Most shops under 20 people do not run on software. They run on a spreadsheet for the pipeline, a calculator for the quote, QuickBooks for the books, and a group text for the schedule. Every one of those is a place to re-type a number, and every re-typed number is a place the number goes wrong. A field service CRM is supposed to end that — one record per job, one calculation behind every figure. Most of them only get half of it.
Stop running the business across a spreadsheet, a calculator, QuickBooks, and a group text
Here is the tax you pay for a stack of disconnected tools. You quote a job on a calculator and write the total on a spreadsheet row. You win it, so you re-type the address into the calendar and text the crew. The crew finishes, so you open QuickBooks and re-type the total again to invoice. By the time you look at a monthly number, you are reconciling four copies of the same job that were entered by hand at four different moments. When they disagree — and they do — you cannot tell which one is right.
The fix is not a faster calculator or a tidier spreadsheet. It is a single record the whole job lives on, and a single place every dollar figure is computed. That is the bar. Read the rest of this against whatever you are evaluating.
One record: lead, quote, schedule, invoice, and books share the same job
In Mortar a job is one record from the first phone call to the deposit clearing. The lead comes in — from a call, a referral, or the contact form embedded on your site — and lands on the contact. You build the quote on that same record from a price book with your loaded costs baked in. The customer opens one link, picks their options, and signs on their phone. The signed quote becomes the scheduled visit; the visit is dispatched to a tech, who sees it on their phone the moment it’s scheduled or moved. The tech does the work. The invoice is generated from the quote that was already signed — not re-keyed — and the payment posts to your books the moment it clears.
Nobody re-types the address. Nobody re-types the total. The lead, the quote, the schedule, the invoice, and the P&L line are all facets of one record, so there is no copy to keep in sync with another copy. Walk the same path end to end in how to run a service business without living in five apps.
One number: why the P&L, pipeline, and calendar never disagree
This is the part most category tools skip. It is not enough for the data to live together; the math has to be computed once. In Mortar a quote total is calculated in exactly one place, and every surface that shows a dollar figure reads from that calculation. The quote, the invoice, the pipeline value, the dashboard, and the cash-basis P&L are the same number rendered in different views — not five numbers that are supposed to match.
One system, one number
Nothing reconciles wrong because nothing is computed twice. When your pipeline says a job is worth $4,200, the invoice is $4,200 and the P&L books $4,200 — because all three are reading the one total, not three hand-entered copies of it.
That single-source rule is also why the books stay honest. Bookkeeping is cash-basis: revenue lands when the money does, and you can import your bank activity by OFX/QFX file to reconcile against what actually cleared. You get a real P&L off the same data that runs your pipeline, not a separate ledger you maintain by hand and hope matches.
Payments on your own Stripe (the money lands in your account, not ours)
When a customer pays, the money goes to your own Stripe account. Mortar never touches it. You connect your Stripe, and card or bank draft (ACH) payments settle directly to you — Mortar is the software that sends the invoice and books the payment, not a middleman that holds your cash. Stripe’s standard processing fee applies, and that fee is Stripe’s, not ours.
For work that repeats, recurring billing runs on the same rails: weekly, biweekly, or monthly charges on the customer’s saved card or bank draft, so a maintenance plan or a mowing route bills itself. See the mechanics in how to bill recurring service customers, or the one-off version in how to send a quote and get paid.
What each of the three flat plans includes
Three flat plans, and every one of them includes the whole quote-to-cash core — contacts, estimating with e-sign, invoicing, and payments on your Stripe — plus a lead and job board. You do not buy the ability to get paid as an add-on.
- Solo — $39/month. The full quote-to-cash core plus a lead and job board, for an owner-operator running the show alone. One seat.
- Core — $99/month. Adds Dispatch — scheduling and recurring service — plus the website contact form you embed on your own site. Five seats.
- Suite — $179/month. The whole operation — bookkeeping, marketing (lead attribution, campaigns, review requests, follow-ups), and tenant-branded, white-labeled customer documents. Fifteen seats.
Your field tech never sees your margins
Permissions are per person. A field tech can see the job, the address, and the schedule, but not the margin, the finances, or the settings. You decide what each seat sees — the office runs the numbers, the crew runs the work.
What each plan actually costs to run — including Stripe’s cut and where the real money goes — is laid out in the real cost of field service software.
How Mortar compares to Jobber, Housecall Pro, and ServiceTitan
The category has good tools. The differences are about who they are built for and how the money moves.
- ServiceTitan is enterprise field service management software with enterprise pricing and a sales call to start. Mortar is self-serve and starts at $39. If you have a 200-truck operation, that scale is the point; if you have three trucks, you are paying for it — the small-shop breakdown is in the ServiceTitan alternative for shops under 20 techs.
- Jobber and Housecall Pro are solid mid-market tools. The line Mortar draws is the single-calculation architecture and payments that settle to your own Stripe rather than a payments product layered on top. Side by side, the honest comparisons are in Mortar vs Jobber and Mortar vs Housecall Pro.
- QuoteIQ and the lighter tools cover quoting well but hand the rest — scheduling, invoicing, books — back to other apps, which puts you back in the re-typing problem.
None of these are bad software. Pick the one whose shape matches your shop. Mortar’s shape is one system, one flat price, one number behind every job. If you want it in your trade’s terms, there are breakdowns for HVAC businesses and landscaping and lawn care.
Is a field service CRM worth it for a shop under 20 people?
Yes, once the re-typing costs you more than the subscription. If you are quoting on a calculator and invoicing in QuickBooks by hand, you are already spending hours a week moving numbers between apps and losing the odd job to a total that got copied wrong. At $39 to $179 a month, the CRM pays for itself the first time it saves you a mis-invoiced job — and it keeps paying by showing you real margin per job instead of a guess at year-end. If you are not sure you have outgrown the spreadsheet yet, the signs a service business needs a CRM is the gut check.
Be honest about the limits, too. More integrations are on the way; some features are gated to Core and Suite; and the payment processing fee is Stripe’s. None of that changes the core promise: one record, one number, and the money lands in your account.
What is a field service CRM?
A field service CRM keeps the whole job — lead, quote, schedule, invoice, and payment — on one shared record instead of spread across a spreadsheet, a calculator, and QuickBooks. The good ones also compute every dollar figure once, so the quote, invoice, and P&L trace to a single calculation and never disagree.
Does Mortar take a cut of my 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.
Is Mortar cheaper than ServiceTitan or Jobber?
Mortar is self-serve with three flat plans — Solo $39, Core $99, Suite $179 per month — and every plan includes the full quote-to-cash core. ServiceTitan is enterprise-priced and starts with a sales call. We won’t quote a competitor’s price; the honest side-by-side is in the Mortar vs Jobber article.
Can I stop my field techs from seeing job margins?
Yes. Permissions are per person. A field tech sees the job, address, and schedule but not the margin, finances, or settings. You set what each seat can see, so the crew runs the work and the office runs the numbers.
Building Mortar — the all-in-one CRM for service businesses. One shared record, one number behind every job.