Is Jobber free, and what is the best free Jobber alternative?

No. Jobber has no free plan. It offers a 14-day free trial, then the cheapest plan, Core, costs $49 a month for one user, or $29 a month billed yearly, plus $29 a month per added user. Swivl's Starter plan is free forever with unlimited users, estimates, invoices and scheduling, and no contract.

I get this question a lot from owners who are shopping around, so here's the straight version. Jobber is a paid product. The free part is a trial. After 14 days you pick a plan and put a card on file, or you stop using it.

That's a normal way to sell software, and there's nothing shady about it. You just want to know the real number before you load 300 customers into something. So let's do the math for a small shop, then talk about what a free alternative actually looks like.

Does Jobber have a free plan?

No. Jobber's pricing page (checked October 6, 2026) lists four paid plans: Core, Connect, Grow and Plus. There's no $0 tier. What you get for free is a trial: "For 14 days you get full access to all of Jobber's features on the Grow plan, no credit card required." Near the end, Jobber sends a reminder to enter billing information.

So if you searched "is Jobber free" hoping for a free tier, the answer is no. If you just want to kick the tires for two weeks, yes, you can do that without a card.

How much does Jobber really cost a small crew?

Here's what Jobber's page showed on October 6, 2026:

• Core: $49 a month with no commitment, $39 a month on a one-year commitment, or $29 a month paid annually. Includes 1 user.
• Connect: $139 a month with no commitment, down to $99 a month paid annually.
• Grow: $199 a month with no commitment, down to $149 a month paid annually.
• Plus: $499 a month with no commitment, down to $399 a month paid annually.
• Extra users: $29 a month each, on every plan.

The per-user fee is the part that sneaks up on you. Say you're the owner, you've got one tech, and a spouse or a part-timer runs the office. That's three users. On Core with no commitment you're at $49 plus two more users at $29, so $107 a month. Pay a year up front and it's $29 plus $58, so $87 a month, but now you've handed over the whole year.

Hire a second tech next spring and that's another $29 a month, every month, for as long as that tech is on the truck. None of that is hidden. It's right on their page. It just adds up faster than people expect when they're growing.

What does Jobber do well?

To be fair to them, even Core covers the basics a service business needs: sending professional quotes, sending invoices and taking online payments. The month-to-month option means you aren't forced into a contract. And the trial runs on their Grow plan, so you see the full product before you pay.

If you're already running on Jobber, your crew knows it, and the per-user math works for your size, there's no reason to rip it out because a blog post told you to. Switching software costs you real time. Do it when the numbers or the fit are actually wrong.

Why do contracts and per-user fees matter so much to a small shop?

Because I've been on the wrong end of one. Back around 2010, when I was running our plumbing company, our techs weren't always where they were supposed to be. So I signed up for Fleetmatics (since bought by Verizon) for GPS tracking on our 5 trucks. It ran about $50 a truck a month, a whole car payment every month.

They had me sign a two-year contract. When I wanted out, they made it crystal clear they'd come after me if I stopped paying. So we paid it out, all two years. The lesson I learned: never get locked into a contract.

I've also struggled to make plumbing payroll more times than I'd like to admit. I've had to choose between the truck payment and the software payment. When money is that tight, a bill that grows every time you hire someone is a real kick in the teeth.

What is the best free Jobber alternative?

I'm biased, so weigh this accordingly. We built Swivl to be the thing I wanted back then. Here's what our pricing page says as of today:

• Starter is $0 a month, free forever, not a trial. Unlimited users, customers, jobs, estimates and invoices.
• Scheduling and dispatch, the mobile app, the pricebook, inventory, reports and email automations are free on every plan.
• No per-seat or per-technician charge on any plan. Every tech, every sub, everyone in the office.
• No contracts. Paid plans are monthly and you can cancel anytime.
• Every new account starts with 14 days on Scale Pro at no charge, then moves to Starter unless you choose a paid plan. No card required.

Here's the honest part. Some features cost us real money to run, so they're billed in credits. Starter includes 250 credits a month. The AI Estimator runs about 60 credits an estimate, the AI Receptionist is 10 credits a minute while it's on a call, GPS is 5 credits an hour per tech while they're clocked in, and texts are 1 credit each. Writing an estimate yourself is always free, and email costs nothing.

If you outgrow 250 credits, Growth is $49 a month with 1,500 credits and still unlimited users. Starter can't buy top-up packs, so going over there means upgrading. Card payments carry the processor's fee on any plan, same as everywhere else.

A 64-second walkthrough of Swivl's pricing. It covers what the free plan includes (estimates, e-signatures, scheduling and dispatch, job photos, invoicing, payments, the mobile app, CRM and unlimited users), no annual contracts or per-user fees, and how the 250 monthly credits work for optional AI and data features.

Why would anyone give this away for free?

People keep looking for the angle, the scam, because they've been burned so many times. Here it is. We don't have a sales team. The sales force is what really costs money in this business. Without one, our overhead is low, so we can give away the core tools and charge only for the data- and AI-heavy features, and only when you use them.

A small team supports customers instead of selling to them, so nobody needs to upsell you a bigger package to justify their job. We've been built without a sales team from day one. The best sales should be the product, and you should choose to use it every day.

If you want to see the other options side by side, we keep a longer list of Jobber alternatives, a roundup of free field service management software, and a field service software cost guide with the math for bigger crews.