Free Job Management Apps for UK Trades in 2026
Most free job management apps UK tradespeople find in a search turn out to be free trials with a deadline, not permanent free plans. Only two of the seven tools we checked here, ServiceM8 and Zoho FSM, offer a genuinely free tier with no expiry date, and everything else gives you a fully featured trial that lasts two to four weeks before it either cuts you off or asks for a card.
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Free plan vs free trial: what you’re actually signing up for
A free plan has no end date. You can use it forever, within whatever limits the provider sets on users, jobs, or messages. A free trial has an end date, usually 14 to 30 days, after which you either pay or lose access.
Most software marketed as “free” to UK trades is the second kind. We checked the live pricing pages of seven job management apps to see which actually offer a permanent free tier, which give you a trial that quietly becomes a limited free account, and which simply cut you off. For a wider view of the paid options once you’ve outgrown any of these, see our full job management software roundup.
| App | Free plan or trial only | Limits | Paid entry price |
|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8 | Genuine free plan | 1 user, 30 jobs/month, 10 AI assists/day, 5p per SMS | Paid plans start above the free tier |
| Zoho FSM | Genuine free plan | Up to 30 appointments/month | Paid plans start above the free tier |
| YourTradebase | 30-day unlimited trial, then downgrades to a free plan | Trial has no limits; the free plan after it does | From £29/month |
| Fergus | 14-day trial only | Full features during trial, then access stops | From $53/month (Basic) |
| Joblogic | 30-day trial only | Full features during trial, then access stops | From £45/user/month, billed annually |
| Powered Now | 14-day trial only | Full features during trial, then access stops | From £28/month |
| Tradify | 14-day trial only | Full features during trial, then access stops | From $47 USD/user/month |
ServiceM8: the closest thing to a genuine free plan
ServiceM8’s Free Plan is a permanent tier, not a trial, and it’s built specifically for sole traders. You get one user login, 30 job credits a month (quotes and work orders both count), 10 AI assists a day, job cards, scheduling, quoting and invoicing, online bookings, card payments, and accounting sync with Xero or QuickBooks.
The catch is the job cap. Thirty jobs a month suits a one-person operation doing call-outs and small works, but you can top it up: every time a client pays by card through ServiceM8 and Stripe, you earn a bonus job credit, with no cap on how many you can stack up. Texts cost 5p each on top, and the plan is limited to a single user, so it stops working the moment you take on staff.
ServiceM8 also runs a separate 14-day free trial with full access to every paid feature, so you can test the higher tiers before deciding whether the Free Plan’s limits are workable for your business. We’ve broken down what those paid tiers cost in our ServiceM8 pricing guide.
Zoho FSM: free forever, but not built for UK trades
Zoho FSM’s Free Edition is genuinely free forever, with no credit card needed to sign up. It covers job requests, scheduling, quoting, invoicing, and a technician mobile app, capped at around 30 appointments a month, which puts it in the same bracket as ServiceM8’s free tier.
The difference is fit. Zoho FSM is a general field service tool built for a global market, not designed around UK trade workflows, certificates, or the accounting packages most British tradespeople actually use day to day. It’s worth a look if you’re comfortable configuring a more generic system yourself, but it isn’t as plug-and-play for a UK plumber or electrician as ServiceM8 or Tradify.
YourTradebase: an unlimited trial that becomes a free plan
YourTradebase doesn’t market itself as free software, but it behaves like one once the trial ends. The 30-day trial has no feature limits at all: unlimited users, unlimited quotes and invoices, no card required to start.
If you do nothing when the 30 days are up, your account isn’t deleted. It automatically downgrades to a free account with usage limits, rather than locking you out entirely. YourTradebase doesn’t publish exactly what those limits are on its pricing page, so treat it as a fallback safety net rather than a plan you’d choose on purpose. If you decide to upgrade, paid plans start from £29 a month, with extra users at £15 a month each.
Fergus: a generous trial, no free plan
You’ll see Fergus described online as having a “free forever” tier. Its own pricing page doesn’t back that up: it lists a 14-day free trial with full access to the Basic plan, and no permanent free option once that trial ends.
The trial itself is decent. No card is needed to start, you get a free one-hour onboarding session, and cancellation is hassle-free if it’s not for you. But once the 14 days are up, Fergus becomes a paid tool, with Basic starting from $53 a month and Professional from $75, both priced in dollars rather than pounds on its international site.
Joblogic: a 30-day trial built for teams, not sole traders
Joblogic offers a 30-day free trial of its Standard plan with no card required, which is longer than most competitors’ trials. There’s no free plan behind it, and the pricing itself signals who this software is really for.
Standard starts from £45 per user, per month, billed annually, which works out at £225 a month for a five-person team. That per-user, per-year structure makes Joblogic a reasonable option to trial if you’re scaling a multi-engineer operation, but poor value to hold onto long-term as a sole trader looking for something free.
Powered Now: 14 days free, then from £28 a month
Powered Now gives you a 14-day free trial, no card required, and you can cancel at any point. There’s no permanent free plan; once the trial ends, you’re on the Business tier from £28 a month, or £280 a year if you pay annually and take the two free months.
Where it stands out among the trial-only tools here is Making Tax Digital compliance and VAT return submission, which are built in from the Business and Professional tiers rather than bolted on as an add-on. If MTD is a live concern for your bookkeeping, that’s worth weighing against the shorter trial window.
Tradify: 14 days free, priced in dollars
Tradify’s free trial runs for 14 days with every feature unlocked, so you can properly test which tier fits before committing. There’s no free plan waiting on the other side of it.
The Lite plan starts from $47 USD per user, per month, rising to $51 for Pro and $61 for Plus, all quoted in US dollars on Tradify’s pricing page rather than pounds. That’s worth factoring in before you commit past the trial, since the number you see isn’t the number you’ll be billed in GBP. We’ve covered the full breakdown, including exchange rate context, in our Tradify pricing guide.
When it’s worth paying for job management software
A free plan makes sense while you’re a sole trader doing under 30 jobs a month, testing whether digital job management suits how you work at all. ServiceM8 or Zoho FSM will cover that stage without costing you anything.
The moment you take on a second person, need more than 30 jobs a month, or want features like route scheduling, PPM contracts, or a customer portal, every free option here stops being an option. That’s when the trial-only tools earn their keep: use the 14 to 30-day window to properly test Fergus, Joblogic, Powered Now, or Tradify against your actual workflow, not just the sales demo, before you commit to a monthly price.
If quoting speed and win rate matter more to you than job scheduling, it’s also worth checking our quoting software comparison for UK tradespeople, since several of the tools above are stronger on one side than the other.
Frequently asked questions
Is there any truly free job management software for tradesmen in the UK?
Yes, but only a couple of genuine options exist. ServiceM8’s Free Plan and Zoho FSM’s Free Edition both run permanently with no expiry, capped at around 30 jobs or appointments a month for a single user. Everything else marketed as free to UK trades is a time-limited trial.
What’s the difference between a free trial and a free plan?
A free plan has no end date and you can use it indefinitely within its usage limits. A free trial expires after a set number of days, usually 14 to 30, after which you either pay or lose access, unless the provider downgrades you to a limited free account instead.
Can I run a small trade business long-term on a free job management app?
Only if you’re a sole trader doing fewer than 30 jobs a month. ServiceM8 and Zoho FSM are built to support that indefinitely, but neither supports more than one user, so you’ll need to upgrade the moment you take on staff.
Do free job management apps sync with Xero or QuickBooks?
ServiceM8’s Free Plan includes accounting sync with Xero and QuickBooks Online. Zoho FSM’s free tier is more limited on integrations, since it’s built as a general field service platform rather than one tailored to UK trade accounting workflows.
Which free job management app has the fewest limits?
ServiceM8’s Free Plan is the more workable of the two genuine free options for UK trades, mainly because you can earn unlimited bonus job credits by taking card payments through the app, effectively raising the 30-job cap. Zoho FSM’s cap has no equivalent workaround.
Pricing and plan limits change regularly, so it’s worth checking each provider’s live pricing page before you commit either way.
