Recurring work is the best revenue a service business has — a mowing route, a quarterly HVAC tune-up, a monthly pool service — and it is also the easiest to bill badly. You sign the customer once, then spend the next year re-creating the same invoice, chasing the same card, and hoping nobody churns because you forgot to send it. Recurring billing software for a service business is supposed to end that: sign the agreement once, put a card or bank draft on file, and let the charge fire on schedule. Most cheap tools skip it, and the enterprise ones make you buy a sales call to get it.
Sign the agreement once, then charges fire on schedule
The whole point of a recurring plan is that the selling happens one time. In Mortar you build the agreement off the same contact record as any other quote — the price, the cadence, the service. The customer opens one link, reviews the terms, and signs on their phone. That signature is the mandate: it captures the card or bank draft and authorizes the schedule. From there you do not touch it. The charge fires on the day it is due, the receipt goes out, and the customer keeps getting served without a single re-typed invoice.
This is the same sign-and-schedule flow behind a one-off quote, just repeated. If you want the mechanics step by step, how to bill recurring service customers walks the setup; the single-charge version is in how to send a quote and get paid.
Weekly, biweekly, or monthly on a card or bank draft (ACH)
A recurring plan is a cadence and a payment method, and both are the customer's to choose. Mortar bills weekly, biweekly, or monthly — enough to cover a weekly lawn route, a biweekly cleaning, or a monthly maintenance plan without forcing every business into the same box.
- Cadence — weekly, biweekly, or monthly, set once when the agreement is signed and matched to the actual service interval.
- Payment method — card or bank draft (ACH), stored against the customer, so a $95 monthly plan or a $220 weekly route runs itself.
- One mandate — the same signature that authorizes the plan authorizes every charge in it, so you are not re-collecting a card each month.
Bank draft is the cheaper rail for recurring
For a plan you run every month, bank draft (ACH) usually carries a lower processing fee than a card and does not expire or get replaced the way a card does. Offer both, and a customer on a maintenance plan tends to pick the draft — fewer failed charges, less churn from an expired card.
Every recurring charge feeds AR and the P&L
A recurring charge is not a separate system bolted onto the side. It runs on the same single-record architecture as everything else in Mortar, so the money it collects lands where the rest of your money lands. When a scheduled charge is due, it posts to accounts receivable; when it clears, it books to your cash-basis P&L — the same P&L that runs off your one-off invoices. You do not reconcile a recurring ledger against a regular one, because there is only one.
That matters most at month-end. A shop running 40 monthly plans on a spreadsheet is guessing at its recurring revenue and re-keying every cleared charge into the books by hand. In Mortar the recurring revenue is a real figure on the same dashboard as your pipeline, computed from the same charges that actually fired — not a number you maintain in a second place and hope matches. Import your bank activity by OFX/QFX file and reconcile against what truly cleared.
Maintenance plans and season-averaged billing
The reason recurring billing exists is the maintenance plan: a signed agreement that trades a steady monthly charge for a set of visits across the year. A landscaper who mows 30 weeks a year but wants a flat monthly bill can price the season, divide it into twelve, and let the plan charge the same amount every month while the crew works the busy weeks. An HVAC shop can sell two tune-ups a year as a monthly membership. The customer gets a predictable bill; you get revenue that does not vanish in the off-season.
Mortar handles the billing side of that — the signed agreement, the fixed cadence, the charge on file. You set the monthly figure that covers the season and the plan holds it. Scheduling the actual visits is Dispatch's job, on the same record, so the plan the customer signed and the visits your crew runs are two facets of one job, not two copies to keep in sync.
Your own Stripe, so the customer relationship stays yours
Recurring charges settle to your own Stripe account, not to Mortar. You connect your Stripe once, and every card or bank draft on every plan pays directly into your account. Mortar is the software that holds the agreement, stores the mandate, and fires the charge on schedule — it is never a middleman that holds your recurring cash or owns your customer. Stripe's standard processing fee applies, and that fee is Stripe's, not ours.
This is the line that separates a real recurring engine from a billing product layered on top of your business. Your customers, their saved payment methods, and the money all live in your Stripe. If you ever leave, the relationship and the payment rails are yours to take.
Which plans include recurring billing
Recurring and subscription billing lives in Dispatch, which starts on the Core plan. It is not a Suite-only feature and it is not an add-on with a per-plan fee — if you have Core, you have recurring billing.
- Solo — $39/month. The quote-to-cash core — contacts, estimating with e-sign, invoicing, and payments on your Stripe — plus a lead and job board. One seat. No recurring billing.
- Core — $99/month. Adds Dispatch — scheduling and recurring/subscription service — plus the website contact form you embed on your own site. Five seats. This is where recurring billing lives.
- Suite — $179/month. Everything in Core plus bookkeeping, marketing (lead attribution, campaigns, review requests, follow-ups), and white-labeled customer documents. Fifteen seats.
Under-served by the cheap tools, over-priced by the big ones
A lot of light quoting apps never handle recurring at all — you sign the plan and go back to re-creating an invoice every month by hand. ServiceTitan handles it, but at enterprise pricing that starts with a sales call. Mortar puts real recurring billing on a $99 self-serve plan.
Where recurring billing fits in the whole quote-to-cash picture is laid out in what a field service CRM should actually do.
What billing cadences does Mortar support for recurring plans?
Weekly, biweekly, or monthly. You set the cadence once when the agreement is signed and match it to the service interval — a weekly mowing route, a biweekly cleaning, or a monthly maintenance plan.
Can customers pay a recurring plan by bank draft instead of a card?
Yes. Recurring charges run on a card or bank draft (ACH). For a plan you bill every month, bank draft usually carries a lower processing fee and does not expire the way a card does, which means fewer failed charges.
Does Mortar take a cut of my recurring revenue?
No. Recurring charges settle to your own connected Stripe account and pay directly to you. Mortar stores the signed mandate and fires the charge on schedule; it never holds your money. Stripe's standard processing fee applies, and that fee is Stripe's, not ours.
Which Mortar plan do I need for recurring billing?
Recurring and subscription billing is part of Dispatch, which starts on the Core plan at $99/month. It is not Suite-only and there is no per-plan add-on fee. The Solo plan does not include it.
Building Mortar — the all-in-one CRM for service businesses. One shared record, one number behind every job.