The Fergus alternative that fills the diary from your own booking page
OptiTech Automation vs Fergus. Fergus publishes per-user pricing, generates compliance certificates and runs a 14 day trial with no card. OptiTech Automation is the Fergus alternative where the customer books a real slot on your own page and the card deposit is taken at that moment, on one published Stage price rather than a rate per seat.
The three things that make this different
Standard is £599 a month, covering up to fifteen on the tools.
- The deposit goes into your own Stripe account at the moment of booking. We never hold your money. (Terms 2.3)
- One flat monthly price for your Stage, and hiring inside your Stage does not move the bill. No per-lead fee, and no commission on your customers' payments. (Terms Schedule 2)
- Leave on 30 days' notice with no exit fee, and take a full export of your data as CSV files from your own settings page, any time. (Terms 11.1 and 11.3)
One named founder is answerable for the answer you get.
| Feature | Fergus | OptiTech Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per user: Essentials from £39 and Professional from £45 per user a month, with timesheet users from £12 (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing) | Per Stage, published: £599 a month up to fifteen on the tools, £1,749 to thirty, £3,599 to ninety |
| Compliance certificates | Generated on both published plans (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing) | We do not generate them. Your engineer issues the certificate; we keep the document, the job record and the renewal date |
| Accounting | Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB on both plans (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing) | We have no accounting integration. Invoices are raised and emailed on completion, and your records export as CSV |
| Free trial | 14 days, with no card asked for (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing) | No free trial. A demo with the founder, and your card is authorised when you confirm your setup but nothing is charged until you go live |
| How work arrives | Quotes, jobs and invoices raised by your office | The customer self-books a real slot online and the card deposit is taken at that moment, into your own Stripe account |
The price, in the open
Fergus
Fergus publishes its UK pricing per user: Essentials from £39 and Professional from £45 per user a month, with timesheet users from £12 each. The trial runs 14 days and asks for no card. Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB are listed on both plans, compliance certificates are included on both, and forms sit on Professional. No annual rate is shown. Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing.
OptiTech Automation
Every Stage is published in pounds. Start-up is £199 a month plus a one-off £129 Onboarding Investment. Standard is £599 a month plus £249 and covers up to fifteen on the tools. Growth is £1,749 plus £999 and covers up to thirty. Dominator is £3,599 plus £2,499 and covers up to ninety. Hiring inside your band does not move the monthly bill.
The first ten firms to come on board pay no Onboarding Investment at all, on any Stage. The monthly is paid in full, and the figures above are the figures on the pricing page, with no call required to hear them.
The price, in three lines
Standard is £599 a month, covering up to fifteen on the tools.
The one-off Onboarding Investment on Standard is £249. The first ten firms pay no Onboarding Investment, on any Stage.
Your card is authorised when you confirm your setup. Nothing is charged until you are live, after our review.
Two published price lists, two different shapes
A good deal of this market hides its numbers behind a demo call. Fergus does not, and neither do we, so this page can skip the pantomime and compare the models in the open: a rate per seat against a price per Stage, and quote-first against booking-first.
Their rates are published as "from", which means a particular firm may pay more than the starting figure. Ours are flat: the number on the pricing page is the number on the invoice, and it holds while you hire inside your band.
Per-user maths, the honest version
At the published Professional starting rate of £45 a user, five on the tools is £225 a month against our Standard Stage at £599. Ten on the tools is £450, still under ours. The sum turns at the top of our band and nowhere else: fifteen on the tools is £675 against our £599. Go up to thirty and theirs is £1,350 against our Growth Stage at £1,749, which is ours losing again. Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing.
Two things move those figures further in their favour. Timesheet users from £12 mean a team where several people record hours and nothing else costs less than a straight multiplication suggests. And an annual arrangement, if you negotiate one, is not published either way. Run your own head count against both columns. At nearly every size on this page the subscription line is theirs, and we would rather you read that here than work it out after you signed.
What they have that we do not
Compliance certificates, first, because for a lot of firms it decides the page. Fergus generates certificates on both of its published plans (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing). We do not generate certificates at all. Your Gas Safe registered engineer or your qualified electrician issues the CP12, the EICR or the minor works certificate exactly as they do now, and what we hold is the document, the job record and the renewal date. If your week is built around producing certificates, weigh that before anything else here.
Accounting. Fergus lists Xero, QuickBooks and MYOB on both plans (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing). We have no accounting integration. Nothing syncs, and nothing on this page is a hint that it will. Our invoices are raised and emailed when the job completes, and your data exports as CSV, so getting the figures into your books stays your job or your bookkeeper.
A free trial. Fergus runs 14 days with no card asked for (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing). We run no trial. You get a demo with the founder, and your card is authorised when you confirm your setup with nothing charged until you go live. Using software for a fortnight tells you more than watching someone else drive it, and we are not going to argue otherwise.
And the per-user sum above. For a crew of two or three, a rate per seat is the kinder shape and theirs is the smaller bill. That is what per-user pricing is for, and it is a real reason to choose them.
Quote-first against booking-first
The familiar flow is enquiry, quote, job, invoice, with a human turning each stage. It works. It also costs evenings, and every handover is a place where a job quietly dies.
Booking-first removes the stages before the work. The customer opens your page, picks a slot that is genuinely free, and pays a card deposit at that moment, into your own Stripe account. The money never touches OptiTech Automation. Auto-dispatch then offers the job to the right worker with you keeping final say. The office work still happens, it just stops happening at nine at night.
Built for the owner with an employed team
Per-user pricing is at its kindest for the smallest teams, and the Fergus rate card reflects that. Our centre of gravity is the owner with an employed team of any size up to ninety workers, where the diary, the deposits and the dispatch are a full-time job nobody was hired to do.
That is why a new van inside your band adds nothing to the bill, why the step to the next Stage is published rather than negotiated, and why the company behind it is one accountable UK founder, UK GDPR compliant, ICO registered and EU hosted, with 30 day rolling terms and no exit fees.
Who should stay where
Stay with Fergus if
- Certificates are the spine of your week and you want the platform to produce them.
- You are a small crew, where their per-user rate is the lower bill, which it is at nearly every size on this page.
- You want to use software for a fortnight without handing anyone a card.
Move to OptiTech Automation if
- You want customers self-booking real slots and paying a deposit at that moment, into your own Stripe account.
- You want a bill that does not move when you hire inside your band.
- The admin around the diary, the deposits and the dispatch is what is eating your evenings.
Questions owners ask about switching from Fergus
Fergus charges per user, from £39 on Essentials and from £45 on Professional, and generates compliance certificates on both plans (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing). OptiTech Automation charges one published price per Stage, does not generate certificates, and takes the card deposit at the moment the customer books a slot on your own page.
At nearly every size on the page, yes. At their published Professional starting rate of £45 a user, ten on the tools is £450 a month against our Standard Stage at £599, and thirty is £1,350 against our Growth Stage at £1,749 (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing). The sum turns our way around fifteen on the tools and nowhere else.
No. Your Gas Safe registered engineer or your qualified electrician issues the certificate exactly as they do now. We keep the document, the job record and the renewal date. Fergus generates certificates on both of its published plans (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing).
Not from us. Fergus runs a 14 day trial with no card asked for (Verified 24 September 2026, fergus.com/uk/pricing). What we offer is a demo with the founder and a subscription that is not charged until you go live, with the card authorised when you confirm your setup.
Yes. Export your customer and job history, and we help you import it. Terms are 30-day rolling with no exit fees, and your data exports from us as CSV, from your own settings page, whether or not you are leaving.
See the numbers for yourself
Our pricing is public, the worth-it calculator does your own sums in about two minutes, and the call is 15 minutes with the founder, not a sales team.