A No-Nonsense Review of Housecall Pro
Is Housecall Pro the best app for your construction business? This in-depth review explores everything you need to make an informed choice!
It only takes one mistake to run a successful home service business to the ground.
Thankfully, Housecall Pro was created to ease the load off of field service business owners or managers. With this software, you can stay on top of scheduling, dispatching, billing, marketing, and other critical business aspects.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into Housecall Pro to explore its benefits and drawbacks, helping you make an informed decision before taking the plunge.
Starting at $69/mo.
Helpful onboarding tutorials
Intuitive dashboard features
Quick access to the customer database
Flat cost for up to 15 users
Estimates easily convertible into jobs
Costly for a solopreneur
Location not tracked in real-time
Limited support for Basic plan users
Limited integrations on the Basic plan
What Is Housecall Pro?
Housecall Pro is a cloud-based field service management software that helps home service businesses work smarter.
Launched in 2013, Housecall Pro has been helping field service business owners with its “Swiss army knife” business solutions–from scheduling and dispatching to automatic invoicing and even online review management.
It aims to transform how HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other specialty contractors manage their day-to-day operations. However, it also works well for other types of field service businesses—garage door, home cleaning, landscaping, appliance repair, pest control, and many more.
Housecall Pro Overview
Housecall Pro comes with a fleet of features specifically designed to meet the needs of home service businesses.
These features help business owners or managers deal with much less paperwork, eliminate manual entry, and have more freedom to spend with their families or grow their businesses further. They include:
- Drag-and-drop job scheduling
- On-the-spot/scheduled dispatching
- GPS employee time tracking
- Easy service estimates
- Built-in paperless invoicing
- Professional price book templates
Sign-Up and Onboarding
Housecall Pro’s homepage cuts to the chase by mentioning who the product is for (home service business), how long the free trial is (14 days), and what you need to do next (enter your email address).
Entering your email address directs you to a form you must complete to sign up with Housecall Pro. Provide your name, phone number, company details, and password, and the account will be created for you.
As soon as you sign up, the onboarding process begins. You will be assigned an avatar whose business is the same as yours. Mine was Alex, who runs a plumbing business (the type of business I declared when I created my account).
It’s not much of a differentiating factor, but customizing the user’s onboarding experience based on the type of home service business he’s running adds a nice touch of personalization. It gives the impression that the software is tailor-made for you.
The virtual character provides the initial virtual walkthrough of Housecall Pro’s features. You won’t have to worry about missing out on details as there are back arrows that allow you to go back and forth between instruction boxes.
Once you’re ready to explore Housecall Pro, you can opt out of the walkthrough and try the features individually.
To ensure you’re still on track with the onboarding process, there’s a “Get Started” section right before the homepage on the main menu where you can find the onboarding checklist. Housecall Pro will highlight each step you complete so you’ll know what to explore next and what you have completed so far.
The good thing about Housecall Pro is it never leaves any stone unturned when it comes to providing a positive learning experience. Each onboarding step includes video instruction for a quick overview of the feature and an interactive tutorial that lets you use the features.
For instance, in the step that taught me how to create estimates, Housecall Pro guided me through every step – from adding the service to selecting the right price. You can enter the details you have in mind or choose from Housecall Pro’s templated answers so you won’t have to think about fake info while testing the feature.
The onboarding checklist starts with creating an account, followed by scheduling and dispatching jobs, uploading your data, setting up payments, and automating online reviews.
It’s a bit inconvenient to jump between your current page and the onboarding checklist, so I wish there was a progress bar at the bottom (or top) to help me track what I’ve completed so far without the pesky back and forth.
Once I completed the checklist, I felt I better understood Housecall Pro’s core offerings. The smooth transition between onboarding steps ensures you understand the feature well, unlike other software walkthroughs that leave you with more questions than answers.
To check how Housecall Pro fares from a new mobile app user’s standpoint, I first assigned a test job to another user assuming the role of a “plumber.” Housecall Pro sent an invitation link to his email address, which unfortunately expired when he found it.
Fortunately, Housecall Pro allows new users to re-generate the sign-in link themselves, eliminating what would otherwise be a significant roadblock.
However, his experience after clicking the sign-in link could have been more seamless. He attempted to click the “Install on Google,” but it only got him stuck in the mobile browser for a while.
Any technical hurdle leaves a negative impression on first-time users, so Housecall Pro could improve in this department.
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The Web App Experience
Housecall Pro’s dashboard is packed with all the crucial details you normally put on sticky notes or phone reminders. At the top of the page, it displays all your company’s open or unscheduled jobs, estimates, and invoices that may need your immediate attention.
Employee status shows which workers have jobs scheduled for today (and tomorrow), ensuring no one misses an appointment. A ‘Recent activity’ section lets you know what changes have been made recently and jump straight to those changes with one click.
The sections in the dashboard are placed strategically so you can monitor all the most significant moving pieces of your company at a glance.
Free trial users don’t have much control, but once you transition into one of Housecall Pro’s paid plans, you can customize the dashboard’s layout and add or remove blocks to your liking.
What I like best about Housecall Pro is the ease of creating a new entry.
While you can click “Schedule” on the navigation menu to create new calendar entries, you can also take a shortcut by clicking the “New” button in the upper right corner of the homepage. This allows you to quickly create a new job, proposal, estimate, event, or customer entry.
Another plus point goes to Housecall Pro’s customer database. Easily accessed through the “Customers” section in the main menu, this is a one-stop shop for everything you need to know about past and present customers.
Each customer entry gives you information about the customer’s lifetime value and an attachments section where you can keep all the important files associated with that customer.
Most importantly, the customer database allows you to quickly review the statuses of jobs, estimates, and invoices so you can prioritize them.
The Mobile Experience
While other similar cloud-based solutions have apps that are barely recognizable compared to their desktop versions, Housecall Pro’s app takes on a different approach.
Its engineers have done a good job of capturing the essence of its web app and scaling it down to fit mobile phone screens. As a result, the mobile app is as easy to navigate and has all the features you’d expect to find on the desktop version.
To see what the mobile app looks like from a field worker’s perspective, I tried assigning a ‘test job’ to someone with Housecall Pro installed on his phone. The dashboard looks a little different from what a front-line admin would see on the office desktop, but that’s because the mobile app is optimized for the individual technician out in the field.
The mobile app shows an overview of jobs assigned to the technician. The dashboard also has a “Needs Attention” section where the worker is notified about upcoming jobs or tasks, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
When you click on a job, the same options available in the desktop version are there. But there’s one difference: the time tracker is only available in mobile apps, so field service workers can easily record their time completing the jobs.
Housecall Pro’s mobile app delivers when it comes to tracking time.
Technicians can easily clock in or out and have access to their timesheets. They can also tap on the job or customer’s entry to access the address’s location via Google Maps. A clear image of the building (or its interior) will automatically load, taking the guesswork out of finding the customer’s location while driving.
One thing lacking in the mobile app is the chat bubble that desktop users can click to access Housecall Pro’s chat support. On the plus side, plenty of support options are available if you scroll down in the main menu. Perhaps the chat icon was removed to improve user experience, but it’s a good thing that customer support is available across all devices.
Housecall Pro Key Features
Scheduling in Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro’s scheduling software helps you keep work schedules organized without much of a learning curve.
Adding an entry is as easy as clicking a time slot, choosing what you want to schedule (job, estimate, or event), selecting the customer you want to associate it with, and filling out all the details before saving it. Alternatively, you can click the “New” button on the main menu to jump straight to the scheduling tools.
Once the schedule is set, you can quickly access it on the dashboard so you’re constantly reminded when it’s due.
The calendar is neat, and you can toggle between day, week, and month to see the schedules in a close-up or expanded view whenever you want.
You can also assign a color to each employee or area your business serves, helping managers see at a glance which workers have their plates already full and from which areas most of their clientele is coming.
The calendar’s drag-and-drop functionality is a life-saver. It makes rescheduling a breeze, as you can drag any entry and drop it into a new date and timeslot–no manual data entry is needed.
Unfortunately, there’s no quick way to duplicate entries on the calendar. I half-expected a “Copy” option to be available when I tried to right-click one of the entries. However, right-clicking is barred, and you can only left-click on a time slot to create a new entry.
Duplicating an entry is only possible after clicking the individual entry, selecting the “Edit Appointment” option, and adjusting the “Recurrence” setting so the job or event will automatically repeat on the calendar according to your selected frequency.
Whew. That’s too many clicks for one request!
Each appointment you create is never set in stone. Click the entry on the calendar, and you can edit it in any way you want. You can add or remove team members or set the arrival window so the customers know how long they must wait.
The arrival window gives clients a time frame for the technician to arrive. You can set it to none, which means the technician will arrive on time, or add 15 minutes up to 4 hours to the waiting time. There’s also an option to set whatever you’ve chosen as the default arrival window for all future appointments.
The scheduling feature is also technician-friendly, as each appointment can be customized with checklists, notes, tags, attachments, and everything the worker needs to complete the job accurately and on time.
However, one thing I’ve noticed, at least for the free trial version, is there’s no option to assign one of the team members a “watcher” role. You can add multiple members to a scheduled job, but there’s no way to distinguish one member from another.
An option to assign at least one of them a clearly defined “watcher” role ensures someone is tasked with overseeing the project, improving accountability across the board.
Dispatching in Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro’s scheduling calendar is also optimized for dispatching so that you can monitor your team and each job’s progress in one place.
Setting the calendar in “dispatch” mode will show the dispatch board, which has a more granular view of each team member’s schedule. Since each technician is assigned a specific color, it’s easier to spot overlaps, vacant time slots, and scheduling inefficiencies.
You can display the entire team’s schedules to compare them side-by-side, or you can display an individual technician’s schedule to see whether his plate is already full.
With the dispatch board in full view, home service business owners or managers can easily track everything. Assigning a job on the spot is as easy as adding an entry to the dispatch board, which will automatically notify the customer and field worker.
Rescheduling jobs is also effortless. You can easily drag and drop any entry to any date and time slot you want to move it to.
While Housecall Pro’s dispatching features help technicians move around quickly and efficiently, it also cares for the customers. Each scheduled job has an OMW (On My Way) feature that you can customize so your clients will be notified when the technician is en route to the area.
The app calendar also integrates with Google Calendar, so clients can personally select their best available appointment times when booking through your company’s website.
Time Tracking in Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro also offers a time tracker on all plans (even during the free trial period) so you can track your team’s productivity and keep the payroll data on point.
The time tracker is available on the mobile app, so technicians can easily clock in and out while on the fly. If the job can’t be completed right away, they can easily pause the time tracker and quickly pick up where they left off later.
A timesheet report is generated for each employee. Managers can review this report to ensure the time entries and the number of hours logged perfectly match the schedule.
Location tracking is also available if you allow the Housecall Pro app to use GPS tracking.
Unfortunately, the map isn’t updated in real time. Instead, it is auto-updated every few minutes to help you save your phone’s battery and prevent the app from eating up your phone data. This is an excellent way to save on costs, but you also pay the price by not being able to pinpoint precisely where the technicians are currently located.
Estimates in Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro also lets you create and send service estimates.
Creating one is as simple as scheduling a job. Click any time slot on the calendar, then select “Estimate,” or click the “New” button on the homepage and then “Estimate” to get to the same destination.
The form allows you to customize the estimate based on your customer’s needs. If you’re unsure about what to include, Housecall Pro also has templates to automatically populate the form with details.
What I like most about this form is the job cost breakdown at the bottom, where you can estimate the profit margin based on the cost of the materials and services you entered. This will help you keep track of your expenses and maximize your profits in the long run.
Once the estimate is generated, you can customize it before sending it to the customer for review. Housecall Pro allows you to create and present options so the client has something to choose from. You can edit each option to include an image, an overview, and a quick explanation of what differentiates it from other choices.
The customers can view these options side-by-side, allowing them to compare the estimates thoroughly and make the best decision.
Housecall Pro can easily convert the estimate into a scheduled job when the customer approves it. This eliminates the need to create a new entry, saving you much time. Similarly, you can convert jobs back into estimates, which can be equally time-saving if the customer changes his mind and demands new estimates.
Invoicing in Housecall Pro
As soon as the job is complete, Housecall Pro’s built-in invoicing allows you to send an invoice to the customer in just a few clicks. This is hands-down one of Housecall Pro’s main selling points, as you can customize the digital invoice and set up auto reminders effortlessly.
To access the invoicing feature, I clicked on a sample job and then the “Invoice” icon at the top of the page. If you entered all the required information when you first scheduled the job, the invoice should be ready. However, you can still add some finishing touches, like attachments and customized invoice messages for the customer.
Once you’re all set, just click the “Next” button.
Finally, you can choose to send the invoice via email or text. Before sending it to your customer’s inbox, you can customize the message again.
All invoices and the rest of the customer data will be saved in the cloud. If you want to retrieve an invoice sent to a particular customer, you can search the customer database for it. This can serve as evidence that you can show to any customer demanding a warranty for something you never did (or if they’re disputing something you delivered successfully).
I dug deeper and found Housecall Pro’s settings offer more customization options for its built-in invoicing. For example, if you prefer printed invoices, you can choose to have them “envelope optimized” so they will look good when printed on a #9 or #10 window envelope.
Reminders can also be configured so customers will be automatically notified of unpaid invoices every day or for up to 30 days.
Price Book in Housecall Pro
A price book shows all your business’s services with a matching professional image and transparent pricing. Housecall Pro allows you to import your existing pricing data in an Excel or CSV file, or you can let Housecall Pro build the price book for you.
Setting up a price book is simple. Go to “Price book” in the main menu, and you’ll find a wealth of service and estimate templates to fill your price book.
When you sign up for Housecall Pro, it notes the type of home service business you’re running and customizes its templates. In my case, I entered plumbing, so it’s no surprise all the templates presented were designed specifically for a typical plumbing business. This saves a lot of time since you won’t have to use search filters or plow through unrelated results to get what you need.
In particular, the estimate templates are beneficial because they’re already pre-filled with a professional image, service name, description, price, and discount, which you can easily customize with one click.
Housecall Pro can also integrate with Profit Rhino. The latter helps you offer services with flat-rate pricing while staying on track with your profit margins.
Reporting in Housecall Pro
If you want to know how much revenue your business has earned this quarter or how many jobs your business completed the previous year, Housecall Pro can generate the report you need in a few clicks.
Housecall Pro can generate 33 reports (22 if you’re on a free trial account).
Select the metrics you want to show, and they will automatically appear on your dashboard. You can customize it by resizing, rearranging, deleting, or duplicating the reports. Each report can also be displayed in table format, bar chart, or line chart.
There are plenty of reports to choose from, ranging from those related to jobs and estimates to service plans and payments. I enjoyed playing with the data, and there’s a report available for anyone who wants to gain insight into how his business is performing.
It’s like having an intelligent data analyst on your payroll who can hunt down and crunch numbers without you lifting a finger.
Integrating Other Business Apps with Housecall Pro
When it comes to streamlining most aspects of a home service business, Housecall Pro can stand alone. However, native integrations are recommended to help the software unleash its full potential.
Housecall Pro seamlessly integrates with third-party integrations like Thumbtack, Google Local Services, Zapier, Gusto, Profit Rhino, Wisetack, and many more.
Some of these apps are effectively necessary to give your customers the best experience. Wisetack, for example, gives them access to consumer financing, while Profit Rhino allows you to add services with flat-based pricing in your price book.
Housecall Pro works well with QuickBooks to handle your accounting needs, but you must be on a QuickBooks Essentials plan or higher to enjoy it. The app syncs perfectly with both QuickBooks Online and Desktop. It feeds it with all your invoices, payments, customers, and line items, ensuring that every dollar spent and received is well accounted for.
If you need greater flexibility, you can also integrate Housecall Pro with an open API, allowing you to use more tools to turbocharge your business. However, this is only available for Max plan users.
Simply put, Housecall is a great choice if you need nothing beyond basic integrations. More wiggle room for improving your business means climbing to a higher pricing plan and having additional dollars charged to your credit card every month.
Housecall Pro Might be a Good Fit for You If…
Housecall Pro knows its market well and has designed solutions to uniquely solve that market’s problems.
Home service companies, whether residential or commercial, will find one or more of Housecall Pro’s features remarkably effective in automating the less exciting parts of their businesses.
So, is Housecall Pro the right choice for you? Yes, if you’re one (or more) of the following:
- You want software that combines product walkthroughs with video and interactive tutorials
- You want all your work history–including invoices, projects, and customer files–to be viewable in a few clicks
- You want a field service management software with flat pricing for up to 15 users
- You want access to a support group full of like-minded entrepreneurs
- You want to create and send estimates and instantly turn them into scheduled jobs without additional manual entry
- You want software that offers hassle-free payment options to your customers
- You want a home service business management software that works well and offers exactly the same features across all platforms
You Might Not Want to Use Housecall Pro If…
While Housecall Pro was developed with struggling home service business owners in mind, it has some flaws.
Some of these imperfections may be deal-breakers, while others may not be big enough of an issue to warrant switching to one of Housecall Pro’s direct competitors.
If you’re one of the following, you might consider other alternatives or stick with Housecall Pro to see if its benefits compensate for its inconveniences.
- You run a one-person enterprise, are happy running it with simple apps, and have no plans to expand
- You want to easily duplicate jobs in one click and add a supervisor or manager to watch over specific projects
- You run a home service business that employs contractors or subcontractors on a short-term basis and don’t need “employee” features
- You want reliable, 24/7 customer service
- You don’t want to integrate other apps
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Housecall Pro Cost/Pricing
First-time users can test Housecall Pro during its 14-day free trial period.
The core features–scheduling, dispatching, and estimates–are available in the free version. However, the app’s full customization options and critical features will remain locked until you decide to become a paying customer.
Housecall Pro offers three pricing tiers: Basic, Essentials, and Max. Subscriptions to any of these plans don’t involve contracts, so users are free to upgrade, downgrade, or ditch Housecall Pro altogether anytime without fear of getting locked into a contract.
The basic plan charges $69 per month for a single user. Core features are included, bundled with employee time tracking, a mobile app (iOS and Android), and membership to Housecall Pro’s growing Facebook online communities.
Basic Tier | Max Tier | |
Base Cost | $69 / mo. | $299 / mo. (for 1-8 users) and $499 / mo. (for 1-15 users) |
User Cost | N/A | $35 per user / mo. for every additional user |
Offers? | $49 / mo. discounted rate (if billed annually) | Discount from annual subscription available upon inquiry |
Free Trial? | 14 days (no credit card required) | 14 days (no credit card required) |
Essentials includes all the basic features plus some great ones, like QuickBooks integration, GPS tracking, and equipment tracking – perfect for businesses about to scale. This plan has a flat fee of $169 per month for 1-5 users.
The highest pricing plan, Max, is for bigger businesses with bigger budgets. The main pricing page shows it can accommodate 1-100 users, with the pricing details available upon request. However, when I signed up for a free trial account and tried to check what happens when someone attempts to upgrade, it revealed two sub-tiers: Max, which costs $299 per month for 1-8 users, and Max+, which costs $499 per month for 1-15 users.
Want more detail on Housecall Pro pricing, including more information on features included in each tier? Please check out our dedicated pricing article:
Housecall Pro Pricing: Tiers, Features, and More
Housecall Pro Reviews
I’ve scoured the internet to see what verified users have to say about Housecall Pro and its performance. I can’t possibly include everyone’s opinions here, so I’ve meticulously chosen only those that will help you have an objective view of Housecall Pro – warts and all.
With flat pricing for basic plan users, businesses with smaller teams can benefit from Housecall Pro’s comprehensive business solutions while controlling their expenses. The user below is one of the basic plan users who enjoy Housecall Pro’s affordable pricing.
A one-stop shop ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Housecall Pro is like a one-stop shop for streamlining your business and making money. Other services like this are too expensive for small startups and new businesses.
While Housecall Pro aims to please the home service business owners, it’s interesting to see how it performs from a worker’s perspective. One user thinks the mobile app leaves much to be desired, with the time clock failing to notify its user and some features not syncing well with Housecall Pro’s web app.
What I do on the laptop is much better ⭐
I don’t like the time clock not notifying me if I’m still clocked in. Job descriptions vary from laptop to phone, so I’ll have to edit and add service descriptions regularly instead of having them saved.
One drawback of Housecall Pro is its limited integrations, especially if you’re on a basic plan. The user below could have benefitted from the open API integration available in the Max plan, but that flexibility costs an arm and a leg.
Ok for on call visits ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Helps keep my at-home client visits separate from my other scheduling platforms. I’d enjoy it if the platform could be more easily integrated with my other scheduling software.
Our Score (and Why We Chose It)
In reviewing Housecall Pro, I considered the most critical factors directly impacting how people use and benefit from the software.
So, it’s unsurprising that more weight was given to ease of use, features, and functionality. The onboarding process, customer support, and value for price are equally important, but they’re not the ideal yardsticks to gauge Housecall Pro’s quality. Integrations are likewise important, but you judge software by how strongly it stands, not necessarily by how many apps it can sync with.
Housecall Pro goes the extra mile to ensure users understand how to navigate its dashboard and use its core features. It combines strategies–product walkthroughs, videos, and interactive tutorials–to guarantee maximum learning. It also complements them with an effortless signing-up experience, hence the high score it deserves.
Both mobile and browser-based apps are intelligently designed, and each element is well thought out so users of any age can use them with ease.
In the features department, Housecall Pro also excels at giving all users (regardless of plan) complete access to scheduling, estimate, dispatching, and invoicing tools that eliminate manual data entry and the need to fill out forms.
There are a few flaws, though, but they don’t remove the fact that Housecall Pro is a well-made product; if anything, the missing or weak features mean there’s still room for improvement.
Although the plans have flat fees for up to 15 users, one-person enterprises are better off using free tools like Google Sheets to manage their businesses and upgrade to one of Housecall Pro’s paid plans as the company grows.
Scores for the value of price and integration could have been higher if only QuickBooks integration had been available, even for the basic plan. You’d think this feature would already be available in all paid plans, but Housecall Pro proves that a software pricing structure can still be a work in progress.
Lastly, customer support is adequate, but it could have been better. While the web app has a chat bubble available for those who want access to automated or live assistance, the same doesn’t exist on Housecall Pro’s mobile app. One-on-one support that gives a helping hand exactly when you need it isn’t available until you’re profitable enough to reach the Housecall Pro’s most expensive plan.
Alternatives to Housecall Pro
Housecall Pro has its strengths, but it’s not the only fish in the pond.
Workyard, for example, is designed for home service businesses and any business whose employees are always on the go. This explains why its features are much more precise and robust at price points that small to mid-sized companies can afford.
Other key players in the market directly compete with Housecall Pro, and we’ll summarize why they can be great alternatives in case Housecall Pro doesn’t suit your business needs.
14 days (no credit card needed)
No free trial available
No free trial available
For 14 days (no credit card needed)
Free access for teams with up to 10 members
For 14 days (no credit card needed)
Want to know more about why we chose these apps as the top alternatives to Housecall Pro? Check out our detailed article on Housecall Pro alternatives, which includes more than twice as many apps to consider, as well as our reasoning for why the chosen apps are worthy of consideration:
Top Housecall Pro Time Alternatives: Other Apps to Consider
Final Thoughts
Managing a home service business is like juggling several balls–you must keep things moving, or else everything will fall apart.
Fortunately, field service management software automates how you run the business. You can always schedule jobs, monitor their progress, track your employees’ performance, or send multiple invoices–but without all the stressful paperwork.
Housecall Pro shines for providing the reliable tools you need to stay on top of things, even on the most basic plan. Its core features may work great for your business, but only if you can tolerate some of its flaws.
With a few minutes of delay, Housecall Pro’s map-based team viewer doesn’t provide a real-time update on where the field workers are located. Workyard, a top alternative to Housecall Pro, tracks each worker’s location in real time, giving managers reliable data to make accurate dispatching and scheduling decisions.
Workyard also has an advanced time-tracking feature capable of automatically clocking in workers as soon as they arrive at the job site and clocking them out when they leave. Learn more about how Workyard can help your field service business keep its labor costs under control, or sign up for the 14-day free trial to start using all its time-saving features.
