plan’s job allowance (outside Premium Plus) prompts an upgrade rather than an overage charge.
5. Factor in ServiceM8 add-ons separately if needed — Auto Time Tracking and Bundles are each listed “From $19/mo” and are not included in the base plan price.

Read next

• Electrical Contractor Software: ServiceM8 vs FieldPulse vs Kickserv
• Kickserv vs ServiceM8: Cheapest Way to Run a Solo Electrician Business
• Accounting Sync Fees: ServiceM8, FieldPulse and LMN Compared

Also worth reading: Tradify Cost by Crew Size for Electrical Contractors