Comparison
Taskrol vs ServiceM8 for appliance repair
Taskrol is our pick for an appliance repair shop. Both products offer a free plan, and that is roughly where the resemblance ends. Taskrol is built around the machine — appliances and HVAC equipment, each with its own model and serial — ships the same technician app for iPhone and Android with a web workspace for the office, and is priced per seat and per company. ServiceM8 is a general trade-services app — electrical, plumbing, HVAC, cleaning, locksmiths, pest control, appliance repair — built Apple-first and now with an Android app that has almost all of the iOS features, priced by how many jobs you do in a month, and connected to Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB.
Two differences — pricing shape and where the stock count lives — decide this comparison more than any feature grid. The device used to be a third, and it is a small one now: for years ServiceM8's full app ran only on Apple devices, and its 2024 Android app was the cut-down ServiceM8 Lite, but by October 2026 its help center described ServiceM8 for Android with almost all the iOS functionality. Its stock levels are the ones tracked in your accounting package. Its paid plans do not count users, so a crew of six on a modest job count pays for the jobs, not the people.
Taskrol’s argument is about the appliance and the part: the model read off the data plate, the catalog for that model, the van cell the part is in, the appliance recorded on every visit, and the warranty return linked to the job that caused it. If that is where your day is lost, read on. If your bottleneck is quoting and getting paid, ServiceM8 is built for that, on an iPhone or an Android phone, and this page says so.
The short version
Taskrol is our pick for the shop where every job is an appliance: the data plate is photographed, the catalog for that model opens on the job, stock is counted by van and by cell, the paid invoice goes on to QuickBooks Online, and one technician runs unlimited jobs on a free plan that does not expire. ServiceM8 is built for a crew that does a modest number of jobs across several people, quotes and invoices heavily, and keeps its stock count in Xero, QuickBooks Online, or MYOB — its pricing by job count and its quoting tools fit exactly that shop, and its Android app now does almost everything the iPhone one does. Count your technicians and your monthly jobs first; those two numbers decide this before any feature does.
What Taskrol costs: 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. Taskrol pricing →
What ServiceM8 costs, and what Taskrol costs
ServiceM8: 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 ).
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. Taskrol pricing →
About ServiceM8
ServiceM8 is job management software for trades and service contractors, sold as running the business from the client’s first call through scheduling, quoting, job completion, invoicing, and payment. Its published feature set covers a drag-and-drop dispatch board with a map, allocation windows, on-the-way texts with live arrival tracking, quotes with multiple options and online acceptance, proposals and bundles, invoicing with card payments on site, online booking that quotes and schedules by staff capability, PDF forms, asset management with QR-code labels, a knowledge base, ServiceM8 Phone with call recording, AI drafting for quotes, invoices, and emails, and add-ons for recurring jobs, job costing, and a subcontractor network. The app runs on iPhone and iPad and on Android 8.0 or later, where it has almost all the iOS features; drawing diagrams, Room Scan, and PDF filling stay iOS-only. Plans are tiered by monthly job count, paid tiers include unlimited users, and it syncs clients, items, invoices, and payments with Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB.
Read from ServiceM8’s own published pages on . Prices and features change; check the current ones on the official ServiceM8 website.
Taskrol vs ServiceM8 at a glance
| Feature | Taskrol | ServiceM8 |
|---|---|---|
| Product focus | Appliance and HVAC equipment repair; every job is built around the machine's model and serial. | General trades app; appliance repair is one of nine industries named on the home page. |
| Technician devices | One technician app for iPhone and Android, plus the web for the office. | iPhone and iPad, and ServiceM8 for Android (8.0 or later) with almost all the iOS features; diagrams, Room Scan, and PDF filling are iOS-only; Tap to Pay needs Android 13. |
| 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 has unlimited jobs. | Tiered by jobs per month; paid tiers include unlimited users; the free plan is one user with a monthly job cap; 14-day trial, no card. |
| Finding the part | Data plate photographed, catalog for that model opened on the job, part number photographed and matched against van stock. | Materials with current pricing added to the job, barcode scan for billable items, and search of every past job by materials used. |
| Stock | Van cells and a warehouse, and a tracked flag per part with one low-stock number per stock owner that feeds the shopping list, on every plan; a shared company warehouse and a company-wide list on Pro. | Stock levels shown are those tracked in Xero, MYOB, or QuickBooks Online, updated when synced invoices are approved. |
| The unit record | Brand, model, and serial on every job, with the customer's appliances and past jobs on their record. | Asset Management from the Growing tier: QR-labeled assets with custom fields, forms, service history, and a customer asset portal; the appliance page cites dishwashers and refrigerators. |
| Job statuses | New, In Progress, Warranty, Completed, Cancelled; a job waiting on a part stays In Progress with the part on it. | Quote, Work Order, Completed, Unsuccessful; a job stays a Work Order until all physical work is done. |
| Quoting | Diagnostic fee authorized by signature before the diagnosis; an estimate with up to three options that becomes the invoice on the same job. | Quote options, proposals with images, bundles of labor and materials, online acceptance, automated follow-ups, deposits. |
| Booking and scheduling | Booking page reads live availability and ZIP coverage and creates the job; map board with arrival windows; an on-my-way text with the Voice & SMS add-on. | Online booking with an instant quote, staff capability and travel time, and a deposit; allocation windows; auto routing; AI booking suggestions. |
| Phone and texts | Optional numbers and SMS with appointment and on-my-way texts and call recording (Voice & SMS add-on), and the drive-time ETA is the separate Automatic ETA & tax rate add-on; the AI Agent add-on answers and books. | ServiceM8 Phone records and transcribes calls into the job card; on-the-way texts, two-way SMS, Track My Arrival; an AI phone agent. |
| Integrations | Card payments, maps, business phone and SMS; the Encompass appliance parts catalog for model lookups, parts lists and parts diagrams; QuickBooks Online, with each job’s customer, invoice, payments and refunds sent one way; a CSV export of jobs, payments and margin for the bookkeeper. | Xero, QuickBooks Online, MYOB, Zapier, n8n, Mailchimp, and a published open API and SDK. |
| Warranty return | One tap from the completed job; linked both ways; free trips stay out of job counts. | No dedicated workmanship-warranty workflow on the pages we read; a return is a new job or a rescheduled Work Order. |
| Multi-company and subcontractors | Several companies under one login; subcontractors on the team. | ServiceM8 Network hands jobs to subcontractors and other businesses; confirm the multi-entity account structure directly. |
Choose Taskrol if
- You work alone at a volume past ServiceM8’s free job cap, and want a free plan with unlimited jobs and customers.
- Every job is an appliance and the part has to be found by model number, not by pricebook line.
- You want stock by van and by cell, not a company-wide count pulled from the accounting package.
- Warranty returns, diagnostic authorizations, and repeat visits to the same machine are daily events rather than edge cases.
- You run more than one company under one login.
Choose ServiceM8 if
- Your technicians carry iPhones and use what stays iOS-only — drawing diagrams, Room Scan, filling PDFs — or the Apple Watch and CarPlay extras.
- Xero or MYOB is your accounting package, or your stock count has to live in the accounting package rather than on the truck.
- Several technicians share a modest monthly job count, and you want to pay by jobs with unlimited users.
- Quoting with options, proposals, deposits, and automated follow-ups is where your business is won.
- You need an open API, Zapier, a forms builder, or recurring work.
Digging into the differences
Which phones your technicians carry
This is the part of the comparison that changed. When we read ServiceM8’s pages in September 2026, the full app ran on iPhone and iPad, and Android had ServiceM8 Lite, released in 2024 for technicians, subcontractors, and temporary workers: their own jobs, the job card and checklist, photos and notes, check-in and check-out, and no payments, barcode scanning, or other staff’s schedules. By October 4, 2026, ServiceM8’s help center described ServiceM8 for Android, on Android 8.0 or later, with almost all the functionality of the iOS app, its pricing page called the two apps almost identical, and the Google Play listing had been updated at the end of September. What stays iOS-only is short and specific: drawing diagrams, Room Scan with 3D and AR measuring, filling PDFs from the attachment preview, and full automatic photo tagging in the camera. Tap to Pay works on Android 13 or later with NFC, once Tap to Pay is already activated on the account. Apple Watch and CarPlay stay Apple’s, as they would anywhere. So a Samsung on the crew is no longer a device purchase before the software purchase; the honest test is whether your technicians use those four iOS-only tools, and the place to find out is a trial on the phones they carry. Taskrol ships one technician app for iPhone and Android and runs the office on the web, so the phone a technician already owns is the phone they use.
Pricing by jobs or pricing by people
The two products charge for different things, and the crossover is a real number for your shop rather than a philosophy. ServiceM8 tiers its plans by monthly job credits and does not count users on paid tiers, so a crew of six doing a modest volume pays for the volume; its free plan is one user with a monthly job cap, and a fourteen-day trial needs no card. Taskrol charges per seat and per company, and its Solo plan is free forever for one technician with unlimited jobs and customers. Put your own numbers in. A solo technician doing a hundred and fifty calls a month pays nothing on Taskrol and is well past ServiceM8’s free cap. A crew of five with a light schedule pays ServiceM8 for the jobs and Taskrol for five seats. A shop with three technicians and about a hundred and fifty jobs a month sits close to the line, where the arithmetic can go either way. Price both at the headcount and volume you expect in a year, and read the tier gates too: on ServiceM8, asset management, forms, proposals, and bundles arrive with the Growing tier and job costing with Premium.
Where the stock count lives
ServiceM8’s materials workflow is aimed at billing: add materials with current pricing to the job, scan a barcode to add a billable item, search every job you have ever created by the materials used, import supplier invoices against a job number, and, on the right tier, see cost and margin as you quote. The stock number itself is not ServiceM8’s. Its help center explains that the stock levels shown in the app are the ones tracked in Xero, MYOB, or QuickBooks Online, and that they update when invoices using tracked items are approved and synced. For a shop whose accounting package already counts stock, that is one count and one truth. For an appliance van it is the wrong altitude: the question is not how many thermal fuses the company owns but whether one is in this truck, in which box, right now. Taskrol keeps stock by van and by cell, adds a tracked part to the shopping list when its count drops to the low-stock number set in inventory settings, and shows the on-hand match next to the catalog result the moment a part is added to a job. Warehouse stock and low-stock reminders come with every plan, including free Solo; a shared company warehouse and company-wide purchasing come with Pro.
Asset management was built for a different site
ServiceM8 Asset Management is a proper module and its appliance page points it at our trade: record the location of appliances on a client’s site, such as dishwashers or refrigerators, track their history, and generate PDF inspection reports. Look at how it is built, though. Every asset is created from and linked to a globally unique QR-code label; the examples on the feature page are fire extinguishers, air conditioners, and compressors; service history accumulates through completed forms; a customer portal lets the client scan the label and report an issue; and the module is available from the Growing tier. That is the shape of commercial equipment on a site that gets inspected on a cycle, and for that work it is excellent. A residential dryer is not going to get a QR sticker, and its history is not an inspection form — it is the fault, the part number, and whether this visit is a warranty return. Taskrol’s appliance record starts from the data plate photographed on the first visit, holds brand, model, and serial, and opens the catalog for that model; the customer’s record lists their appliances and all their past jobs. Taskrol also shows the parts diagrams for the appliance model on the job, on every plan. Neither record is wrong. One was designed around a label, the other around a repair.
Where ServiceM8 is strong
ServiceM8 publishes a long list, and a buyer who needs it should weigh it first. It syncs clients, items, invoices, and payments with Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB; it has a published open API and SDK, Zapier and n8n connections, and a Mailchimp sync; it publishes recurring jobs with auto-routing, PDF forms with a form store, a knowledge base, proposals, bundles, live statements, deposits, offline access in the field, and a phone system that records and transcribes calls into the job card. Its AI drafts quotes, invoices, and emails and suggests booking times. Choose ServiceM8 if those items are on your list, or if your business is trades beyond appliances and HVAC equipment. Taskrol’s advantage is concentrated: the appliance, the model-number part, the van cell, the diagnostic authorization signed before the diagnosis, the estimate that becomes the invoice on the same job and goes on to QuickBooks Online, the warranty return linked to its original, and several companies on one login. For reporting, its support team builds any report you ask for at support@taskrol.com.
Switching from ServiceM8
Two things need care and everything else is an export. First, the accounting link: if ServiceM8 has been syncing invoices and payments into Xero, QuickBooks Online, or MYOB, pick the last synced invoice with your bookkeeper and raise the first Taskrol invoice after it, so your books have one clean boundary; if the package is QuickBooks Online, connect Taskrol to the same company with that day as the sync-from date and the invoices and payments raised in Taskrol arrive there one way from then on, and the CSV export of jobs, payments and margin is there for a bookkeeper who works from a file. If your stock counts lived in the accounting package, they stay there; you will be building van stock in Taskrol by cell, which is a good moment to physically count the trucks. Second, the customer-facing piece: put your Taskrol booking link where the hosted ServiceM8 booking form is today, before you cancel. Then the routine part: export clients, assets and job history and send them to support@taskrol.com — for ServiceM8, migration is available through our support team, and we move what the export contains — then run one real diagnostic-plus-part repair through Taskrol on the phones your technicians actually carry, and keep ServiceM8 readable until every open quote has been accepted or marked unsuccessful.
Frequently asked questions
Is Taskrol a ServiceM8 alternative for appliance repair?
Yes. It is our pick for an appliance or HVAC equipment repair company, and especially for one whose day turns on the part and the van. Taskrol covers booking, dispatch, model-number parts lookup, van and warehouse stock, estimates, invoices, payments, warranty returns, reporting and a one-way sync to QuickBooks Online across iPhone, Android, and web. ServiceM8 is built for a mixed-trade business, a crew that relies on its iOS-only tools, or an office that needs Xero or MYOB sync.
Does ServiceM8 work on Android?
Yes. As read on October 4, 2026, ServiceM8 for Android is on Google Play, needs Android 8.0 or later, and has almost all the functionality of the iOS app by ServiceM8’s own help center; its pricing page calls the two almost identical. Drawing diagrams, Room Scan with 3D and AR measuring, filling PDFs from the attachment preview, and full automatic photo tagging stay iOS-only, and Tap to Pay needs Android 13, NFC, and Tap to Pay already activated on the account. ServiceM8 Lite, the cut-down Android app of 2024, is what the Android page on ServiceM8’s site still describes. Taskrol’s technician app is published for both iPhone and Android, with the office on the web.
Does ServiceM8 track parts inventory?
It shows stock levels, but the numbers come from your accounting package: ServiceM8’s help center explains that stock is tracked in Xero, MYOB, or QuickBooks Online and updates when synced invoices are approved. Materials can be added to jobs with current pricing and by barcode. Van-level or bin-level stock is not something ServiceM8 publishes. Taskrol tracks stock by van and by cell and turns low stock into a shopping list, shared by the whole team on Pro.
Which is cheaper, ServiceM8 or Taskrol?
Taskrol's prices: Solo is $0 forever for one technician; Basic is $29/month with 1 user; Pro is $129/month with 3 users; each additional user is $29/month on either paid plan; every new account gets 7 days of Pro, no card. Solo has unlimited jobs, so Taskrol's bill follows the headcount. ServiceM8 tiers by monthly job count with no per-user charge on paid plans, so its bill follows the job count: ServiceM8's pricing page, read October 15, 2026: 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. Put your own headcount and monthly jobs into both.
Can ServiceM8 track individual appliances?
Yes, through Asset Management, which is available from the Growing tier. Its appliance page describes recording the location of dishwashers and refrigerators on a client’s site, tracking their history, and generating PDF inspection reports; each asset is tied to a QR-code label and its history builds through completed forms. Taskrol records brand, model, and serial from the data plate, opens the parts catalog for that model, and links the warranty return to the original job.
Is there a free plan on both?
Yes. ServiceM8’s free plan is one user with a monthly job cap, and its paid plans open with a fourteen-day trial that needs no card. Taskrol’s Solo plan is for one technician and one company with unlimited jobs and customers, free forever with no card, and paid plans start a seven-day trial. One person doing a lot of jobs stays on Solo at any volume.