Best Quoting Software for Tradespeople in 2026 — A Complete Comparison

Sending quotes quickly and professionally is one of the most effective ways to win more work as a tradesperson. Yet many tradespeople still rely on handwritten quotes, plain text messages, or spending hours wrestling with Word documents and spreadsheets. The result is slow response times, inconsistent pricing, and quotes that fail to inspire confidence in customers.

Quoting software solves this problem. The right tool lets you create professional, branded proposals in minutes rather than hours — and respond to customer enquiries before your competitors do. But with dozens of options on the market, how do you choose the right one?

This guide compares the best quoting software available to UK tradespeople in 2026, explains what features actually matter, and helps you pick the right tool for your business.

Why Professional Quotes Matter

Before diving into the tools, it is worth understanding why this matters. When a homeowner requests quotes for a job, they typically contact three to five tradespeople. The one who responds fastest with a clear, professional quote has a massive advantage. Customers associate the quality of your quote with the quality of your work — fairly or not.

A professional quote includes a clear description of the work, itemised costs, a timeline, payment terms, and your business details. It shows the customer exactly what they are paying for and gives them confidence you know what you are doing. Compare that with a text message saying "kitchen will be three grand" — which tradesperson would you choose?

Research consistently shows that tradespeople who send professional, well-structured proposals win a higher percentage of jobs, even when their price is not the lowest. We explore this in depth in our article on why professional proposals win more work.

What to Look for in Quoting Software

Not all quoting tools are created equal. Here are the features that actually matter for tradespeople.

Speed and Ease of Use

The whole point of quoting software is to save time. If a tool takes longer to learn than it saves you, it is not worth it. The best quoting tools are intuitive enough that you can create your first quote within minutes of signing up, without watching tutorial videos or reading manuals. Look for tools with clean interfaces, mobile-friendly design, and minimal steps between starting a quote and sending it.

Professional Output

The end result needs to look good. Your quotes should be branded with your business name and logo, clearly formatted, and easy for customers to read. PDF output is important because it works across all devices and cannot be accidentally edited by the recipient. Some tools also offer online quote viewing with accept and decline buttons, which makes it even easier for customers to respond.

UK-Focused

Many quoting tools are built for the American or Australian market and then vaguely adapted for the UK. Look for tools that use pounds sterling, understand UK VAT, include UK-relevant terms and conditions, and are designed with UK trade conventions in mind. There is nothing worse than sending a customer a quote with dollar signs or American spelling.

Mobile Functionality

Tradespeople work on site, not at desks. You need to be able to create and send quotes from your phone or tablet. Some tools achieve this through native apps, others through responsive web design. Either approach works, but make sure the mobile experience is genuinely usable — not a cramped, frustrating version of the desktop interface.

Integration and Extras

Consider what else you need. Do you want invoicing in the same tool? Job scheduling? Customer management? Some tools are purely for quoting, while others are complete job management platforms. More features is not always better — a focused tool that does quoting brilliantly is often more useful than an all-in-one platform where quoting is an afterthought.

The Best Quoting Software for UK Tradespeople

Here is a honest comparison of the main options available in 2026, covering what each does well and where it falls short.

QuoteSmith

Best for: Fast, professional PDF proposals with AI-generated content

Price: From £9.99 per month (7-day free trial, no credit card required)

QuoteSmith is built specifically for UK tradespeople who want to send professional proposals quickly. The standout feature is AI-powered content generation — you enter your line items with costs and the AI writes a complete scope of work, timeline, and terms for you. This means you can go from a site visit to a polished PDF proposal in minutes rather than spending an evening typing up quotes.

The proposals include your branding, an itemised breakdown, a professional scope of work section, timeline, payment terms, and terms and conditions. Everything is formatted as a clean, branded PDF that you can send directly to customers. The tool runs in your browser, so it works equally well on desktop, tablet, or phone without needing to install anything.

QuoteSmith focuses purely on the quoting and proposal side of things. It does not try to be a job management system, scheduler, or accounting tool. If you want an all-in-one platform, it may not be enough on its own. But if your main problem is creating professional quotes quickly, it solves that problem exceptionally well.

To see examples of what the proposals look like, visit the QuoteSmith examples page.

Tradify

Best for: All-in-one job management for growing trade businesses

Price: From £29 per user per month (14-day free trial)

Tradify is a comprehensive job management platform from New Zealand that has built a strong following in the UK. It covers quoting, invoicing, job scheduling, timesheets, and customer management in one platform. The quoting feature lets you create professional quotes with your branding, and customers can accept online.

The strength of Tradify is having everything in one place. You can track a job from initial enquiry through quoting, scheduling, completion, and invoicing without switching between tools. It integrates with Xero and QuickBooks for accounting.

The downside is cost and complexity. At twenty-nine pounds per user per month, it is one of the more expensive options. The quoting feature, while solid, is essentially a template-based system — you write the content yourself rather than having it generated for you. If you are a sole trader who mainly needs better quotes, you might be paying for features you do not use.

Powered Now

Best for: UK tradespeople who want forms, certificates, and compliance built in

Price: From £20 per month (free trial available)

Powered Now is a UK-built app designed specifically for tradespeople. It covers quoting, invoicing, scheduling, and — uniquely — industry forms and certificates. Electricians, gas engineers, and plumbers can create completion certificates, test sheets, and compliance documents directly in the app.

The quoting feature produces professional documents and the app works well offline, which is useful on sites with poor signal. It also tracks customer signatures digitally, which is helpful for dispute prevention.

The interface can feel dated compared to newer competitors, and the learning curve is steeper than simpler tools. The quote templates are functional but lack the polish of dedicated proposal tools.

YourTradebase

Best for: Simple, affordable quoting and invoicing

Price: From £15 per month (free trial available)

YourTradebase is a straightforward UK tool for creating quotes, invoices, and managing customer details. It does not try to do everything — it focuses on the paperwork side of running a trade business and does it well.

Quotes are easy to create and look professional. You can track which quotes have been opened, accepted, or declined, which gives you useful follow-up information. The tool also handles invoicing and basic scheduling.

It lacks some of the advanced features of larger platforms — no timesheets, no team management, no compliance certificates. But for sole traders who want clean quotes and invoices without complexity, it is a solid option at a reasonable price.

QuickBooks or Xero

Best for: Tradespeople who want quoting integrated with accounting

Price: QuickBooks from £12 per month, Xero from £15 per month

Both QuickBooks and Xero are primarily accounting tools, but both include quote and invoice creation. If you already use one of these for your bookkeeping, adding quotes through the same platform means your financial data is all in one place. Quotes convert to invoices with a click, and everything flows through to your accounts automatically.

The limitation is that quotes created in accounting software tend to look like... accounting documents. They are functional and clear, but they lack the visual polish and detailed scope of work that a dedicated proposal tool provides. If you are quoting for high-value residential work where presentation matters, you might want something more impressive.

Word, Excel, or Google Docs

Best for: Maximum flexibility with maximum effort

Price: Free

Many tradespeople create quotes in Word, Excel, or Google Docs using templates they have built themselves. This gives you complete control over the layout and content, and it costs nothing.

The problem is time. Creating a detailed, professional quote from scratch in Word takes significantly longer than using a dedicated tool. You also lose features like online acceptance, quote tracking, and automatic numbering. If you are sending more than a few quotes per week, the time spent formatting documents adds up quickly.

If you want to improve your Word-based quotes without switching tools, our guide on how to write a professional building quote covers the essential elements.

Feature Comparison at a Glance

Here is how the main options stack up on the features that matter most to tradespeople.

AI-generated content: QuoteSmith is currently the only tool that uses AI to write your scope of work, timeline, and terms. All other tools require you to write the content yourself or reuse templates.

Speed of quote creation: QuoteSmith and YourTradebase are the fastest, typically producing a complete quote in under five minutes. Tradify and Powered Now take longer due to more complex workflows. Word and Excel take the longest.

Proposal quality: QuoteSmith produces the most polished proposals, followed by Tradify and YourTradebase. Powered Now and accounting tools produce functional but less visually impressive documents.

All-in-one features: Tradify and Powered Now offer the most comprehensive feature sets. QuoteSmith, YourTradebase, and accounting tools focus on specific areas rather than trying to cover everything.

Mobile experience: Powered Now and Tradify have dedicated apps. QuoteSmith and YourTradebase work through mobile browsers. All are usable on phones, but the dedicated apps generally offer a smoother experience for complex tasks.

UK focus: QuoteSmith, Powered Now, and YourTradebase are built specifically for the UK market. Tradify is New Zealand-based but well adapted for the UK. QuickBooks and Xero are international platforms with UK versions.

How to Choose the Right Tool

The right quoting software depends on your business size, your priorities, and what you are willing to spend.

If You Are a Sole Trader

You probably do not need a full job management system. A focused quoting tool like QuoteSmith or YourTradebase gives you professional quotes at a reasonable cost. If you already use QuickBooks or Xero for accounting, their built-in quoting may be enough if presentation is not a major factor in your market.

If You Are Growing a Team

Multi-user tools like Tradify become valuable when you need multiple people creating quotes, scheduling jobs, and tracking time. The per-user pricing is higher, but the coordination benefits are significant once you have two or more people working together.

If You Are in a Regulated Trade

Electricians, gas engineers, and plumbers should consider Powered Now for its built-in compliance certificates and forms. Being able to create quotes, invoices, and completion certificates in one app is genuinely useful for regulated trades.

If You Need to Win More Work

If your main challenge is converting enquiries into jobs — if you are losing work to competitors despite offering good prices — then the quality of your proposals is the most likely culprit. In that case, a tool focused on proposal quality, like QuoteSmith with its AI-generated content, will have the biggest impact on your win rate.

The Real Cost of Not Using Quoting Software

Many tradespeople resist paying for quoting software because they see it as an unnecessary cost. But consider the alternative.

If you spend thirty minutes writing each quote manually, and you send twenty quotes a month, that is ten hours per month spent on quoting. At an average tradesperson day rate, those ten hours represent significant lost earnings — time you could spend on billable work.

Then factor in the jobs you lose because your quote arrived a day late, or looked unprofessional compared to a competitor's polished proposal. Even winning one extra job per month through faster, more professional quoting would more than cover the cost of any software on this list.

The tradespeople who invest in their quoting process consistently report higher win rates, faster response times, and — perhaps most importantly — less time spent on admin in the evenings and weekends. For many, that last point is reason enough.

Getting Started

Every tool on this list offers a free trial, so the best approach is to try the one or two that look most relevant to your situation. Create a real quote for a real job and see how it feels. The tool that fits your workflow and produces results you are proud to send is the right choice.

If you want to see what AI-powered proposals look like, you can try QuoteSmith free for seven days — no credit card required. Enter your job details, let the AI write your scope of work, and send a professional PDF proposal within minutes.