Written by Colin Tross, founder of EasyDone and an audio visual installation business owner. Last checked 10 October 2026.
ServiceM8 is a brilliant first ute and a frustrating ninth one. That's not a knock on it. It's what it was built for, and its own help centre says so.
Yeah, we make EasyDone, so we're biased. Here's why we reckon we've earned it, area by area, head to head, with one Perth business as the before and after.
Before: Tash Mahoney starts Mahoney Air in Cockburn Central with one ute and ServiceM8. Book the job, do the job, invoice the job, go home. Perfect.
After: nine techs, an office manager, three builders sending ducted installs on the new estates from Alkimos to Piara Waters, and a shed full of units. ServiceM8 hasn't changed. Her business has. Every new person has turned into another phone call to Tash.
The short answer, side by side
| Area | ServiceM8 | EasyDone |
|---|---|---|
| Who it's built for | High volumes of short jobs that take "a matter of hours or days". (ServiceM8 Help Center, Can ServiceM8 track overall project progress?, read 10 October 2026) | Small and growing trade businesses doing service and project work.2 |
| AI | Office Agent drafts quotes, invoices and follow-ups for you to approve. (ServiceM8, AI quoting, invoicing and CRM for tradies, read 10 October 2026) | The Assistant does quotes, bookings, invoices and settings when you ask.4 |
| Projects | One job, booked more than once. (ServiceM8 Help Center, Can ServiceM8 track overall project progress?) | Scopes, variations, Gantt, labour burn, progress claims, retentions.2 |
| Stock | Through your accounting package. (ServiceM8 Help Center, Does ServiceM8 track stock levels or offer inventory management?, read 10 October 2026) | Quote to job to purchase order to van, reserved per project.2 |
| Phone app | The thing crews love about it. (ServiceM8 September 2025 update, read 10 October 2026) | Today, On my way, time on the job, required checklists.2 |
| Changes for your business | Settings and add-ons. | Workshop builds the change for you.7 |
Now the detail, one area at a time.
Who it's built for
ServiceM8's help centre calls it a job management tool for high volumes of short jobs. (ServiceM8 Help Center, Can ServiceM8 track overall project progress?) That's a sole trader or a small crew doing service calls, and it's great at it. Paid plans include unlimited users, but each plan caps the new jobs you can create a month, (ServiceM8 Australian pricing and inclusions, read 10 October 2026) so the busier you get, the more you're watching the meter. It started life on the iPhone and now has an Android Lite app as well. (ServiceM8 September 2025 update)
Then the work changes. Tash's crew isn't doing two-hour service calls any more. They're doing a rough-in at frame stage, a fit-off weeks later, a variation when the client wants a zone added, and a retention held until the defects period's up. That's not a job. That's a project.
Verdict: ServiceM8 for the ute. EasyDone for the crew that's outgrown it.
The assistants
Everyone's got "AI" now. Read the fine print and most of it answers questions, writes summaries or tidies your text. Handy. It isn't doing your admin.
| What its AI does | Does it do the work for you? | |
|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8 | Office Agent opens beside a job and drafts quotes, invoices, reports and follow-ups for you to approve. (ServiceM8, AI quoting, invoicing and CRM for tradies) | Drafts, inside the job you've opened. |
| Simpro | Cooper answers questions, flags problems and helps with briefings, job notes and customer summaries. (Simpro Group press release, Simpro Group unveils Lightning, read 10 October 2026) | It helps you read and write about the job. |
| AroFlo | JustAsk answers questions about your figures, with helpers for job briefings and notes; the bill scanner costs extra. (AroFlo platform features, read 10 October 2026; AroFlo Help, AI Assisted Features, read 10 October 2026) | Answers and scans. |
| Tradify | SmartTools reads a supplier bill onto the job and tidies your writing, on its top tier. (Tradify, SmartTools, read 10 October 2026) | A scanner and a spell-checker. |
| EasyDone | The Assistant can do anything a screen in EasyDone can: quotes, bookings, invoices, chasing, moving jobs, even your settings.4 | Yes. You ask, it does it, you OK the money and the sends. |
Here's Tash at 6.20, from the ute: "Move Daniel's Alkimos rough-in to Wednesday, put Priya on the Piara Waters fit-off, and quote the Hillarys builder for the extra zone at our usual rates." The Assistant finds the jobs and the people, makes the moves, drafts the quote from her saved rates and asks about anything it can't find. The quote waits for her OK before it goes anywhere, because money and customer sends always do. It works inside each person's permissions, so the apprentice can't go rescheduling the whole week.4
Verdict: theirs mostly tell you about the work. Ours does it.
Projects
In ServiceM8 you can book a job more than once and put more than one tech on it. (ServiceM8 Help Center, Can ServiceM8 track overall project progress?) That gets you a rough-in and a fit-off. It doesn't get you a project.
In EasyDone, a project holds every won quote as its own scope. The extra zone is a variation: its own lines, its own labour budget and its own bar on the Gantt. Tash sees labour budget against hours actually burned while the job's still running, milestones tick off as they go, progress claims go out numbered against the project, and the builder's retention is held and released as its own invoice when the defects period ends.2
| ServiceM8 | EasyDone | |
|---|---|---|
| Multi-stage work | One job booked more than once. (ServiceM8 Help Center, Can ServiceM8 track overall project progress?) | A project with scopes, variations and a Gantt.2 |
| Is it making money? | Job by job. | Labour budget against hours burned, scope by scope, while it's running.2 |
| Getting paid on a long job | Invoice the job. | Numbered progress claims, milestones and retentions.2 |
Verdict: if builders are sending you work, you need projects. ServiceM8 gives you jobs.
Stock
ServiceM8 doesn't keep its own stock count. It leans on your accounting package, and the quantity only moves when an invoice with that item syncs across. (ServiceM8 Help Center, Does ServiceM8 track stock levels or offer inventory management?) So the ducted unit Raj, Tash's supervisor, grabbed this morning is still "in stock" until somebody invoices it.
In EasyDone, stock is one flow. Items carry supplier buy prices and your margin, so the quote prices itself. Win the quote and the units flow onto the job as gear to order. Raise the purchase order from the job, receive it, and it's reserved for that project, so the Piara Waters unit can't wander off to Alkimos. Transfers to the vans and stocktakes keep their history.2
Our one honest limit: having supplier emails matched to purchase orders automatically needs your mailbox and AI connections switched on in EasyDone first.2
Verdict: ServiceM8 counts stock after you've invoiced it. EasyDone tracks it from the quote to the van.
The phone app
This is where ServiceM8 earned its name, and we won't pretend otherwise. The phone side is what crews like about it.
EasyDone's phone app is built for the same crew. Today shows the next job with an On my way button, and the text to the customer is previewed before it goes. Time runs against the job, notes and photos land on it, and a required checklist can hold a visit open until the information's there, so the commissioning sheet doesn't get "done later".2
Verdict: a draw on the phone, and EasyDone wins the moment the job goes back to the office, because the office is working from the same project.
Changes for your business
Every good business has one thing it does differently. With most software, you get what everyone else gets and you live with it.
In EasyDone, you ask for the change. Workshop takes the request, plans it, builds it and tests it, and you review the result.7 When Tash wanted the builder's site manager on every rough-in booking, that was a sentence, not a spreadsheet beside the screen. And her data lives on her own server in Sydney.13
Verdict: settings you live with, or a change built for you. Easy call.
How do the other ServiceM8 alternatives compare?
Honestly? They're established, and they're all showing their age. I used AroFlo in my own AV business, so I'm not guessing: it can do projects and stock, and it makes you work for every bit of it.
| What they offer | Where EasyDone is stronger | |
|---|---|---|
| Simpro | Service, projects and stock. (Simpro features, read 10 October 2026) | The same ground without the weight, plus the Assistant.4 |
| AroFlo | Projects, assets and supplier tools. (AroFlo platform features) | Project and stock depth with a phone app the crew will open.2 |
| Tradify | Enquiries, job tracking and invoicing. (Tradify features, read 10 October 2026) | Projects and stock, beyond job tracking.2 |
| Jobber | Tiered customer and job tools, priced in US dollars with team and billing options. (Jobber plans and pricing, read 10 October 2026) | Built and hosted here, on your own server in Sydney.13 |
Verdict: the big ones are heavy, the small ones run out of road. Our own pricing is on the pricing page, in plain numbers.
What about moving across mid-season?
We plan the move with you: what comes across, what gets archived, and when, so nobody's caught short with a full diary.17 Our growth guide is good reading for the bit after that.
After, a month on
It's 6.15 on a Monday and Raj still has his phone out, but now he's looking at the week, not hunting for it. The Alkimos rough-in, the Piara Waters fit-off and the extra zone sit in one project for the builder. The ducted unit has a job number on it. Tash's phone didn't ring before sunrise.
ServiceM8 got Mahoney Air off the ground. EasyDone is what it grows into.
If that's you, book an EasyDone demo on one of your own jobs. Bring the ugliest builder project you've got. We'll run it end to end, and we'll have you out of the yard before the traffic on the Kwinana.
