Powered Now vs Tradify: Which Job Management Software Is Right for Your Trade Business?

If you run a UK trade business and you are weighing up Powered Now vs Tradify, you are comparing two of the most popular job management apps for the trades. Both promise the same payoff: less paperwork, faster quotes, quicker payment, and a tidier diary.

But they are built around different priorities, and each leaves gaps that the other fills. The right choice comes down to how much compliance paperwork you carry, whether you lose signal on site, and how you like to run your day.

Small firms lose serious time to back-office admin, something bodies like the Federation of Small Businesses have long flagged as a brake on growth, so the right tool genuinely pays for itself. This guide compares Powered Now and Tradify in plain English across pricing, offline access, certificates, scheduling, accounting, and support. It also shows where iTrade fits, because the trade-offs you are about to read about are the ones we built iTrade to remove.

Powered Now vs Tradify at a Glance

Software	Best For	Starting Price	Key Strength
Powered Now	UK trades doing gas, landlord and compliance work	From around £19–£27 per user / month	Offline working + 70+ certificates
Tradify	Sole traders and small teams who want an easy, polished app	From around £29 per user/month	Usability + accounting integrations
iTrade	Trade businesses wanting one app on every device, every feature included	£29.00 per field worker; office admins FREE	Flat pricing + trade-built flexibility

Both tools handle the daily essentials: quotes, jobs, scheduling, invoicing, and customer records on a month-to-month subscription.

Where they diverge is offline access, certificates and UK compliance, pricing, and ease of use, and that is also where a trade-built alternative like iTrade can pull ahead. Here is the detail.

What Is Powered Now?

Powered Now is a UK-built job management platform designed around the realities of mobile trade work. It covers quoting, invoicing, scheduling, customer records, and a deep library of forms and certificates, with a clear focus on compliance and working without signal.

Its standout strengths are genuine offline access, more than 70 customisable forms and certificates (think Gas Safe CP12, EICRs and commercial inspections), a built-in CRM, SMS messages included in the price, and UK tax handled in-app, including Making Tax Digital for VAT and the CIS domestic reverse charge. Free training, including in-person, rounds it out.

Best for: UK mobile trades, especially gas, heating and landlord work, who need certificates out of the box and reliable offline access.

What Is Tradify?

Tradify is New Zealand-built and hugely popular with UK sole traders and small teams. It is designed around the quote-to-invoice workflow, with unlimited jobs, quotes and invoices on every plan and a reputation for being one of the easiest trade apps to pick up.

Tradify runs on iPhone, iPad, Android and desktop, with fast quoting from saved price lists, clean scheduling, and some of the smoothest Xero and QuickBooks integration in the category. It also handles materials, stock and purchase orders well. The trade-offs are no offline mode, a smaller set of forms and certificates, and SMS messaging that is not included in the base price.

Best for: Sole traders and small teams who want a polished, easy app, quote on the move, and live in Xero or QuickBooks.

Powered Now vs Tradify: A Feature-by-Feature Comparison

Pricing

Both charge per user per month with no long-term contract. Powered Now starts lower, from around £19 to £27 per user, depending on plan, and includes SMS messages, which can save money if you text customers a lot.

Tradify starts from around £29 per user and treats SMS as an add-on. iTrade uses a third model: a flat £29.00 per field worker, with office admins and non-field managers free, and every feature included rather than locked to higher tiers.

Offline Access

This is Powered Now’s biggest single advantage. Its app keeps working without signal, so engineers can record job details, photos and signatures in basements, plant rooms and rural properties, then sync when they are back online.

Tradify is cloud-based and online-only, so a dropped connection means no access until it returns. If your team regularly works where the signal is poor, this difference alone can decide it.

Forms, Certificates and UK Compliance

Powered Now leads clearly here, with more than 70 customisable forms and certificates against Tradify’s smaller set, plus far more document layouts.

It also builds in Making Tax Digital for VAT and the CIS domestic reverse charge, which matters for VAT-registered and subcontracted work. Tradify leans on its accounting integrations for compliance rather than native certificate templates.

iTrade takes a different route: rather than a fixed certificate library, it lets you create your own custom forms and JSAs that attach to the job as PDFs and can be made compulsory, so nothing gets missed.

Quoting, Invoicing and Document Layouts

Both produce branded quotes and convert them into jobs and invoices quickly. Tradify is known for fast, tidy quoting from saved price lists and slick online invoicing with payment options.

Powered Now offers many more document layouts, useful if you want different looks for different jobs or clients. Day to day, both are quick; your preference for polished templates

versus layout flexibility will decide it.

Scheduling and Dispatch

Tradify’s scheduling is clean and offers more calendar views, which growing teams tend to prefer for visibility across the crew. Powered Now has a solid calendar plus GPS tracking for dispatching the nearest engineer. Both cover the basics well; Tradify edges it on day-to-day usability, Powered Now on field tracking.

CRM and Customer Communication

Powered Now includes a built-in CRM and bundles SMS into the price, so keeping customers updated costs nothing extra. Tradify sends automated email and SMS follow-ups, too, though SMS is charged separately. Neither offers true two-way texting, so quick back-and-forth with customers still tends to happen off-platform.

Accounting and Integrations

Both sync with the big accounting names, and for UK firms that link matters: VAT-registered businesses must keep digital records and file through Making Tax Digital-compatible software.

Tradify’s Xero and QuickBooks integration is widely rated as the smoother of the two and also connects to MYOB and Stripe. Powered Now integrates with the main packages as well and adds MTD and CIS handling natively. iTrade syncs with both Xero and QuickBooks, so your books stay tidy whichever way you go.

Materials, Stock and Purchase Orders

If your jobs run through a lot of materials, Tradify has the edge over Powered Now, with supplier price lists, inventory and purchase orders linked to each job.

Powered Now is lighter here. iTrade is also built for material-heavy work: its materials management imports supplier price books and controls margins by supplier or category, so quoting stays fast and profitable.

Ease of Use, Support and Training

Tradify is consistently praised for being easy to learn, with free phone support and one-on-one training.

Powered Now also offers free training, including in-person, which suits teams that want a hand getting started. iTrade takes the hands-on route too, with unlimited human support and a free one-hour training session on every trial.

Powered Now vs Tradify: Pros and Cons

A quick, honest balance sheet for each platform:

• Powered Now pros: UK-built, genuine offline working, 70+ certificates and forms, a built-in CRM, SMS included in the price, Making Tax Digital and CIS handled in-app, and free in-person training.

• Powered Now cons: lighter on materials and purchase orders, fewer scheduling views, and an interface some find less slick than Tradify’s.

• Tradify pros: very easy to use, fast quoting, clean scheduling, excellent Xero and QuickBooks sync, strong materials and purchase orders, and free phone support.

• Tradify cons: no offline mode, fewer forms and certificates, SMS not included, and less built-in UK compliance.

  
  

Powered Now vs Tradify: Which Should You Choose?

Choose Powered Now if you carry a lot of compliance paperwork, do gas, heating or landlord work, lose signal on site, and want certificates and UK tax handling built in.

Choose Tradify if you want the easiest app to use, quote on the move, run plenty of materials, and rely on tight Xero or QuickBooks integration. Match your biggest daily pain point to each tool’s strength, and the answer usually appears quickly.

But if you find yourself wanting Powered Now’s compliance flexibility and Tradify’s usability without the per-seat costs or tiered feature locks, that is exactly the gap iTrade was built to fill.

Why iTrade Is the Alternative Worth Shortlisting

At iTrade, we built our platform from the ground up for trade businesses, by people who have run them. When tradespeople come to us from a Powered Now vs Tradify shortlist, the same handful of frustrations come up, so here is how iTrade answers them:

• One app, both platforms. iTrade is a full native app on iOS and Android, with no stripped-down version and no need to standardise the whole team on one type of phone.

• Flat £29.00 per field worker. Office admins and non-field managers are always free, so you only pay for the people out on the tools.

• Every feature is included. Nothing is locked behind higher plans or per-feature add-ons, so the price you see is the price you get.

• Forms that fit your work. Build your own custom forms and JSAs that attach to each job as PDFs and can be made compulsory, so important paperwork never gets missed.

• Built for the trade workflow. Drag-and-drop scheduling, on-site quoting and invoicing, automated timesheets, GPS-stamped job reports, and materials and margin control, all syncing with Xero and QuickBooks.

• Real support included. Unlimited human support and a free one-hour training session on every trial, plus a 30-day free trial with no card required.

You can see the full feature set on our features page, browse how we stack up across the market on our comparison hub, or read our head-to-head Tradify vs ServiceM8 comparison for a side-by-side on price and scalability.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Powered Now or Tradify better?

Neither wins outright; it depends on your work. Powered Now is better for compliance-heavy, offline and certificate-driven trades, especially gas and landlord work. Tradify is better for ease of use, scheduling, materials and accounting integration. In the Powered Now vs Tradify decision, match each tool’s strengths to your biggest daily headache.

Does Tradify work offline?

No. Tradify is cloud-based and needs a live internet connection, so it does not work offline. Powered Now does work offline, letting engineers record job details, photos and signatures without a signal and sync later. If you regularly lose connection on site, this is a key difference between the two.

Which is cheaper, Powered Now or Tradify?

Powered Now usually starts lower, from around £19 to £27 per user per month, and includes SMS messages. Tradify starts from around £29 per user, with SMS charged separately. Per-user costs are close, so weigh included features, not just headline price. iTrade offers a third route: a flat £29.00 per field worker, with office admins free.

Does Powered Now handle Gas Safe and EICR certificates?

Yes. Powered Now includes more than 70 customisable forms and certificates, covering Gas Safe CP12 records, EICRs, commercial inspections and more, with photos and signatures captured on-site. Tradify offers a smaller set. If certificates are central to your work, Powered Now has a stronger out-of-the-box library.

Do Powered Now and Tradify support Making Tax Digital for VAT?

Yes. Powered Now builds Making Tax Digital for VAT and the CIS domestic reverse charge into the app. Tradify supports Making Tax Digital through its Xero and QuickBooks integration rather than natively. Either way, check the setup keeps your VAT records digital and compliant before you commit.

Is there a better alternative to Powered Now and Tradify?

It depends on what you need. In the Powered Now vs Tradify debate, both are strong, but iTrade is a popular alternative for trade businesses that want one purpose-built platform: a full app on iOS and Android, flat £29.00-per-field-worker pricing, free office-admin seats, custom forms, and unlimited human support. A free trial is the quickest way to compare.

Ready to Spend Less Time on Admin?

The right job management software hands you back hours every week, gets invoices out faster, and smooths the whole job from first call to final payment.

Powered Now and Tradify are both capable tools, and if their trade-offs do not quite suit how you work, iTrade brings the essentials together in one app, on every device, with nothing locked behind a higher tier.

Curious how much time you could save?

Try our time-saving calculator, or book a free consultation call with our team to see iTrade in your own workflow. You can also email us at support@itrade.net, and we will help you work out whether iTrade is the right fit.