FSM total cost calculator: what your field service software costs per year
The price on a vendor's pricing page is the base subscription. Your annual bill also depends on how many users go past what the plan includes, which add-on modules you need, and how much you collect by card through the platform. This calculator adds all three to the base price and returns one annual number, then shows which part of it is doing the damage.
Three of the six platforms publish no prices. Jobber, Housecall Pro and Service Fusion prices come from their own pricing pages. ServiceTitan, Workiz and FieldPulse only offer quotes, so their price fields are blank and you enter your quote. Only Jobber publishes its card processing rate; for the others, enter your own.
Who this is for
Owner-operators and office managers at HVAC, plumbing, electrical, landscaping and pest control businesses with roughly 2–25 field technicians who are choosing field service management (FSM) software, or deciding whether to stay on their current one at renewal.
It is less useful if your price comes from a negotiated enterprise contract (enter the quoted figures, but the calculator cannot estimate discounts), if you are comparing features rather than cost, or if you want one-time onboarding and implementation fees included. It models recurring costs only.
What you will enter
Every input maps to a variable in the formula further down. In plain language:
- Field users and office users (Ufield, Uoffice)
- Everyone who needs a login. Most platforms count office staff as users too, so include dispatchers and admins.
- Base subscription (Sbase)
- The monthly plan price before any extra users or add-ons.
- Seats included (Uincluded)
- How many users the base plan already covers. Enter 0 if every user is billed separately.
- Price per extra seat (Pseat)
- What each user beyond the included seats costs per month.
- Add-ons (ΣAmonthly)
- Monthly cost of modules that are not in your plan, such as QuickBooks sync, GPS tracking, and SMS or dispatch tools. Enter 0 for anything your plan already includes.
- Monthly card volume (Vprocessing)
- Dollars per month your customers pay by card through the platform's built-in processor.
- Card rate (Rcard) and fixed fee (Ffixed)
- The processor's percentage and the flat fee it adds to each transaction.
- Monthly card payments (Ntrans)
- How many separate card payments make up that volume. Each one incurs the fixed fee.
Calculate your annual cost
Estimates only, for informational purposes. This is not professional financial, legal or tax advice. Vendor prices, plan terms and processing rates change; confirm every figure with the vendor before you sign.
Why seats, add-ons and processing are modeled together
The three costs scale with different things. Seat fees scale with headcount, add-ons are mostly flat, and card processing scales with revenue. A platform with a low base price and a higher processing rate can be the cheaper choice for a shop that mostly collects by check, and the expensive one for a shop that takes every payment on a card. Comparing base prices alone hides that, and so does comparing processing rates alone.
That is also why the total changes shape as you grow. At one technician the fixed subscription tends to matter most. As headcount rises, seat fees start to matter. As revenue rises, processing can overtake both. The scenarios below recalculate this for the platform you have selected.
Worked example: 1, 5 and 10 technicians
This table reuses everything you entered above and changes only the number of technicians. Card volume and payments scale with headcount using the two figures you set here. Office users, plan and add-ons stay as entered.
The scenarios keep the plan you selected and bill extra users one by one. Some vendors price by team size instead: Jobber, for example, charges more for a plan that includes more users, but $29 per extra user adds up quickly, so a larger bundle can cost less than adding users individually. If you are near a bundle boundary, select the bundle that fits your headcount and compare.
| Per year | 1 technician | 5 technicians | 10 technicians |
|---|---|---|---|
| Enter a base subscription above to see the scenarios. | |||
Methodology and sources
The calculator returns total annual cost of ownership using this formula:
TCO = 12 × (S_base + max(0, U_field + U_office − U_included) × P_seat + ΣA_monthly)
+ 12 × (V_processing × R_card + N_trans × F_fixed)
The first line is the yearly subscription: base price, plus seat fees for every user beyond the included seats, plus add-on modules. The second line is yearly card processing: the percentage fee on volume plus the fixed fee on each payment. Because volume and payment counts are monthly figures, both are multiplied by 12 to get a yearly total.
What it leaves out: one-time onboarding or implementation fees, hardware, taxes, promotional discounts, and any charges that appear only on a custom quote.
Pricing sources
| Platform | Last checked | Basis | Source |
|---|
Prices come from each vendor's own pricing page, read on the date shown. Where a vendor publishes no prices (ServiceTitan, Workiz and FieldPulse), the calculator leaves the field blank and shows what third-party sources report, labelled as unverified, rather than picking a number. Where a vendor page does not list something, such as a card rate or an add-on price, that is left blank too.
Third-party sources are used only to flag figures the vendor does not publish. When they conflict with a vendor's own page, the vendor's page wins.
Frequently asked questions
Why is the annual cost more than 12 times the monthly price on the pricing page?
The monthly price on a pricing page is usually the base subscription. Your real annual cost also includes any users beyond what the plan bundles, add-on modules such as QuickBooks sync, GPS tracking or SMS and dispatch, and the fees on card payments taken through the platform's processor.
What should I enter if my platform charges per technician with no seats included?
Enter 0 for seats included and the per-technician fee as the extra seat price. If the base subscription is separate from the per-user fee, enter the base subscription too. If there is no separate base fee, enter 0.
Does the calculator include onboarding, implementation or training fees?
No. It models recurring annual costs only. One-time onboarding, implementation, data migration and training fees are not included, so add them separately if your quote lists them.
Which card volume should I enter?
Enter the monthly dollar amount your customers pay by card through the platform's built-in processor, and the number of those card payments. Payments by check, cash or bank transfer outside the processor should be left out.
Is card processing really part of the software cost?
It is a cost you pay because of the platform you chose, and it scales with your revenue rather than your headcount. Leaving it out understates the cost of a platform whose value depends on collecting payments in the app. If you use a different processor, enter that processor's rate and fee instead.
Why does Jobber list the same plan at different prices?
Jobber prices each plan by how many users it includes, so Connect, Grow and Plus each have several versions for different team sizes. Extra users cost $29 per month on every plan, so a larger bundle can cost less than adding users one at a time. Pick the plan that matches your headcount in the selector.
Why are ServiceTitan, Workiz and FieldPulse blank?
Their pricing pages show “Request pricing” instead of prices, so there is no verified figure to pre-fill. The selector shows what third parties report, labelled as unverified. Enter the numbers from your quote for an accurate result.