Which Quoting Apps Are Actually Free for Tradies?

ServiceM8's Starter plan is the only genuinely free, permanently free quoting solution in the Australian tradie market that isn't a catch. It's a real, working version of the product — not a gutted demo. You get quote creation, client communication, job scheduling, and invoicing, all for zero dollars. The catch is the 20 active jobs per month limit, which is a real constraint for anyone doing more than a handful of jobs weekly.

For a tradie just starting out — first year of business, still building the client base, running fewer than 20 jobs a month — ServiceM8 Starter is genuinely excellent. The iOS app is best-in-class. Quotes are professional, can be sent for digital acceptance, and convert to invoices in a tap. When you outgrow 20 jobs, the paid plan starts at $29/month, which makes the upgrade decision easy.

Android users get a weaker experience — the Android app has historically lagged behind iOS. If you're an Android tradie, the free ServiceM8 plan is still the best free option available, but factor in that the app experience will be second-tier. Xero integration is available on paid plans only.

To be clear: Tradify is not permanently free. It offers a 14-day free trial, after which it costs $35/month AUD per user. It's on this list because the trial is genuinely unrestricted — you get full access to every feature, no credit card required to start, and 14 days is enough time to run real quotes and understand whether the platform fits your workflow before spending a dollar.

If you're researching quoting software and want to test one platform properly before committing, Tradify's trial is the best way to do it. The quoting module, scheduling board, Xero integration, and mobile apps are all available in full during the trial. Set up a real job, run it through the full quoting-to-invoice workflow, and you'll know within a week if it's the right fit.

HubSpot's free CRM tier is not a quoting tool. It's a customer relationship management platform built for salespeople. However, with a bit of creative configuration — using Deals as quote records, attaching PDF quotes generated in Canva or Word, and using HubSpot's document tracking to see when clients open your quotes — you can build a workable quoting workflow for zero dollars.

This approach suits tradies who do a small number of high-value jobs and want to track where each quote is in the pipeline (sent, opened, accepted, lost) without paying for purpose-built software. It is not a substitute for ServiceM8 or Tradify if you need automated quoting, mobile access on a job site, or Xero integration. Think of it as a free way to organise your quote pipeline if you're generating quotes in another tool.

Zoho Invoice's free tier is legitimately generous — up to 1,000 invoices per year at no cost, including quote creation, client management, and basic automations. For a sole trader who primarily needs to generate and send quotes, track acceptance, and convert to invoices, Zoho Invoice gets the job done without costing a cent. It's less trade-specific than ServiceM8 (no scheduling, no job management, no field app worth speaking of) but the quote-and-invoice workflow is clean.

The limitations show in the trade context: there's no scheduling integration, the mobile app isn't designed for field use, and the Xero integration requires a paid Zoho plan. For a sole trader doing renovation or handyman work who just needs to send professional quotes and track payment, it's a solid free option. For anyone managing a team or doing field work daily, it falls short.

Canva is emphatically not a quoting tool. It's a design platform. It appears on this list because tradies genuinely use it to produce polished-looking quote documents when they're just starting out and don't want to pay for software. Canva has excellent quote and invoice templates that will make your quote look more professional than a Word document with your logo slapped on it. That's the beginning and end of its utility here — there's no automation, no client tracking, no Xero sync, and no mobile quoting workflow.

If you have a small number of high-value quotes per month and want them to look sharp while you're getting established, Canva gets the job done. The moment you're quoting more than a handful of jobs monthly, the manual effort of building each quote from a template will cost you more time than the $29/month for ServiceM8.