The Powered Now alternative where booking takes the deposit
OptiTech Automation vs Powered Now. Powered Now publishes its pricing, which is rarer than it should be, and we respect it. OptiTech Automation is the Powered Now alternative for owners with a team: a published plan price instead of per user, and the deposit taken the moment a customer books.
| Feature | Powered Now | OptiTech Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing transparency | Published: £28 to £40 per user a month, VAT excluded (checked July 2026) | Published: £599 a month up to ten on the tools, £1,749 to twenty-five |
| Pricing model | Per user | Per plan, a new van or a new hire inside your band adds nothing |
| How work arrives | Quotes and invoices you raise | Customer self-books online, deposit taken at booking |
| Deposits | Deposit and staged payment tools in the workflow | Fired automatically at the moment of booking, into your own Stripe account |
| Built for | Teams where per-seat pricing keeps the bill small | Owners with an employed team, a couple of vans to about 25 |
The price, in the open
Powered Now
Powered Now publishes its pricing openly: Business at £28, Professional at £32 and Premium at £40, each per user per month, VAT excluded, with annual options. You can buy without speaking to sales. Checked July 2026.
OptiTech Automation
Standard is £599 a month plus £249 setup and covers up to ten on the tools. Growth is £1,749 to twenty-five. Both published, neither per user.
Two vendors showing real numbers is rare in this market. Use it, and do the sum for your own headcount.
Two companies that both show the price
Most of this market gates its pricing behind a demo call. Powered Now does not, and neither do we. So this page can skip the pantomime and compare the models directly: per-user against per-plan, and quote-first against booking-first.
Per user or per plan: do the sum for your own team
At Powered Now’s published rates, a three-person crew on Professional is £96 a month plus VAT. We are £599. For that crew, at those numbers, Powered Now is the cheaper tool, and we would rather say so than pretend otherwise.
That stays true across Standard’s whole band: even at ten on the tools, their published Premium rate is £400 a month plus VAT to our £599. On raw subscription price they win, full stop. What the £599 is buying is the machine, not the seats: the booking page takes the job, the deposit lands in your own Stripe account the moment the customer books, and auto-dispatch, the offline-first worker app and two-way Xero sync are inside. Past ten on the tools the step is published too, £1,749 for up to twenty-five. The worth-it calculator does your exact numbers in two minutes.
A deposit that fires itself
Powered Now has deposit and staged payment tools of its own, and taking money up front is something both products care about. The structural difference is when and how the money moves.
On OptiTech Automation the deposit is not a step in a workflow that someone remembers to do. It is a property of the booking itself. The customer picks a slot on your page and the card deposit is taken automatically at that moment, into your own Stripe account. The money never touches OptiTech Automation. Nobody on your team asks for it, chases it or forgets it.
Quote-first against booking-first
The classic flow, enquiry, quote, job, invoice, assumes a human turns each stage. That works, but it costs evenings, and every handover is a place where a job quietly dies.
Booking-first removes the stages before the work. The customer self-books a genuinely free slot, pays the deposit, and the auto-dispatch engine offers the job to the right worker, with the owner keeping final say. The office work still happens. It just happens without the office.
What the £599 replaces
The plan fee is not really buying software, it is buying back the parts of the week that quoting, chasing and scheduling currently take. The booking page fills the diary. The deposit engine takes the money at booking, into your own Stripe account. Auto-dispatch offers each job to the right worker with you keeping final say. The worker app runs the day offline if it has to. Xero gets its draft invoice when the job completes.
Powered Now sells useful tools for running the same jobs by hand, and at a small crew’s size that can be all you need. We sell the version where the jobs mostly run themselves. That is what the difference between the two price tags is actually pricing.
Built for the owner with an employed team
Per-user pricing is at its best for the smallest teams, and Powered Now’s published rates reflect that. Our centre is the owner with an employed team, from a couple of vans to about 25 on the tools, where the diary and the dispatch are the real cost.
Plan pricing means hiring inside your band never raises the software bill, and the step past ten on the tools is published, not negotiated. The company behind it is one accountable UK founder, UK GDPR compliant, ICO registered and EU-hosted, with two-way Xero sync keeping the accountant happy.
Who should stay where
Stay with Powered Now if
- You are one to three on the tools and watching every pound. At published rates, their per-user maths beats ours at that size.
- You want an established self-serve app and a quote-first flow that matches how you already sell.
- You prefer to start small and pay per seat as you go.
Move to OptiTech Automation if
- Your team has grown past the point where per-seat billing feels small.
- You want the deposit taken automatically the moment a customer books, into your own Stripe account.
- You want customers self-booking instead of the office chasing enquiries.
Questions owners ask about switching from Powered Now
Both publish their pricing, which is rare here. Powered Now is per user, £28 to £40 a month each (checked July 2026), built around quotes and invoices. OptiTech Automation is £599 a month for up to ten on the tools and booking-first: the customer self-books and the deposit is taken automatically at that moment, into your own Stripe account.
Powered Now already publishes its pricing, and we respect that. So do we: Standard is £599 a month plus £249 setup for up to ten on the tools, and every tier is public, including Growth at £1,749 to twenty-five. The comparison is about the model: per-user against per-plan, quote-first against booking-first.
On raw subscription, yes, at published rates, across the sizes Standard covers: three people on Professional is £96 a month plus VAT, and ten on Premium is £400, against our £599. We compete on the machine, not the subscription price: self-booking, the deposit taken automatically at booking into your own Stripe account, auto-dispatch and Xero sync, with both plan prices published, £599 to ten on the tools and £1,749 to twenty-five. Run your own headcount through the worth-it calculator.
Powered Now has deposit and staged payment tools within its workflow. On OptiTech Automation the deposit is a property of the booking itself: taken automatically by card at the moment the customer books, into your own Stripe account. Nobody has to remember to ask.
A crew of one to three watching every pound, happy with a quote-first flow. At their published per-user rates, that team pays less than it would with us, and we would rather say so here than have you find out later.
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.