Free Housecall Pro alternative for solo trades.
Housecall Pro is built for HVAC, plumbing, and cleaning dispatchers — heavy on routing, heavy on add-ons, heavy on monthly fees. If you're a carpenter, GC, deck builder, or stump grinder, you're paying $49-279/mo for features you'll never use. TradeMaster Pro is free up to 5 active jobs, then $25/mo Solo — built specifically for trades.
Why switch from Housecall Pro?
Built for trades, not for dispatchers
Housecall Pro's whole UX is dispatch-first: routes, calls, geofencing, technician tracking. Useful if you've got 8 vans running on a Monday. Useless if you're a 1-3 person carpentry crew running one job at a time. TradeMaster Pro is project-first — quote, schedule, invoice, get paid, on the next one. The interface fits how trades actually work.
Trade calculators that Housecall Pro doesn't have
Stair, rafter, joist span, LVL beam, header, roof calculators with IRC code references built in. Save a calc result to a project, drop it into a quote as a priced line item. Housecall Pro assumes you've already estimated; we ship the estimating tool too.
Pricing math without the upsell tax
Housecall Pro Basic is $49/mo for 1 user but most contractors get pushed to Essentials at $129/mo (online booking, marketing automation, the things they actually advertise) — or Max at $279/mo for the full feature set. TradeMaster Pro Solo is $25/mo (founder pricing) with every feature on. No 'upgrade to unlock', no add-on tax, no sales call required.
TradeMaster Pro vs Housecall Pro
Same job. Built differently.
| Feature | TradeMaster Pro | Housecall Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | 5 jobs + 10 invoices/mo | — |
| Trade calculators (stair, rafter, LVL…) | ✓ | — |
| Online payments (entry plan) | ✓ | Add-on fees |
| Recurring invoices | ✓ | ✓ |
| Crew dashboards + clock-in | ✓ | ✓ |
| AI assistant for the owner | Paid plans | — |
| Customer-facing online quote accept | ✓ | ✓ |
| Photo + receipt OCR | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dispatch / route optimization | — | ✓ |
| Marketing automation (email blasts) | — | Add-on |
| Built specifically for trades | ✓ | Field service generally |
Housecall Pro pricing pulled from Housecall Pro’s public pricing page on 2026-04-29. Confirm current rates with Housecall Pro before deciding.
The price difference
Common questions about switching
Should I use TradeMaster Pro or Housecall Pro?
If you run multiple service vans with daily dispatching — HVAC, plumbing, cleaning, pest control with 8+ techs — Housecall Pro's routing tools are worth the price. If you're a 1-5 person trades crew (carpentry, GC, decking, stump grinding, landscaping, painting) running one or two projects at a time, TradeMaster Pro is built for your shape of business and costs a fraction.
What about Housecall Pro's marketing automation?
We don't ship marketing-blast tooling and won't. Use Mailchimp ($0-13/mo), Beehiiv (free), or Resend ($0-20/mo) for email — they're better at it than any field-service SaaS. Same applies to Google Ads management, Facebook Ads, etc. We focus on what happens between 'lead' and 'paid', not on lead-gen.
Can I import from Housecall Pro?
Customers, yes — CSV import with column mapping. Job history exports as PDFs from Housecall Pro and doesn't import structured. Most switchers rebuild active jobs (it's faster than you'd think) and let the historical data live in their old account read-only.
Does TradeMaster Pro do dispatching or route optimization?
No. The calendar shows scheduled jobs with crew assignments and color-coded avatars; that's intentionally where it stops. If you need geofenced clock-in or route optimization, stay with Housecall Pro. We're not trying to replace that workflow.
Also considering…
Try TradeMaster Pro free.
Free forever for solos, no card. Upgrade later to lock founder pricing for life.