The Tradify alternative built for owners with a team
OptiTech Automation vs Tradify. Tradify publishes fair per-user pricing and suits small crews well. OptiTech Automation is the Tradify alternative for the owner whose team has outgrown per-seat maths: £599 a month up to ten on the tools, customer self-booking, deposit taken at booking.
| Feature | Tradify | OptiTech Automation |
|---|---|---|
| Where it is built | New Zealand, sold worldwide | The UK, for UK trades only |
| Pricing model | Per user: £34, £37 or £44 per user a month on published UK plans (checked July 2026) | Per plan, both published: £599 a month up to ten on the tools, £1,749 to twenty-five |
| How work arrives | Enquiries, quotes and invoices | Customer self-books online, deposit taken at booking |
| Deposit at booking | Invoice and payment tools | Taken automatically at the moment of booking, into your own Stripe account |
| UK GDPR / ICO | Global product | UK GDPR compliant, ICO registered, EU-hosted |
The price, in the open
Tradify
Tradify publishes its UK pricing openly, and it deserves credit for that: Lite at £34, Pro at £37 and Plus at £44, each per user per month, with a Custom plan priced by phone. 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. Neither is per user, and both are published.
Both companies show their numbers, so this comparison can be about the model, which is where the real difference lives.
Credit where it is due
Most of this market hides its prices behind demo calls. Tradify does not, and neither do we. That shared honesty makes the choice cleaner: this is per-user against per-plan, and quote-first against booking-first, out in the open.
It also means neither of us can hide behind a demo. Their numbers are on their UK page, ours are on our pricing page, and the rest of this page is about what those numbers buy.
What sits inside the plan price
Standard at £599 a month includes the booking page, the deposit engine taking card payments at the moment of booking into your own Stripe account, the auto-dispatch engine offering jobs to the right worker, the offline-first worker app, and two-way Xero sync that raises a draft invoice when a job completes. The £249 setup is the founder building it with you, once.
Per-user tools price each seat because each seat is the product. We price the outcome: a diary that fills itself, deposits that arrive without asking, and a team that knows where to be. That outcome does not get more expensive because you hired someone inside your band, and the step past ten on the tools is a published number, not a negotiation.
Per-user maths, the honest version
At two users on Pro, Tradify is £74 a month at its published rates. We are £599. If that is the whole comparison, Tradify wins it, and we would rather say so than waste your evening.
The honest version holds at every size Standard covers. At ten on the tools, Tradify Plus is £440 a month at its published rate, and our Standard is £599. We are not the cheapest subscription on this page and we will not pretend to be. The £599 buys a different machine: the customer books a real slot themselves, the deposit lands in your own Stripe account before you commit a van, and the bill is published end to end, £599 to ten on the tools, £1,749 to twenty-five, with no quote call at either step. The worth-it calculator does the sum for your exact headcount in about two minutes.
The booking-first difference
Tradify runs the familiar flow: enquiry, quote, job, invoice. It does that well for the crews it suits.
OptiTech Automation starts from a different assumption: the customer should be able to book you the way they book a table. They pick a genuinely free slot on your page and pay a deposit at that moment, by card, into your own Stripe account. The money never touches OptiTech Automation. No quote tennis, no chasing, and no-shows mostly stop being your problem, because people who have paid a deposit turn up.
Built for the owner with an employed team
Per-user pricing is kindest to the smallest teams, and that is exactly who it should serve. Our centre of gravity is different: the owner with an employed team, from a couple of vans up to about 25 on the tools, where the diary, the deposits and the dispatch are a full-time job nobody was hired to do.
That is why adding a van does not raise the bill, why jobs are offered to the right worker automatically with the owner keeping final say, and why the whole thing is run by one accountable UK founder who answers every email.
UK-first is not a sticker
Tradify is a New Zealand company selling worldwide, including a proper UK page with UK prices. OptiTech Automation is built in the UK for UK trades only: UK GDPR, ICO registered, EU-hosted, pounds everywhere, and two-way Xero sync raising draft invoices when jobs complete.
Narrow focus is our bet. We would rather serve one country’s trade businesses properly than every country’s adequately.
Who should stay where
Stay with Tradify if
- You are a sole trader or a crew of two or three. At published per-user rates, Tradify costs you less, and that matters.
- You want a simple quote-and-invoice app rather than a booking and dispatch platform.
- You are outside the UK, where our UK-only focus does nothing for you.
Move to OptiTech Automation if
- Your team has grown to the point where per-seat pricing and manual scheduling both sting.
- You want customers self-booking with the deposit taken automatically at booking.
- You want UK compliance, Xero two-way sync and a published plan bill instead of a per-seat meter.
Questions owners ask about switching from Tradify
Tradify is a New Zealand company selling per-user quote-and-invoice software worldwide. OptiTech Automation is built in the UK for UK trades only, priced per plan at £599 a month for up to ten on the tools, and built booking-first: the customer self-books and the deposit is taken automatically at that moment, into your own Stripe account.
Tradify already publishes its pricing and deserves credit for it: £34 to £44 per user a month on its UK plans (checked July 2026). So do we: £599 a month plus £249 setup up to ten on the tools, £1,749 to twenty-five. The real choice is per-user against per-plan, and quote-first against booking-first.
On raw subscription, yes, at published rates, across the sizes Standard covers: two users on Pro is £74 a month, and even ten users on Plus is £440 against our £599. We say that plainly because you are not buying the cheapest subscription from us. You are buying self-booking, the deposit taken automatically at booking into your own Stripe account, and auto-dispatch, at prices published end to end: £599 to ten on the tools, £1,749 to twenty-five. The worth-it calculator does your exact sum.
We take them at a different moment. The card deposit is captured automatically when the customer books, into your own Stripe account, before any quote or invoice exists. The money never touches OptiTech Automation.
Yes. Set up your booking page and test the deposit engine and worker dispatch first. Your card is authorised at signup, but your subscription is not charged until you go live.
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.