What's actually wrong with Housecall Pro.
Yours is one of them. Every screen is a compromise between a plumber, a garage door guy, and you. One owner we demoed put it plainly: it feels like garage door software.
Core plan, extra seats, the flat-rate price book, marketing, GPS per truck, card processing. The number on their pricing page is not the number on your card. We itemize it below.
Your guys type it into the job notes and your office searches for it later. Then the grocery account asks how much gas went into that rack this year, and nobody can answer without opening every job.
Not our words.
“Their reporting is horrific. It's impossible to run accurate reporting.”
“It feels like it's more of a garage door software.”
“It's $50 here, $100 there. Everything we want to do, we have to add on.”
Refrigerant is a field, not a note.
Your tech logs the type and the pounds on the unit, on the job, in two taps. It rolls up per piece of equipment and per customer for the year.
So when the grocery account asks how much gas went into that rack, or the EPA asks for the 608 log, the answer is a report and not an afternoon of opening every job.
- Refrigerant logged on the unit, on the job, in two taps. Reports ready if the EPA ever asks.
- One flat price. Hire an office person, add a tech, the price doesn't move.
- Commissions calculated for you. Tiers, sold-by credit, approve, mark paid.
- Revenue on a three-tech install splits between the three of them. Your report matches your bank.
- You text the founder. Fixes ship in days, not on a roadmap.
- •Refrigerant lives in the notes field. Somebody searches for it later.
- •Another add-on every time you want to do something new.
- •Office does commission with a calculator on Friday.
- •One $10,000 job with three techs on it shows up as $30,000 of revenue.
- •You explain your HVAC problem to a rep who supports 20 trades.
Built for what HVAC shops actually do.
Refrigerant, commissions with tiers, sold-by credit, billed hours against actual hours, equipment lifetime cost, and revenue by marketing source. All standard, no tier to unlock.
The complaint we hear more than any other on demos, by a distance.
Every unit tracked with serial, install date, and warranty. Refrigerant logged per unit. Lifetime repair spend per piece of equipment, printable for the homeowner.
Built generic across the trades. Refrigerant isn't a field, it's a note.
Unlimited users. Office staff, dispatchers, techs, and whoever does your books. Costs nothing extra.
Plans include a set number of users and charge per user above it. Owners tell us they leave people off the software to avoid paying for another seat.
You get the founder's phone number. Ask any customer.
A rep during the sale. A queue after it.
Billed hours next to actual hours, per tech.
Hours Sold is a standard report, in every account. Billed labor against on-site time, revenue, and the commission worked out with tiers and sold-by credit already applied.
Multi-tech jobs split by time on site, so a $10,000 install with three techs on it is $10,000 in your report, not $30,000. Approve, mark paid, done. No calculator on Friday.
How we stack up against Housecall Pro.
If it's missing, we build it.
Not a roadmap. Not a feature request portal that goes nowhere. You tell me what your shop needs and it gets built, usually inside a week.
An owner in Kentucky told me his hospital accounts won't pay an invoice without a PO number on it, and his software had no field for it. That shipped.
An owner running six departments needed billed labor hours sitting next to actual hours per tech so he could run productivity pay. That's a standard report now, in every account.
An owner told me his office does commissions by hand every Friday, with a calculator, because his software can't do tiers or credit the guy who actually sold the job. That shipped too.
Here's why we can do this and they can't. They have a hundred thousand customers across twenty trades, so your request sits in a queue behind a locksmith's and a landscaper's. We only have HVAC shops. When one of you asks for something, odds are the rest of you need it too, so building it makes the product better for everyone paying us. That's not generosity. That's just what happens when you serve one trade.
One owner told me he'd been asking his current software for accurate commission reporting for three years. Three years.
The bill at the bottom of the page.
Typical HVAC shop · 7 technicians · owner, dispatcher, office · MAX tier, the one with the reporting. Itemized so the marketing-page number and the invoice-at-month-three number are the same.
- Core plan, MAX tier, 8 usersAnnual prepay. $329 if you pay month to month.$299
- Extra seats, 2 users over the planOffice and dispatch above the 8 included users$80
- Flat-rate price book add-onProfit Rhino. The HVAC price book isn't native.$149
- Marketing and review automationMarketing Pro add-on$99
- GPS, 7 trucksAround $20 per vehicle per month$140
- Card processing above Stripe's rateOf everything you run through it~2.59–2.9%
Compared against Housecall Pro's published plans and add-ons as of August 14, 2026. If we've got something wrong, email hello@runacall.com and we'll fix it same day.
- Everything core, unlimited usersRefrigerant, price book, dispatch, mobile, memberships, commissions, reporting. Included.Included
- Per-user feeTechs, office, dispatch, the bookkeeper. Same price.$0
- Texting, voice, AI receptionistOnly if you want them, and priced on their ownOptional
- Card processingStandard rates, no Run a Call markupStripe direct
One line on your invoice instead of six.
Pricing based on publicly reported figures and operator interviews as of 2026. Your actual cost may vary.
Housecall Pro's entry price is real. Almost nobody pays it. An owner added his up on a call with me last month and went quiet, then said he had no idea it had gotten that high. He thought he paid $600. He was at nine hundred and change. Go add yours up. All of it. Then decide.
In their words.
Other companies worked at it for weeks and couldn’t do it. You migrated us in one day.
I like the AI booking. It dispatched based on where the jobs were and everyone’s ability.
I love your flat-rate model, and that it scales. That’s where you differentiate from everybody else who’s nickel-and-diming.
You guys have done a really good job capturing what a smaller HVAC company actually needs.
I love the user interface. It’s not near as busy as HouseCall Pro.
I like the tech scorecard. You’re not getting that out of Service Fusion, where you’re pulling four reports to figure it out.
You guys are small, so it’s a more personal connection. If we need something, we get answers quickly.
Everything was straightforward. Simple for the tech, simple for the office.
As soon as I got into yours, I could flow right through it. Everything has a learning curve, but yours was really simple to get used to.
The refrigerant report, the fact that you actually have that built in? Freaking hallelujah.
Switching is on us.
Give us your Housecall Pro login. We pull your customers, your job history, your invoices, your equipment records, and your price book, and we put them in. Usually inside a day. It costs nothing and you don't lift a finger. And if you ever want to leave, one button exports everything you own and we'll help you move it. We'd rather earn it every month than lock the door.
What HVAC owners ask.
Housecall Pro works okay for us. Why would we move?
Most owners who switch tell us the same two things. They can't get numbers they trust out of it, and the bill keeps growing every time they want another feature. If neither of those bothers you, stay. Seriously. Half of running a shop is not breaking things that work.
What's it actually cost?
One flat price per shop, unlimited users, every core feature included. Texting, phone voice, and the AI receptionist are optional and priced separately. You'll get the number on a 30-minute call or in the free trial, and there's no add-on list waiting behind it.
How long does moving over take?
Usually one day. We do it. You send a login.
Will my techs figure it out?
The app was built on one rule an owner gave us: nothing more than two steps. And we train your guys ourselves, one on one, as many times as it takes.
Do I sign anything?
No. Month to month. Leave whenever, take your data with you. Housecall Pro doesn't lock you in either, and we're not going to pretend otherwise.
What if I need something you don't have?
Tell us. We're small and we build fast. A customer asked for tiered commission reporting on a Tuesday and we shipped it. His old software had been ignoring the request for three years.
Do you do payroll?
Not yet. We export approved hours to QuickBooks or Gusto and most shops keep payroll where it is. We'd rather tell you that now than after you've moved.
What about my price book?
We build it from your QuickBooks history, line by line, or import your CSV. Or start with our HVAC book and edit it.