Is there appliance repair software that is free forever?

Three products on this list publish a free plan rather than a trial: Taskrol Solo (one technician, one company, unlimited jobs, no card), ServiceM8 Free (one user, a monthly job cap), and Orcatec's free version (dispatch, scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, QuickBooks Online).

What is the difference between a free plan and a free trial?

A free plan stays free until you hit its cap, a user count or a job count. A free trial is a paid product with a clock; when the clock runs out, the price arrives. Ask which one you're on before entering a week of jobs.

Does Taskrol's free plan expire?

Solo never expires. It has no clock and needs no card, and it covers one technician, one company, and unlimited jobs and customers. Adding a technician or a subcontractor moves you to Basic or Pro.

Does a subcontractor use one of my seats in Taskrol?

A subcontractor takes no seat: he works from his own Taskrol account and joins your team from it, so from Basic up you can work with as many as you like, and seats count only your own payroll.

Which appliance repair software offers a free trial without a credit card?

Taskrol needs no card: 7 days of Pro, then free Solo with no clock. Housecall Pro, Jobber, and ApplianceOps publish 14-day trials with no card, ApplianceOps 30 days with a referral code; Workiz gives seven days, also without a card. ServiceM8, Orcatec, and LayCor don't say.

How long are the free trials?

Jobber gives 14 days of its Grow tier, Housecall Pro 14 days, ApplianceOps 14 days or 30 with a referral code, LayCor 14 days plus a 30-day money-back window, and Workiz seven days. Service Fusion mentions no trial.

There's a free plan with one user and a monthly job cap, then paid plans by monthly job volume with unlimited users. Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB sync on every plan. The Android app has nearly every iOS feature, and a busy solo tech outgrows Free fast.

There's a free version that includes dispatching and scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, and QuickBooks Online. Paid pricing is by request, you pay for the features you pick, and the pricing page is a contact form, so the cap on the free version isn't published.

Does Jobber have a free plan?

No. Jobber publishes a 14-day trial of its Grow tier, then four tiers with seats included and extra users billed monthly. Core includes one user. Since Grow is the tier with job costing, check which tier each feature you tried actually sits on.

Does Workiz have a free plan?

No. As of October 15, 2026, Workiz publishes a seven-day free trial with no credit card, then three plans — Standard, Pro and Ultimate — each priced by request; its pricing page lists no free plan or Lite tier. Inventory management and equipment tracking are on Ultimate.

Does Housecall Pro have a free plan?

No. As of October 15, 2026, Housecall Pro publishes a 14-day free trial of its MAX plan with no credit card, then three paid tiers — Basic, Essentials and Max; its pricing page lists no free plan, and data is kept if the trial lapses.

Which appliance repair software has no free trial at all?

Service Fusion's pages mention no trial; it's flat with unlimited users on three tiers. Smart Service is sold by quote with onboarding bundled, and ServiceTitan is sold per technician by quote through a demo, so for both the first number arrives after a sales conversation.

Why is Taskrol Solo ranked first?

Taskrol is our product, and Solo is our first pick because its cap is written down: one technician, unlimited jobs and customers, no card, no clock. Inside it are parts search by model number, parts diagrams, van and warehouse stock, invoices, and card payments.

Buyer’s guide

Best Free Appliance Repair Software in 2026: 12 Tools, Ranked by the Cap on the Free Version

By the Taskrol team at Kereon Inc. Last reviewed October 15, 2026. Each vendor carries the date its own pages were read, at the bottom.

The short answer

Our first pick is Taskrol Solo, our own free plan: one appliance technician, unlimited jobs and customers, a record of the machine on every job, van and warehouse stock, parts diagrams, no card, and no clock. Two more products here publish a free plan that doesn't expire: ServiceM8 Free for one technician who wants accounting sync and can live with a monthly job cap, and Orcatec for a shop that wants a free scheduler with QuickBooks Online and will ask what the paid features cost. Menutize is a shape of its own: no clock and no seat limit, free until you send your first invoice or estimate, then one flat monthly price. Everything else is a trial with a clock, and ApplianceOps and Housecall Pro take no card for theirs, Jobber gives you 14 days of its Grow tier, Workiz gives you seven days, and LayCor adds a 30-day money-back window after its trial. Service Fusion, Smart Service, and ServiceTitan publish no free anything, and the last two won't show a price without a sales call.

Taskrol is our product, and one of its plans is free, so this page is not neutral: we have a stake in the word it is about. We rank Taskrol Solo first and handle the stake the same way as in the first roundup: the reasons for that place are written out where you can check them, and every other product gets something named that it does well. The first-hand material comes from Cactus Appliance, an appliance repair company in Orange County, California, that runs on Taskrol every day.

This page answers one question. Not which tools are free, because that answer is short and it's in the box above. The question is what each free thing is capped by, and what happens on the day you hit the cap. That's the question a buyer searching for free software usually can't answer until the third month, when the trial has ended or the second technician has started.

Rules, as before. Every fact about another vendor comes from that vendor's own pages, read on the date next to its name, not from another listicle and not from memory. Each price is the vendor's published figure, shown with its pricing page and the date we read it, because a price goes stale inside a quarter. Where a vendor's pages don't say something, we write not published, which is a different claim from doesn't exist.

Free means four things, and the cap is the product

Free means four different things in this category. The first is a free plan that stays free. Three products publish one: Taskrol Solo, which is one technician, one company, unlimited jobs, and no card; ServiceM8 Free, which is one user and a monthly cap on jobs; and Orcatec's free version, which includes dispatching and scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, and QuickBooks Online.

The second is a free trial, which is a paid product with a clock on it. Jobber gives you 14 days of its Grow tier and asks for no card. Housecall Pro gives you 14 days and asks for no card. Workiz gives you seven days, also without a card. ApplianceOps gives you 14 days, 30 with a referral code, and asks for no card. LayCor has a 14-day trial and then a 30-day money-back window, which is a variant worth naming: a paid month you can undo.

The third is the one we didn't have a name for until we read Menutize's page: free with no clock and no seat limit, ended not by a date but by an action. Theirs is that the monthly price starts when you send your first invoice or estimate. Nothing counts down, so you can load your customers and learn the product over a month of evenings. But billing is the one thing a repair shop cannot do without, so you will hit that cap on your first real job. Read it next to a 14-day trial and decide which you'd rather have: two weeks of everything, or forever of everything except the part that pays you.

The fourth is no free anything. Service Fusion's pages mention no trial. ServiceTitan is sold by quote through a demo, and Smart Service is sold by quote, so the first number you see arrives after a conversation with a salesperson.

Which one is free is the short question. The long one is what the free thing is capped by, and there are five kinds of cap on this list. A cap on technicians, which is ours. A cap on jobs per month, which is ServiceM8's. A cap on an action, which is Menutize's: bill anybody and the price starts. A feature you only find out you needed after you needed it, which is what a trial of one tier or a free version of a modular product amounts to. And a clock. The day you hit the cap is the day the software gets a price, and the shape of that price is the thing to read before you sign up for anything.

Taskrol van inventory on the phone: the Stock tab listing about two hundred parts on hand, each with a part number, description, quantity, price, and the van cell it sits in, above a search box and an Add Part button. — Van and warehouse inventory is on the free Solo plan. The shared company warehouse the whole team draws from is Pro, and the line between those two is the kind of cap this page is about.Click image to enlarge

Where the appliance record lives, which is the other question this category turns on, is the first roundup's job, and it's ranked there for seventeen products.

That's the test every product here is measured against: what is the free thing capped by, is the cap published, and what does the day you hit it look like.

Free appliance repair software at a glance

Shape, not prices. “Not published” means the pages we read don’t mention it; it doesn’t mean the feature doesn’t exist.

Product	What's free	The cap	The day you hit it	Behind the paywall	Card to start	Runs on
1. Taskrol	Solo: a free plan, no expiry, one technician	One technician, one company; jobs and customers unlimited; team invites start on Basic	Basic includes one user and invites unlimited subcontractors, each on his own Taskrol account; every technician you add on your payroll is billed monthly, and Pro includes three users	On Basic and Pro: team seats and roles, manuals, AI invoices, the QuickBooks Online sync, all advanced reports. On Pro: the shared company warehouse and the company-wide shopping list	No card needed	Web, iOS, Android
2. ServiceM8	A free plan, not a trial: one user	One user and a monthly job cap	Paid tiers priced by monthly job volume, unlimited users	Asset Management from the Growing tier; forms and job costing gated by tier	Not published	iOS first; Android (most features)
3. Orcatec	A free version: dispatch and scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, QuickBooks Online	Not published; paid features are by request	Paid pricing by request; you pay for the features you pick	Not published; the pricing page is a contact form	Not published	Web, iOS, Android
4. ApplianceOps	A 14-day trial (30 days with a referral code), no card	The clock: 14 days, or 30 with a referral code	Base plus per seat, capped for a five-person shop; every feature on every plan	Nothing gated by plan; phone system is an add-on	No	Browser, Android app, iOS as web app; full offline
5. Housecall Pro	14-day trial, no card	The clock: 14 days	Three tiers with seats included, extra seats billed, add-ons on top	Route optimization, recurring plans, API on the top tier; CSR AI, Voice, Campaigns, Payroll, GPS as add-ons	No	Web, iOS, Android
6. Menutize	Everything except billing, for as long as you like	Your first invoice or estimate	One flat monthly price, one seat included; teammates priced per seat	Nothing extra — the whole product is on the one price	No card required	Not published
7. LayCor	14-day trial, then a 30-day money-back window	The clock: 14 days, then a month you can refund	Flat monthly plans, unlimited team members, add-ons	A long menu of small add-ons	Not published	Browser-based mobile
8. Jobber	14-day trial of the Grow tier	The clock: 14 days, on a tier you may not buy	Four tiers priced by team size, extra users billed monthly	QuickBooks Online and custom fields from Connect; job costing on Grow; AI receptionist and marketing included on Plus, add-ons below	No card required	Web, iOS, Android
9. Workiz	Seven-day trial, no card	The clock: seven days	Standard, Pro, Ultimate, feature-gated, plus Genius add-ons	Inventory, Equipment Tracking, and POs on Ultimate; custom reports from Pro; Genius Phone, Answering, Marketing as add-ons	No card needed	Web, iOS, Android
10. Service Fusion	Nothing; no free trial mentioned	None to hit; paid from day one	Three flat tiers, unlimited users, annual discount	Inventory and job costing on Plus; GPS and ServiceCall.ai as add-ons	No trial mentioned	Web, iOS, Android
11. Smart Service	Nothing published; sold by quote	None to hit; the quote	Quote-based subscription, Standard or Enterprise, onboarding and data conversion bundled	Not published; what separates Standard from Enterprise isn't on the site	Quote-based; trial not published	Cloud or Windows desktop; iFleet app
12. ServiceTitan	Nothing published; quote through a demo	None to hit; the per-technician quote	Per technician, quote only, three packages plus Pro add-ons	Mobile estimates above Starter; advanced reporting, commissions, memberships on The Works; Pro products on top	Quote through a demo; trial not published	Web, iOS, Android

How we judged them

The order is about the cap, not the product, and it is our ranking for the reader this page is written for: an appliance repair shop, usually one technician, that wants to run real jobs before it pays for anything. First by honesty: is the cap published, in users, jobs, days, or features, or does it arrive as a quote? Then by survivability: how long can a working shop live inside it, and what shape does the bill take on the day it stops fitting? Taskrol Solo is first because its cap is written down and it is a person, not a job count or a date: one technician, with unlimited jobs and customers and no clock. Inside that cap sit the parts search, the diagrams, and the stock an appliance call needs. ServiceM8 is second: its free plan is published too, its cap is a monthly job count, and its paid tiers have unlimited users. A free plan with a published cap ranks above a trial. A trial with no card ranks above a trial that doesn't say. A published pricing shape with no trial ranks above a quote. If you want the products ranked as products, that's the first roundup; this page puts a general booking platform above Jobber because its 14-day trial is followed by a 30-day money-back window, so the first paid month can be undone, and that's the right answer to this question and the wrong answer to the other one.

Two products are first-hand: Housecall Pro, which Cactus ran on for years, and Taskrol, which it runs on now. Everything else is documentation, read from the vendor's own pages on the date next to its name. That includes Workiz: Cactus used it too, but its entry is judged on its pages. Where a page doesn't say whether a card is needed or how long a trial runs, the table says not published, and we'd rather leave that cell honest than fill it from memory.

Best free appliance repair software: 12 tools, ranked

1. Taskrol

Our product · First-hand · pages read October 15, 2026

Solo is free for one technician and one company, with unlimited jobs and unlimited customers, and no card to start. It doesn't expire. What you get is the working set for a one-person shop: schedule, map, parts and parts diagrams, invoices, card payments, van and warehouse inventory with low-stock reminders, a personal shopping list, and core reports in the mobile app.

The cap is a person: Solo is for one technician, and the team starts on Basic. From Basic up, subcontractors are unlimited and take no seat, because each one works from his own Taskrol account; technicians on your own payroll take a seat each: Basic includes one user (you) and Pro three, and each extra user is billed monthly. The section on hiring the second technician has the detail.

Taskrol personal shopping list on the phone: parts still to buy, including a refrigerator ice maker and a Whirlpool door latch, with one line expanded to show the job number and customer it came from. — The personal shopping list is on the free Solo plan. The company-wide list that pools every technician's parts into one purchase view is Pro, and that line is the cap made visible.

Where the appliance lives: On the job and in the customer's history: every job carries the machine it was for, by brand, model, and serial, and the customer's record lists their appliances and every past job. Solo's published list covers the schedule, the map, parts, and invoices. On Solo the parts search shows your own van and warehouse, by cell; on Pro it also looks in the shared company warehouse, and appliance manuals on the job start on Basic.
Where it is strong: A free plan with no job cap and no clock, on any phone, that records the machine, searches parts by its model number, and shows what's already on the van and in the warehouse, with automatic low-stock reminders.
Pricing shape: Solo $0 forever (1 technician), Basic $29/month (1 user), Pro $129/month (3 users), each extra user $29/month; 7 days of Pro for every new account, no card. Solo covers one company with unlimited jobs, and the account continues on it after the Pro days unless the owner subscribes. From Basic, subcontractors are unlimited, and AI invoice drafting and the one-way QuickBooks Online sync are included. Paid add-ons: Voice & SMS with unlimited texts, AI Agent minute packs, and automatic ETA & tax rate. Taskrol pricing →
For: A one-person appliance shop that needs a part on most calls and wants no bill and no clock.

Why first: this page ranks what a free version is capped by, and Solo's cap can be read in full before you sign up: one technician, one company, unlimited jobs and customers, no card, no clock. A one-person appliance shop can stay inside it for as long as it stays one person. What it gets there is the appliance work itself: the machine on every job, parts search by its model number, parts diagrams, van and warehouse stock with low-stock reminders, invoices and card payments, on the web, iPhone, and Android. The day you hire has a published price as well: Basic with a seat per hire and each job's invoice and payments sent on to QuickBooks Online, or Pro, flat, with three users included.

2. ServiceM8

Documentation-based · pages read September 1, 2026

ServiceM8 is built for sole traders up to 20 staff, and it prices by job volume instead of seats. The free plan is one user with a monthly cap on jobs. The paid plans have unlimited users and rising job limits. Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB sync on every plan.

That cap is why it ranks second. A cap on jobs is a cap that tracks money coming in: you pay when you're busy enough to pay. And when you do pay, users are unlimited, so the second technician and the dispatcher don't change the bill.

Where the appliance lives: In Asset Management, an add-on from the Growing tier, which is above Free: asset type, location on site, custom fields, photos, and a QR label you stick on the machine. It was designed around fire extinguishers and air conditioners on commercial sites. Nothing on their pages describes parts or inventory.
Where it is strong: Three accounting integrations on every plan, Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB, and a cap that scales with the shop: paid tiers with unlimited users, so hiring costs nothing in software.
Watch for: The Android app now carries almost all the iOS features, where in 2024 it was the cut-down Lite, though diagrams, Room Scan and PDF filling stay iOS-only, so try it on the phone you carry. A busy solo tech outgrows the free plan's job cap fast, so know your monthly job count before you count on Free. Whether a card is needed to start isn't published. Nothing on their pages describes parts or inventory, on any plan.
Pricing shape: Free plan with one user and a monthly job cap; paid tiers by monthly job volume with unlimited users; Asset Management, forms, and job costing gated by tier. Their pricing page →
Published prices: Free: 1 user, 30 jobs a month; Starter $29 (50 jobs), Growing $79 (150), Premium $149 (500), Premium Plus $349 (1,500+) a month, unlimited users on paid plans (ServiceM8’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A solo tech with an accountant on Xero or QuickBooks Online and a job count that fits the cap.

3. Orcatec

Documentation-based · pages read September 1, 2026

Orcatec is all-in-one home-services software from Rancho Santa Fe, California, covering fifteen trades including appliance repair, with a free version. The free version includes dispatching and scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, and QuickBooks Online.

What it's capped by is the problem. The site says you pay only for the features you pick, and the pricing page is a contact form. So the free version has a ceiling, and you find out where it is by asking. That's an honest model and an unreadable one, and it's why this free plan is third rather than first.

Where the appliance lives: In a custom form on the job, with fields for problem description, model, and serial number. A step above a text note and a step below a record with history. A spare-parts inventory and a supplies-order feature are on the appliance page; which plan they sit on isn't published.
Where it is strong: A free version that adds GPS, call recording, commissions, and QuickBooks Online to dispatching and scheduling, at zero.
Watch for: The pricing page is a contact form, so the cap on the free version, and what the day you hit it costs, are both things you learn from a salesperson. Whether a card is needed to start isn't published. Warranty-network dispatch isn't published. The appliance record is a form, not a history.
Pricing shape: Free version; paid pricing by request, modular, pay for the features you pick. Their pricing page →
Published prices: The pricing address now opens a contact form; the site advertises a free version and prices paid options on request (Orcatec’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A shop that wants a free scheduler with QuickBooks Online, will build the appliance record itself, and doesn't mind a phone call to learn the price.

4. ApplianceOps

Documentation-based · pages read September 25, 2026

ApplianceOps is the CRM built only for appliance repair, by a technician with nearly two decades in the trade, for a one-man operation up to a five-person store. There's no free plan. There is a 14-day trial with no card, 30 days with a referral code, and the thing that puts it at the top of the trials is a pricing rule: every feature is on every plan.

That matters more than it sounds. A trial of a tiered product shows you a tier, and the feature you fell for may sit on the one you won't buy. A trial of ApplianceOps shows you ApplianceOps. The clock is the whole cap, and when it runs out the price is a base plus per seat, with no cut taken from card payments.

Where the appliance lives: On the invoice. Each machine on a call gets its own invoice block, priced by type, with a service history per machine, and parts run through an append-only stock ledger with a Parts-to-Order roll-up. That's the appliance record done properly, and the trial shows all of it.
Where it is strong: Every feature on every plan, so the trial is the product. Full offline invoicing, payment capture, and signatures. Home-warranty split billing with dispatch emails from AHS, First American, Choice, and ServicePower parsed into work orders. No cut of card payments.
Watch for: The trial is 14 days, or 30 with a referral code, so plan the week of jobs you'll enter before you start. The field app is Android from Google Play or a browser install on anything else, with no native iOS app. QuickBooks Online is a nightly bulk push. It's a small team by its own description, and we couldn't find independent reviews. We have not run it.
Pricing shape: 14-day trial (30 days with a referral code), no card; then a base price plus per seat, capped for a five-person shop and per seat beyond, every feature on every plan, phone system as a separate add-on, no cut of card payments. Their pricing page →
Published prices: $35 a month for the first seat and $10 for each seat up to five ($75 for five); AI Dispatch add-on $65 (1–2 techs) or $95 (3–5 techs) a month (ApplianceOps’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A one-to-five-tech shop that does home-warranty work and wants to try the whole product before paying for any of it.

5. Housecall Pro

First-hand · pages read October 15, 2026

Cactus Appliance ran on Housecall Pro for years before moving to Taskrol, so this one is first-hand. There's no free plan. The trial is 14 days and asks for no card, which is the honest shape for a trial: the clock runs out and nothing converts on its own.

What's on the other side of the clock is the reason it isn't higher. Basic includes one user. Essentials and Max include a block of seats, and additional users are billed monthly, so the dispatcher is a seat. Route optimization, recurring service plans, and API access sit on the top tier, and CSR AI, Voice, Campaigns, Payroll, and GPS are each their own line. The trial shows you a product; the bill shows you a stack.

Where the appliance lives: In Property Profiles, an app you switch on under My Apps: item type, make, model, serial, and install date per address, attachable to jobs. From the documentation the record doesn't connect to parts or stock, and the appliance page mentions inventory only in one line about tracking parts and inventory. Cactus's technicians photographed stickers anyway.
Where it is strong: The consumer-facing surface: online booking, reminders, review management, campaigns, a website product, Instapay deposits, and a published card-processing rate. QuickBooks sync. And a 14-day trial with no card, which is exactly how a trial should be shaped.
Watch for: The trial ends into a seat count. Count your dispatcher before you compare tiers, and add every add-on you'd switch on in the first month, because the advertised price and the paid price drift apart with each one. Nothing here is free after day 14.
Pricing shape: 14-day trial without a card; then three tiers with seats included, extra seats billed monthly, and a long list of add-ons. Their pricing page →
Published prices: Basic $79 a month or $59 billed annually, 1 user; Essentials $189 a month or $149 billed annually, 5 users; Max $329 a month or $299 billed annually, 8 users; $35 a month per additional user (Housecall Pro’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A multi-trade home-service business that wants to try a polished booking and marketing surface for two weeks without giving a card.

6. Menutize

Documentation-based · pages read September 9, 2026

Menutize is the only product here whose free version isn't bounded by a clock or a seat count. Their page puts it plainly: sign up free, no card, and the monthly price starts when you send your first invoice or estimate. So you can load your customers, learn the thing, and run it alongside whatever you use now, for as long as you want.

That's a fourth shape of free, and it's the tightest cap on this page, because billing is the one thing a repair shop cannot do without. You will hit this cap on your first real job. It sits here rather than lower because of what happens that day: one flat monthly price with a seat included, and no annual commitment. That is a soft and predictable landing, and you got to make the decision with the whole product in front of you instead of against a countdown.

Where the appliance lives: Not published. The customer record holds unlimited photos per customer, which is the closest thing on their page to a machine history, and photos of a data plate are how a lot of shops actually store a model number. Nothing on the page describes parts, van inventory, or a record of the appliance itself.
Where it is strong: A diagnostic deposit collected at the moment of booking, automated Google review requests by text, tip prompts at checkout, open-tracking so you know the customer read the estimate, recurring maintenance-plan billing, two-way Google Calendar sync, and ACH priced as a small capped percentage, which on a big sealed-system job costs a lot less than a card.
Watch for: The page is titled "Free Appliance Repair Software, Forever," and the free part ends at your first invoice or estimate. Read that sentence before you plan around the word forever. Their two pages also put the line in different places: the appliance page says the price starts at your first invoice or estimate, while the front page offers a few free estimates and starts the price at the first invoice. Ask which it is before you count on either. Card processing is charged on top of the subscription at the usual card rate, and the ACH cap is worth checking against your average ticket. Parts and inventory aren't published anywhere on the page, and for appliance repair that's the half of the job that happens after the diagnosis — check it before you move. Which platforms it runs on isn't published either.
Pricing shape: Free until your first invoice or estimate, then one flat monthly price with a seat included, teammates per seat, plus card and ACH processing fees. Their pricing page →
Published prices: $29 a month with the first seat, $15 per added seat, Site Builder $39 a month; free to start until the first invoice (Menutize’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A solo tech who wants to collect a deposit at booking and be paid by ACH, and who tracks parts somewhere else.

7. LayCor

Documentation-based · pages read September 1, 2026

LayCor is a booking-and-scheduling platform for service businesses in general, with sixty-plus industry solutions and an appliance repair page on top. It's here because its free shape is the most generous of the trials: a 14-day trial, then a 30-day money-back window, on flat monthly plans with unlimited team members.

Add those up and you get about six weeks to decide, with the second half refundable, on a price that doesn't move when you hire. On this page's question that beats Jobber and Workiz. On the first roundup's question it didn't, and the reasons are in the watch-for line.

Where the appliance lives: With the property: brand, model, service history, and warranty status, captured at booking when the customer picks appliance type and brand. Dispatch can assign by technician specialty and brand certification. Parts are tracked per truck. It's an appliance template on a general product.
Where it is strong: A 30-day money-back window on top of the trial, flat pricing with unlimited team members so the second technician is free in software, dispatch by brand certification at the moment of booking, and QuickBooks Online.
Watch for: The outcome numbers on the page, such as 35% more bookings in month one, are claims we can't check any more than you can. Whether a card is needed to start isn't published. The appliance layer is a template on a general booking product, so use the trial to open the parts and the appliance record before the booking widget. The add-on menu is long; price the ones you'd use.
Pricing shape: 14-day trial, 30-day money-back window, flat monthly plans with unlimited team members, a long menu of small add-ons. Their pricing page →
Published prices: Starter $49 and Professional $99 a month with unlimited users; dispatch, QuickBooks sync and SMS are paid add-ons (LayCor’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A small crew that wants a branded booking page, a flat price, and six weeks to change its mind.

8. Jobber

Documentation-based · pages read October 15, 2026

Jobber has no free plan. It has a 14-day trial of Grow, its third tier of four, and that detail is the whole entry. Grow is where job costing lives. Users follow team size, not tier: Core, Connect, and Grow come for one user, Connect, Grow, and Plus for teams of five, ten, or fifteen, and additional users are billed monthly.

So the trial shows a solo tech a product with job costing, and the tier that solo tech is likely to buy is Core, without it. That's the feature-you-only-miss-once-you-need-it cap in its purest form. Nothing about it is dishonest. It's a trial of the wrong tier for most people reading this page, and the fix is to know that going in.

Where the appliance lives: In custom fields, text, number, dropdown, true/false, or area, on clients, properties, quotes, jobs, and invoices, on Connect and above; Core has none. There's no equipment module, and the appliance page describes no parts or inventory; stock comes from third-party apps in its App Marketplace. If you'd start on Core, note that the field you used in the trial isn't on it.
Where it is strong: Client Hub, the 24/7 portal where customers approve quotes, see appointments, and pay. QuickBooks Online from the Connect tier. A 4.8 App Store rating across nearly 14,000 reviews, by its own numbers, and a dispatcher who already knows it is easy to hire.
Watch for: The trial is of Grow, so write down which features you used and check which tier each one sits on before you pick a plan. No credit card is needed to start, in Jobber's words. Users follow team size, one user or five, ten, or fifteen, and extra users are billed monthly, so the dispatcher counts.
Pricing shape: 14-day trial of Grow, no card; then four tiers priced by team size, extra users billed monthly, annual discount. Their pricing page →
Published prices: One user: Core $49 a month or $29 billed annually; a team with 5 users: Connect $199 ($149), Grow $299 ($229), Plus $499 ($399) (Jobber’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A small team that wants the smoothest customer experience and will use the trial to learn which tier it actually needs.

9. Workiz

Documentation-based · pages read October 15, 2026

Workiz has no free plan and the shortest clock on the list: seven days. Its appliance page is about the phone and the leads: a built-in phone system, Genius AI Answering that books emergency callers around the clock, and integrations with Angi, Thumbtack, and Google's Local Services Ads.

Seven days is enough to see the phone system and not enough to see a month of jobs. And the modules an appliance shop would want to test, inventory, purchase orders, and Equipment Tracking, sit on the Ultimate tier, with custom reports starting at Pro and the Genius products as add-ons, so plan the week before you start it.

Where the appliance lives: On the Ultimate tier only, in Equipment Tracking, which reads the serial number, model, and make from a photo of the label and logs every repair, part, and visit against the unit. The appliance page itself doesn't mention make, model, or serial, and below Ultimate no machine record is listed. Inventory tracks which parts are in stock and what's running low, and it sits on Ultimate too, alongside purchase orders and service plans.
Where it is strong: QuickBooks sync on every tier, and Angi, Thumbtack, and Google Local Services Ads wired straight into the CRM as lead sources.
Watch for: Seven days. Decide what you need to see before day one, and make sure the trial is on a tier that has it, because inventory, purchase orders, and Equipment Tracking are Ultimate only. No card is needed to start. The Genius products you'd switch for are add-ons.
Pricing shape: Seven-day trial with no card; then Standard, Pro, Ultimate, feature-gated, with add-on Genius products. Their pricing page →
Published prices: Every plan — Standard, Pro and Ultimate — says “Request pricing”; the trial is 7 days with no credit card (Workiz’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A shop that lives on marketplace leads, wants the phone inside the CRM, and can decide in a week.

10. Service Fusion

Documentation-based · pages read September 1, 2026

Service Fusion's pages mention no free trial, so there's no free thing to cap. It's here, above the two quote-only products, because the price has a published shape: three tiers, Starter, Plus, and Pro, all with unlimited users at a flat price, with onboarding and unlimited phone support included on every plan.

For the cap question that's a clean answer. There's no clock and no seat count; you pay from day one, and the second technician and the dispatcher don't change the bill. For a two-tech shop it's a flat price for an office you don't have.

Where the appliance lives: Not on the appliance page, which covers scheduling, estimates, a customer web-booking portal, pre-job texts, eSignature, and payments, with no make, model, or serial and no parts. Equipment tracking appears elsewhere in their feature marketing; we couldn't find what a record holds. Inventory arrives on Plus.
Where it is strong: Unlimited users at a flat price on every tier, so three techs and two office people pay the same as three techs alone, plus bi-directional QuickBooks and onboarding and unlimited phone support included on every plan.
Watch for: No free trial is mentioned, so the first month is a paid month. The flat price is a flat price for a full office. Inventory management and job costing arrive on Plus, and GPS fleet tracking and ServiceCall.ai are add-ons. Ask whether a demo account exists before you commit.
Pricing shape: No trial mentioned; flat, unlimited users, three tiers, annual discount, add-ons for VoIP and GPS. Their pricing page →
Published prices: Starter $245, Plus $382 and Pro $627 a month, or $208, $325 and $533 a month billed annually; unlimited users on every plan (Service Fusion’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: An office-heavy shop where dispatchers outnumber technicians, the books live in QuickBooks, and nobody needs a free month to decide.

11. Smart Service

Documentation-based · pages read September 1, 2026

Smart Service publishes no free plan and no trial that we could find. Pricing is quote-based, Standard or Enterprise, and the quote bundles onboarding and data conversion, with support renewed annually. Their reasoning is that a two-truck shop and a fifty-tech operation shouldn't pay the same, which is fair, and which means you can't size it from the website.

On this page's question that puts it near the bottom, and that's not a judgment of the product. It's the answer when your bookkeeper won't leave QuickBooks Desktop, and the appliance record is per unit and properly done. It isn't free in any of the senses above, and the first number arrives after a conversation.

Where the appliance lives: Per unit, properly: individual records for washer, dryer, refrigerator, range, and dishwasher with make, model, and serial, service history, warranty status and expiration, parts usage, photos, fault codes, and model-plate photos captured at the job. Inventory visibility before dispatch is stated; how deep it goes isn't.
Where it is strong: The accounting seat: built around QuickBooks rather than bolted onto it, Desktop included. A per-unit appliance record with warranty status. Skill-based technician assignment. Onboarding bundled into the quote.
Watch for: No trial or free plan is published, so you'll be evaluating from a sales conversation rather than from your own week of jobs. The quote bundles onboarding and data conversion and support renews annually, so ask for the year-two number as well as the year-one number.
Pricing shape: Quote-based subscription, Standard or Enterprise, annual discount, onboarding included; a desktop license option exists. Their pricing page →
Published prices: From $129.99 per user a month with a 3-user minimum; the final price is a written quote (Smart Service’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: A shop whose books are already in QuickBooks Desktop and whose owner would rather take a sales call than change the accountant.

12. ServiceTitan

Documentation-based · pages read September 1, 2026

ServiceTitan is priced per technician, sold by quote through a demo, and its pages publish no free plan and no trial. Three packages, Starter, Essentials, and The Works, with Pro products layered on top. It's the right answer for a different-sized business than the one searching for free software.

It's last on this page for the plainest reason on it: there is no free thing, the price is per technician, and it arrives after a demo. For ten-plus technicians with a controller and a warehouse, none of that is a problem. For the reader this page is for, all of it is.

Where the appliance lives: In job histories and equipment records, with an inventory side that is real: multiple locations across trucks and warehouses, purchase orders, transfers, barcode scanning, and automatic replenishment. It's a deep stock system, and the furthest from free.
Where it is strong: Purchasing: purchase orders, vendor returns, transfers between locations, barcode receiving. QuickBooks Desktop Premier and Enterprise alongside Online. Capacity planning for a real office.
Watch for: Per-technician pricing by quote, so the first number you see comes after a sales call, and for a two- or three-tech shop it buys capacity you won't use. Mobile estimates sit above Starter, and advanced reporting, commission tracking, and memberships sit on The Works.
Pricing shape: Per technician, quote only, three packages plus Pro add-ons; no trial published. Their pricing page →
Published prices: Starter, Essentials and The Works each say “Request Pricing”; pricing is per technician (ServiceTitan’s pricing page, read October 15, 2026).
For: Ten-plus technicians with a controller and a warehouse, for whom a free month was never the question.

The day you hire the second technician

Here is the same question applied to Taskrol. Solo is one technician and one company. Basic adds AI invoices, manuals, and all advanced reports, and it is where the team starts: inviting technicians and office staff, roles and permissions, and assigning jobs. A seat means somebody on your payroll; Basic includes one user, the owner, and bills each person you add monthly. Subcontractors are outside that count entirely. A subcontractor works from his own Taskrol account and connects to your company from it, so you can work with as many as you can find without the bill moving. Pro is a flat monthly price with three users included and extra users billed monthly, and it adds the shared company warehouse and the company-wide shopping list.

So the path from free to paid at Taskrol has one step in it, and the step is a person. At ServiceM8 the step is a job count and the paid tiers have unlimited users; at Service Fusion and LayCor users are unlimited from the start. On Taskrol the step lands on a flat price: Pro includes three users, and the section below works out what that costs as a share of a shop's revenue.

What Solo includes, line by line, is on the Solo plan page. This page ranks the field; that one describes the plan.

Where each free tier draws the line

Every free plan and every trial on this list draws a line somewhere, and the honest ones say where. On Taskrol the line is the team: inviting people, roles, manuals, AI invoices, and all advanced reports are on Basic and Pro, and the shared warehouse is on Pro. On ServiceM8 Free it's the job cap, with Asset Management, forms, and job costing gated by tier above it. On Orcatec it's whatever isn't in the free feature list, and what that costs is by request.

Taskrol web Reports for one month: revenue, margin, parts cost, average check, and average margin tiles above a per-job table showing status, technician, payment method, revenue, and margin, with a Download CSV button. — All advanced reports come with Basic: revenue, margin, parts cost, the per-job table by technician, and the CSV download.Click image to enlarge

The trials hold back differently. Jobber's trial is of Grow, so what it holds back is the knowledge of which tier your favorite feature lives on. Workiz holds back time, and puts inventory and purchase orders on Ultimate. Housecall Pro holds back the top tier's route optimization, recurring plans, and API, and every add-on. ApplianceOps holds back nothing by plan, which is why it leads the trials. LayCor's add-on menu is long, and the trial is the time to find out which of them you'd switch on.

A feature you only miss once you need it is a cap. It's the one kind that doesn't show up in the table until you've hit it, which is why the table tries to name them.

Why each vendor gives something away

Every free plan and every trial is a business decision, and the buyer should know which one they're on. ServiceM8 is built for sole traders up to 20 staff and prices by job volume; a free user who stays small isn't the business model. Orcatec covers fifteen trades and sells paid features by request; the free version is a front door to a modular product. Housecall Pro, Jobber, and Workiz don't publish a free plan at all, and their trials are marketing with a clock.

Taskrol's reason is plain: a solo tech who runs a real week on Solo is the person most likely to hire someone and move to a paid plan. What that means for you: the plan is published as no expiry and no card, and the cap is written down, so you know on day one what the day you hire looks like.

How to run a trial so it answers the question

Whichever trial you start, treat it as a week, not a demo. Put in real jobs from last week, with the real customer, the real machine, and the real part. Make the trial do the thing your shop actually does, which at Cactus means ordering a part on nearly every call. A trial you run on sample data tells you what the sales page already told you.

Then, before the clock runs out, find the cap on purpose. On a free plan, add a second user, or add jobs until you reach the monthly number. On a trial, write down every feature you used and check the pricing page for which tier each one sits on. If the trial was of a tier you won't buy, you now know which of those features leaves with it. If a vendor's pages don't say whether a card is needed to start, the signup form will, and that's worth knowing before you type anything.

What a shop actually pays

The sticker price and what you pay are usually different numbers, and the difference has a shape. Seats are counted separately, and the office dispatcher is often a seat too. Reporting frequently sits one tier above where the advertised price sits. The technician app can be its own line. Phone, AI answering, and marketing are add-ons almost everywhere. Card processing is a percentage nobody puts in the headline.

So read each card’s published prices against the tier that holds the work, not the entry price. Where that work sits with the three products most shops compare, from their own pricing pages:

Housecall Pro. QuickBooks Online sync starts on Essentials: $189 a month ($149 billed annually) with 5 users. Route optimization, recurring service plans and the open API are on Max: $329 ($299 billed annually) with 8 users, then $35 per added user. AI call answering (CSR AI), Voice, Pipeline and Payroll are add-ons on top of any tier, with no price on the pricing page. (pricing page, read October 15, 2026)
Jobber. QuickBooks Online sync starts on Connect: $199 a month ($149 billed annually) for a team of 5. Job costing is on Grow: $299 ($229) for 5 users. Custom reports, the AI Receptionist, Pipeline and Marketing Suite come together on Plus: $499 ($399) for 5 users. Below Plus they are add-ons at $29, $49 and $99 a month. (pricing page, read October 15, 2026)
Workiz. Inventory management, equipment tracking and purchase orders are on Ultimate only, priced by request. Genius Answering, its AI answering, is sold separately from the plans, with no price on the page. (pricing page, read October 15, 2026)
Taskrol. Solo $0 forever (1 technician), Basic $29/month (1 user), Pro $129/month (3 users), each extra user $29/month; 7 days of Pro for every new account, no card. Basic already carries the reports, the accounting sync and the team tools: all reports, including margin and on-hand inventory, team roles and permissions, technician assignment, van and warehouse inventory, the QuickBooks Online sync, appliance manuals and AI invoices; Pro adds the shared company warehouse. Calls with recording, two-way texts and AI call answering are add-ons on any plan, free Solo included: Voice & SMS from $25 a month and AI Agent packs from $49 a month.

Here is our own number on a worked example: a shop with 3 technicians running about 150 jobs a month at an average ticket of $360 turns about $54,000 a month. Taskrol Pro costs $129 a month with 3 users included; each additional user is billed monthly. Card processing is 3.4% + $0.30 per successful card transaction. The phone is the separate Voice & SMS add-on, with unlimited SMS on every tier. The plan alone is 0.24% of revenue for the system the whole shop runs on. Hold every other product against that yardstick, because a tool that bills every seat from the first one lands somewhere very different.

Which one, for which shop

One appliance tech, any phone, a part on most calls, no bill and no clock: Taskrol Solo, our first pick. The day you hire, it's Basic plus a seat per hire, or Pro, flat, three users included.
One tech, an iPhone, an accountant on Xero or MYOB: ServiceM8 Free, and know your monthly job count before you count on it.
You want a free scheduler with QuickBooks Online and will make the call to learn what paid costs: Orcatec.
One to five techs, warranty work, and you want to see the whole product before paying: ApplianceOps. No card, every feature on every plan, so the trial is the product.
Multi-trade, the phone isn't ringing, two weeks and no card: Housecall Pro. Count the dispatcher's seat before you compare tiers.
You'd rather pay a flat price and keep the option to undo the first month: LayCor: 14-day trial, then a 30-day money-back window, unlimited team members.
You want the smoothest app and will pay per seat: Jobber. Remember the trial is of Grow; check which tier your favorite feature lives on.
Marketplace leads, a phone inside the CRM, and you can decide in a week: Workiz. Seven days; make sure the trial tier has inventory if you need to see it.
More office users than technicians, no free month needed: Service Fusion. No trial mentioned, flat, unlimited users.
Bookkeeper on QuickBooks Desktop: Smart Service, by quote, with onboarding bundled.
Ten-plus technicians: ServiceTitan. Free was never the question.

Whichever trial you start, do one thing before the clock runs out: put in a real week of jobs, then hire an imaginary second technician. Add the user, assign them tomorrow's first call, and look at what the bill becomes. If the answer takes a sales call, you've learned what the free version was for.

Frequently asked questions

Is there appliance repair software that is free forever?: Three products on this list publish a free plan rather than a trial: Taskrol Solo (one technician, one company, unlimited jobs, no card), ServiceM8 Free (one user, a monthly job cap), and Orcatec's free version (dispatch, scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, QuickBooks Online).
What is the difference between a free plan and a free trial?: A free plan stays free until you hit its cap, a user count or a job count. A free trial is a paid product with a clock; when the clock runs out, the price arrives. Ask which one you're on before entering a week of jobs.
Does Taskrol's free plan expire?: Solo never expires. It has no clock and needs no card, and it covers one technician, one company, and unlimited jobs and customers. Adding a technician or a subcontractor moves you to Basic or Pro.
Does a subcontractor use one of my seats in Taskrol?: A subcontractor takes no seat: he works from his own Taskrol account and joins your team from it, so from Basic up you can work with as many as you like, and seats count only your own payroll.
What does Taskrol Solo include?: The schedule and map, parts and parts diagrams, invoices, card payments, van and warehouse inventory with automatic low-stock reminders, a personal shopping list, and core reports in the mobile app, for one technician with unlimited jobs and customers; the one-way QuickBooks Online sync starts on Basic.
Which appliance repair software offers a free trial without a credit card?: Taskrol needs no card: 7 days of Pro, then free Solo with no clock. Housecall Pro, Jobber, and ApplianceOps publish 14-day trials with no card, ApplianceOps 30 days with a referral code; Workiz gives seven days, also without a card. ServiceM8, Orcatec, and LayCor don't say.
How long are the free trials?: Jobber gives 14 days of its Grow tier, Housecall Pro 14 days, ApplianceOps 14 days or 30 with a referral code, LayCor 14 days plus a 30-day money-back window, and Workiz seven days. Service Fusion mentions no trial.
Is ServiceM8 free?: There's a free plan with one user and a monthly job cap, then paid plans by monthly job volume with unlimited users. Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB sync on every plan. The Android app has nearly every iOS feature, and a busy solo tech outgrows Free fast.
Is Orcatec free?: There's a free version that includes dispatching and scheduling, GPS, call recording, commissions, and QuickBooks Online. Paid pricing is by request, you pay for the features you pick, and the pricing page is a contact form, so the cap on the free version isn't published.
Does Jobber have a free plan?: No. Jobber publishes a 14-day trial of its Grow tier, then four tiers with seats included and extra users billed monthly. Core includes one user. Since Grow is the tier with job costing, check which tier each feature you tried actually sits on.
Does Workiz have a free plan?: No. As of October 15, 2026, Workiz publishes a seven-day free trial with no credit card, then three plans — Standard, Pro and Ultimate — each priced by request; its pricing page lists no free plan or Lite tier. Inventory management and equipment tracking are on Ultimate.
Does Housecall Pro have a free plan?: No. As of October 15, 2026, Housecall Pro publishes a 14-day free trial of its MAX plan with no credit card, then three paid tiers — Basic, Essentials and Max; its pricing page lists no free plan, and data is kept if the trial lapses.
Which appliance repair software has no free trial at all?: Service Fusion's pages mention no trial; it's flat with unlimited users on three tiers. Smart Service is sold by quote with onboarding bundled, and ServiceTitan is sold per technician by quote through a demo, so for both the first number arrives after a sales conversation.
Why is Taskrol Solo ranked first?: Taskrol is our product, and Solo is our first pick because its cap is written down: one technician, unlimited jobs and customers, no card, no clock. Inside it are parts search by model number, parts diagrams, van and warehouse stock, invoices, and card payments.

Sources and check dates

Every fact about another vendor above comes from these pages, read on the date shown. Re-check one vendor, update one line.

Vendor	Checked	Pages read
Taskrol	October 15, 2026	taskrol.com · Pricing
ServiceM8	September 1, 2026	servicem8.com · Pricing · Asset management
ServiceM8 for Android	October 4, 2026	Help: About the ServiceM8 Android app · Google Play listing
Orcatec	September 1, 2026	orcatec.com · Appliance repair · Pricing
ApplianceOps	September 25, 2026	applianceops.pro · Pricing · Features
Housecall Pro	October 15, 2026	Appliance repair software · Pricing · Property Profiles · Help: Property Profile
Menutize	September 9, 2026	menutize.ai · Appliance repair use case
LayCor	September 1, 2026	laycor.com · Appliance repair software
Jobber	October 15, 2026	Appliance repair software · Pricing · Help: Custom Fields · App Marketplace
Workiz	October 15, 2026	Appliance repair · Pricing · Equipment tracking · Phone system
Service Fusion	September 1, 2026	Appliance repair software · Pricing · Field service management
Smart Service	September 1, 2026	smartservice.com · Appliance repair software · Pricing
ServiceTitan	September 1, 2026	Appliance repair software · Pricing · Inventory software

Run the test on Taskrol yourself

Solo is free forever for one technician — unlimited jobs and customers, no card. Open a job, put a model number in, and see whether the part is already on your truck.

Start free — $0/month Every new account starts with 7 days of Pro, no card. After that, Solo stays free forever for one technician and one company.

Or read the Taskrol appliance repair software page and the one-to-one comparisons.