A real rented stack, at published prices
This is what a service shop actually assembles, priced from the vendors’ own pricing pages:
- Jobber Plus: $499/month (monthly billing)
- Jobber marketing + receptionist add-ons: $128/month
- Three extra users at $29 each: $87/month
- QuickBooks Online Plus: $140/month (raised from $115 in August 2026)
Total: $854 a month. $10,248 a year. $30,744 over three years — and the price moves whenever the vendors decide. Housecall Pro’s MAX tier prices similarly: $329 a month plus $35 per additional user. ServiceTitan publishes no pricing at all; contractors report $245 to $500 per technician per month, plus onboarding fees reported from $5,000 to $50,000.
The same three years, owned
A custom build replacing the operational layer of that stack is quoted once, from your actual bill — usually around half of one year of it. After handover, the recurring cost is hosting on your own accounts, paid straight to the host: typically a utility-bill amount, not a software bill. Three-year software spend after the build: effectively the hosting. The full comparison, drawn to scale: what owning costs →
Just as important as the dollars: adding your next hire costs $0, because logins on a system you own are yours to hand out. On the rented stack above, each new office user is $29–$35 a month forever.
When the rented stack still wins
Honestly: if you’re a one-person shop on Jobber’s entry tier and it fits how you work, keep it — the math doesn’t justify a build. The crossover is when the add-ons, seats and second subscriptions pile up (the $850-a-month pattern above) or the software’s workflow stops matching yours. That’s when three years of rent exceeds owning the thing outright.