TrackYaTradie vs Hovea vs QuoteMate

The three, one by one

Best for, what it does well, and what to watch for.

Hovea

Best for: a sole trader or small crew whose main pain is getting a tidy, GST-correct quote out fast. Hovea's own comparison page says it is built for solo and small WA trade businesses.

What it does well: you describe the job by typing or talking, and Hovea drafts the scope, line items and pricing from your own price book, flagging anything it guessed. The quote is a branded PDF with your logo and ABN, sent by text or email, and nothing sends until you tap. An accepted quote becomes an invoice in one tap, with your BSB and account or PayID, and overdue invoices are flagged. It is made in Western Australia, runs on Australian-region infrastructure, and is on the App Store and Google Play. The free plan covers 5 AI quotes a month; Pro is $9.99 a month for 100, with no watermark and Stripe payments.

Watch for: it is a quoting and invoicing app, by design. Its own comparison pages say ServiceM8 and Tradify cover more if you need scheduling, dispatch, timesheets or purchase orders, and the pages we checked do not describe job costing, crew logins or an accounting integration.

QuoteMate

Best for: tradies who buy a lot of materials and want the quote priced from live supplier prices, with job tracking and a way to take card payments on site.

What it does well: describe the work or add a photo and it builds the materials list and prices it from Australian suppliers, a web search or your own imported price lists. Clients accept online from their inbox, quotes turn into invoices in one tap, and jobs move through a nine-stage pipeline with scheduling and Google Calendar sync, photos, checklists and automatic follow-ups. Payments go through Square, online or with Tap to Pay. Your crew can send their hours from an emailed link, with no app or account, and you approve them; where they have cost rates, each job shows crew cost against the labour you charged. It syncs invoices and contacts with Xero, runs on iPhone, iPad, Android and the web, and works offline.

Watch for: the fees. On the free plan QuoteMate takes 1.7% of each card payment on top of Square's own fee; Pro ($49 a month) lowers it to 1% online and 1.5% in person, so work out what a month of invoices costs you in fees. Its job costing, as its help centre describes it, compares hours and labour; the quoted vs actual report is on Pro.

TrackYaTradie (ours)

Best for: sole traders and crews up to 25 on project work who want to know whether each job is making money while it is still running.

What it does well: every job shows its profit as the crew logs hours and supply costs go on, with an alert when costs reach 85% of the invoice. Quotes come from your own price list and templates and the client accepts on a link; variations are priced and approved the same way; invoices carry payment stages for deposits and progress claims; clients can pay by card or bank debit; and invoices, supply costs and timesheets go to Xero as drafts. Crew logins are part of the flat price: $35 a month for a sole trader, $79 for up to 3 tradies (every plan is on the pricing page).

Watch for: there is no AI quote drafting and no live supplier pricing, so you build your price list yourself. There is no free plan, only the 14-day trial. It syncs with Xero only.