Buying guides · Guide · 4 min read

The best job management app for sole traders and one-man bands

If it is just you in the van, the right app is the one that gives you your evenings back. Trade PA, Tradify, ServiceM8 and Powered Now weighed honestly for one-person trades.

By Trade PA · Published 23 September 2026 · Reviewed 15 September 2026

Most software round-ups are written for firms. Five users, an office manager, someone whose actual job is keeping the system fed. If that is you, read our full comparison of the best job management apps instead.

This one is for the rest of us: the one-person band. You price the work, do the work, invoice the work and chase the money, and the admin happens at 9pm or it does not happen at all. That changes what "best" means. We build Trade PA, so read the recommendations knowing that, and check everything against your own jobs.

What actually matters when it is just you

Speed of capture beats depth of features. A firm can afford software that takes ten taps to log a job, because someone in the office does the tapping. When it is you, in the van, between jobs, anything slower than a text message quietly stops getting used. This is why voice matters more for sole traders than anyone else: saying "invoice Dave for the bathroom, eight hundred plus VAT" when you are safely parked is admin that actually happens.

The solo price is the whole price. Per-user pricing is meaningless to you; you will only ever pay the one-user tier. So compare those numbers, not the headline "from" price built for teams. And watch what the entry tier locks out. Some apps put the features a subbie actually needs, like CIS, behind the higher plans.

Invoicing and CIS in one place. If you are a subcontractor, deductions are not an accounting detail, they are your cash flow. An app that does not understand labour versus materials, 20% versus 30%, and what a deduction statement should look like will cost you evenings with a calculator. Our CIS calculator shows the maths the app should be doing for you.

Someone has to chase the money, and you hate doing it. Late payment is a sole-trader tax. An app that sends the polite nudge and the firmer follow-up for you, without you having to make the awkward call, pays for itself the first time it works.

The Friday-night test. Whatever you pick has to survive you at your most knackered. If it needs a laptop, a login you forgot and fifteen minutes of forms, it will lose to a scrap of paper on the dashboard. Be honest about this one; it decides more than any feature list.

The honest rundown

Trade PA is ours. The Solo plan starts at £39 monthly, with quotes, invoices and Eve’s voice or typed admin workflow. AI usage allowances apply and Business Phone is separate. Try it if capturing the job in a short instruction matters to you. Ask Eve to draft, then check the customer, scope, numbers and result before sending anything.

Tradify is worth testing for a structured quote, diary and invoice workflow. One person pays for one seat, but choose the required plan first. Some features and AI tools require higher tiers. Use the current plan comparison and repeat the same trial job you use in other apps.

ServiceM8 has a free plan for one user with 30 new jobs each month, plus paid job-volume plans. Its main app is designed for Apple devices; Android users should check the separate Lite app’s scope. It also offers AI assistance, so test actual task completion rather than assuming voice is unique to one supplier.

Powered Now combines job admin with UK certificate options. Check which tier includes your forms, how the app works on your phone and whether your required automation is included. Its pricing page distinguishes single-user Business from the per-user higher plans.

Prices move. Check current pricing on their sites; it changes, and this page shows what we found on the date in the sources note below.

Which one, for which person

If capturing admin is the problem, trial Trade PA and compare the result with the other suppliers’ AI tools. If certificates drive your week, give the exact certificate form its own test. If price is the constraint, calculate the lowest tier that passes your requirements. There is no useful universal winner for every sole trader.

The real test

Do not decide off feature lists, including ours. Every app here has a free trial. Pick one, put one real job through it end to end, quote to paid, on a normal working day. Not a quiet Sunday: a day with mud, a merchant run and a customer changing their mind. The app you keep is the one you actually used when you were tired. For the full buying framework, our guide to choosing job management software walks through it properly.

And if the thing you actually want is for to capture the admin quickly when you are safely parked, that is exactly what Trade PA does: you ask Eve for a draft, check it and approve the next step.