Guide
What actually limits you: jobs, users, seats or technicians
Updated
Every plan has a ceiling of a different shape: jobs, users, office versus field seats, or technicians. Work out which you will hit first before comparing prices.
Talk to a specialist Six US platforms costed at one, five and twenty electricians, the point where the cheapest one flips, and the three vendors that will not publish a number at all.
The four ceilings
ServiceM8 caps jobs a month and states outright it does not charge per user, giving unlimited users on every paid plan. Kickserv caps users in blocks of 5, 10 and 20 and does not cap jobs at all. FieldPulse charges by seat and separates full access seats from limited field seats. ServiceTitan charges by technician.
Housecall Pro caps neither explicitly: its tiers are drawn on features, and it does not specify a user count per plan. FieldEdge does not publish a ceiling of any kind.
Why the office staff number decides it
Most electrical firms count vans when they price software, then find the bill includes the office.
On a per technician model an administrator may cost nothing, not being a technician. On a bundled user model they consume one of your five. On a seat model they cost a full access seat, likely the dearer of the two seat types.
FieldPulse's split is the only structure here that prices the difference honestly, and it is also the one you cannot see without a sales call. That is a genuine trade: the fairest published model in this category is not published.
Growing into a ceiling is not the same as growing out of one
A job cap and a user cap fail differently when you hit them. Exceeding ServiceM8's Premium Plus allotment costs 20c a job, so the bill bends rather than breaking; you overrun gradually and pay for it.
A user cap is a wall. Hiring a sixth electrician on Kickserv's Start plan means moving to Run at $119, nearly double, for one extra person. The cost of that hire is not $11.90, it is $59 of plan plus the person.
Two questions to ask before you sign
Ask what happens on the day you exceed the limit: does the system stop, warn, or bill you. And ask whether you can move back down. FieldEdge is the only vendor here publishing an answer to the second question and the answer is restrictive: downgrades are permitted only at the end of the current contract period.
That matters more than it looks for electrical contractors, whose headcount moves with the contract book. Buying for your busiest quarter and paying for it all year is a common and avoidable mistake.