An HVAC shop does not live or die on the install. It lives on the maintenance agreements — the spring AC checks and fall furnace checks that keep a tech on the calendar in the slow months and put you first in line when the compressor dies in July. The problem is that most shops track those agreements in a spreadsheet, bill them by hand, and lose the ones that quietly lapse. A CRM for HVAC contractors has one real job: hold the agreement, bill it on schedule, and put the right tech in front of the customer without you re-typing anything.
The HVAC job-to-be-done: agreements, seasons, and callbacks
The HVAC year has a shape. Two service visits per plan — one before cooling season, one before heating season — plus the emergency calls in between and the callback on the job you did last week. Software built for one-off jobs treats every visit as a fresh sale, which means you re-enter the customer, the equipment, and the plan terms every single time. That is where agreements slip: the plan is on paper, the reminder is in your head, and the renewal never gets billed.
In Mortar the agreement is a record, not a memory. The customer, the unit, the plan terms, and the billing schedule live on one contact. Every visit — the spring check, the fall check, the 2am no-heat call — attaches to that same record, so the tech shows up already knowing what unit is in the attic and what the plan covers. Nothing gets re-typed because there is nothing to re-type twice.
Billing maintenance plans: a recurring charge on a card or bank draft (ACH)
This is the part that decides whether HVAC maintenance plan software is worth paying for. A plan is only recurring revenue if it bills itself. In Mortar a maintenance agreement charges the customer’s saved card or bank draft (ACH) on a set cadence — monthly, quarterly, or annually — with no invoice to remember to send and no card to re-run by hand. Sell 200 plans at $18/month and that is $3,600 landing every month without you touching it.
The money lands in your account, not ours
Payments run on your own connected Stripe. Card or bank draft (ACH) settles directly to you — Mortar never holds your money, it just sends the invoice and books the payment. Stripe’s standard processing fee applies, and that fee is Stripe’s, not ours.
Recurring billing is part of the Core plan and up ($99/month), not a separate add-on and not gated behind the top tier. The mechanics — pause, prorate, change the amount mid-term — are walked through in how to bill recurring service customers. If you want the plumbing behind the subscription rails, see recurring and subscription billing.
Dispatch across techs, with each tech seeing the job not the margin
A three-truck shop and a fifteen-truck shop both have the same daily fire drill: who is taking the no-cool call on the east side while two techs are already tied up on a changeout. Mortar dispatches the visit to a specific tech, who gets it on their phone the moment it’s scheduled or moved. The tech sees the address, the equipment, the plan, and the scope — on their phone, in order.
Your field tech never sees your margins
Permissions are per person, and it is product-wide — not a plan upsell. A tech sees the job, the address, and the schedule but never the margin, the finances, or the settings. The office runs the numbers; the crew runs the work.
Scheduling and dispatch come with the Core plan (five seats) and the Suite plan (fifteen seats) — seats are included, so you are not paying a per-technician fee to put another truck on the board. The scheduling side is laid out in scheduling and dispatch for a small crew.
Estimate to invoice with e-sign on the customer’s phone
A homeowner staring at a $9,000 furnace-and-coil replacement wants to see the options and sign without a second appointment. In Mortar you build the estimate from a price book with your loaded costs baked in — good, better, best if you sell it that way — and the customer opens one link, picks their option, and signs on their phone.
Build the estimate
Pull line items from your price book so the loaded cost is already in the number. A changeout quote is a few taps, not a napkin.
Customer signs on their phone
They open one link, pick good/better/best, and e-sign. The signed total is now locked to that job record.
Invoice from the signed quote
The invoice is generated from the quote they already signed — not re-keyed — so the number you priced is the number you get paid.
The estimate, the e-sign, and the invoice are the same record in three views, so the total is computed once and never re-typed. The full one-off flow is in how to send a quote and get paid.
A review request the day after the visit
The best time to ask an HVAC customer for a Google review is the day after the tech left and the house is finally cool. Mortar’s marketing tools send that review request automatically after a visit closes, and the same tools handle lead attribution, campaigns, and follow-ups. That review pipeline is part of the Suite plan ($179/month) — along with bookkeeping and white-label documents — so it is honest to say it is not on every plan.
On Suite your customer-facing documents are white-labeled — no Mortar footer on the estimate or the invoice, just your shop’s name. On Solo and Core the documents carry your branding but keep a small Mortar mark. If getting more reviews is the goal on its own, the tactics are in get more Google reviews.
Three flat plans for a sub-20-tech HVAC shop
Three flat plans, self-serve, no sales call to start. Every plan includes the whole quote-to-cash core — contacts, estimating with e-sign, invoicing, and payments on your own Stripe — plus a lead and job board.
- Solo — $39/month, 1 seat. The full quote-to-cash core plus a lead and job board, for the owner-operator running it alone. No dispatch or recurring billing at this tier.
- Core — $99/month, 5 seats. Adds Dispatch — scheduling and recurring/subscription service, so maintenance plans bill themselves — plus the website contact form you embed on your own site. This is the tier most HVAC shops start on.
- Suite — $179/month, 15 seats. Adds bookkeeping (cash-basis P&L, bank import), marketing (lead attribution, campaigns, review requests, follow-ups), white-label documents, integrations, and priority support.
Seats are included at 1, 5, and 15 — no per-technician fee stacked on top. If you want to see how that compares to enterprise HVAC platforms like ServiceTitan, the honest side-by-side for a small shop is in Mortar vs ServiceTitan for small shops. For the category view of what this software should do, start with what a field service CRM should actually do.
What software do small HVAC contractors use to bill maintenance plans?
HVAC maintenance plan software has to bill the agreement on a schedule without you sending an invoice. In Mortar a plan charges the customer’s saved card or bank draft (ACH) monthly, quarterly, or annually on your own connected Stripe, so the recurring revenue lands automatically. Recurring billing is on the Core plan ($99/month) and up.
Does Mortar take a cut of my HVAC payments?
No. Payments run on your own connected Stripe account and settle directly to you — card or bank draft (ACH). Mortar sends the invoice and books the payment; it never holds your money. Stripe’s standard processing fee applies, and that fee is Stripe’s, not ours.
Can I stop my HVAC techs from seeing job margins?
Yes. Permissions are per person and product-wide, not a plan upgrade. A tech sees the job, the equipment, the address, and the schedule but never the margin, the finances, or the settings. You decide what each seat can see.
How does Mortar compare to ServiceTitan for an HVAC shop?
ServiceTitan is an enterprise HVAC platform built for large operations, with enterprise pricing and a sales call to start. Mortar is self-serve at $39–$179/month with seats included at 1, 5, and 15. If you run under 20 techs, the small-shop comparison is in the Mortar vs ServiceTitan article.
Building Mortar — the all-in-one CRM for service businesses. One shared record, one number behind every job.