Guide
Which field service software names your trade
Updated
Buyers reasonably start by looking for their own trade on a vendor's site, and it is a weaker signal than it appears. A named trade means the vendor wrote a page. It does not mean the software models the thing that makes your trade different.
Who names what
FieldEdge names five: HVAC, plumbing, electrical, locksmith and appliance repair, and it is the only vendor here naming locksmith or appliance work at all. Housecall Pro names HVAC and electrical. FieldPulse names HVAC and electrical in its industry solutions but not in its pricing tiers. ServiceTitan names HVAC as a supported industry.
ServiceM8 and Kickserv name no mechanical trade. ServiceM8 references trades and service contractors broadly with plumbing and gardening as examples; Kickserv's pricing page names no trade at all.
What a named trade is worth
Less than a published capability. None of the six attaches a trade-specific feature to a trade-specific page: the lists say who the vendor sells to, not what the product does differently for them.
The exception worth knowing about is Housecall Pro, which both names trades and publishes a full rate card, so you can at least check what the named trade costs. Three of the six name a trade and publish no price, which means the sector claim cannot be tested against anything.
The two questions that matter more
Does an item of equipment exist as a record in its own right, at an address, with history attached? For HVAC and appliance work that is the whole product, because the job is about the unit rather than the customer. EPA Section 608 makes it a compliance question too: leak repair rules apply to appliances with a full charge of 50 pounds or more, and the leak rate trigger is measured per appliance over a rolling 12 months.
And can the system generate recurring visits rather than merely record them? Maintenance agreements are how mechanical trades make money, and Housecall Pro is the only vendor here publishing recurring service plans as a named feature, on its top tier at $299 a month rather than its $59 one.
How to test it in twenty minutes
Create one customer with two pieces of equipment at one address. Log a visit against one of them. Then ask the system to show you that unit's history, and to schedule its next service a year out.
Every vendor will describe this confidently. Roughly half will do it cleanly. That exercise tells you more than any industries page, and it takes less time than reading one.