Tradify Review for Groundworkers UK (2026): Is It Worth It?
Tradify Review for Groundworkers UK 2026: Is It Worth It?
Tradify is one of the most popular job management apps among UK tradespeople, but it is mostly known in the plumbing, electrical, and heating world. This review is specifically for groundworkers: what Tradify does well, where it falls short, and whether it is worth the subscription for a groundworks business in 2026.
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Short answer: yes, if you are running more than a handful of jobs at a time, paying or being paid as a CIS subcontractor, and currently managing quotes, purchase orders, and invoices through phone notes and WhatsApp, Tradify will pay for itself in saved time and fewer payment disputes almost immediately.
What Is Tradify?
Tradify is job management software designed for tradespeople and small trade businesses. It covers the full job lifecycle: from the initial enquiry and quote, through scheduling and on-site updates, to invoicing and payment collection.
It is cloud-based, works on iOS and Android, and has a web dashboard for desktop use. Everything syncs in real time, so if you have got a team member or a subbie on a different site, you can both see the same job information.
What Tradify Does for Groundworkers
Quoting
Tradify lets you build quotes from saved templates, so if you regularly quote for driveway sub-bases, drainage runs, or muckaway jobs, you can save your standard labour rates, plant hire costs, and materials lists and pull them in rather than starting from scratch each time.
You can add line items for labour, plant hire, muckaway, and materials, set margins, and generate a professional PDF quote that you can email directly to a client or main contractor from the app. Clients can approve quotes electronically, no printing or posting required.
CIS Subcontractor Support
This is the feature that matters most for groundworkers specifically. If you use subcontractors and operate under the Construction Industry Scheme, Tradify has no CIS options of its own: connected to Xero or Sage it shows the CIS deduction on invoices and subcontractor bills, but CIS is not supported with QuickBooks. The CIS records and statements themselves come from your accounting software. For groundworks businesses that regularly bring in day-rate subbies, setting-out engineers, or plant operators, this alone removes a genuine amount of admin risk.
Job Scheduling
The scheduling view shows all your jobs on a calendar. You can drag and drop jobs to rearrange the week, assign jobs to team members or subbies across different sites, and set start times and durations. For a groundworks business running crews across two or three sites simultaneously, it is more than enough to keep track of who is where.
On-Site Updates
From the Tradify app on your phone, you can log time against a job, add materials and plant used, take photos, and leave notes. If a main contractor or client questions how long a team spent on site, or disputes a variation caused by ground conditions, you have got a timestamped digital record with photos rather than a memory of what was agreed.
For groundworks jobs that run over multiple days or get held up by weather, this is particularly useful. You can track exactly what was done on each day and keep the job record clean even when work is interrupted.
Invoicing
Once a job is done, you convert the quote to an invoice with one tap. Any plant hire, materials, or labour logged during the job can be added automatically, and CIS deductions are applied where relevant if Tradify is connected to Xero or Sage. You send the invoice by email, the client or contractor gets a payment link, and you can track whether it has been opened and paid.
Tradify sends automatic payment reminders at intervals you set, which matters more for groundworkers than most trades, given how often payment sits behind a main contractor’s own cash flow on 30 or 60-day terms.
Accounting Integration
Tradify integrates with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage. If your accountant uses either of those, your invoices and expenses sync automatically (CIS works through Xero or Sage only, not QuickBooks), no re-entering data at year end or exporting spreadsheets.
What We Found Testing Tradify (and What Carries Over to Groundworks)
- Private margins on every line. Each line has its own cost, markup and gross profit. The customer’s copy only shows the selling price, so your merchant prices and markup stay private.
- Enter the cost first, then the markup. One quirk: if you type a cost while the price is still £0, Tradify shows the markup as -100% because it works the markup back from the price. Set the cost, then the markup or price, and it behaves.
- Quote to job in one step. Accepting the quote offered to create the job straight away, with the customer, address and description already filled in.
- Five ways to invoice an accepted quote. The entire quote, selected line items, a percentage, a fixed amount, or the remaining amount, which covers deposits, stage payments and the final balance.
- Deposits can be a penny or two out. A 30% deposit showed as £186.75 in the dialog but the invoice came out at £186.76, and the deposit plus the remaining-amount invoice totalled £622.52 against a £622.50 quote. Only 2p, but worth a glance at the final figure before you send it.
- Card payments are there, but need setting up. Each invoice has an “accept card payments” option, once card payments are connected (transaction fees apply).
Pricing a Groundworks Job in Tradify: A Worked Example
Here is how a 40m² block-paved driveway would be laid out as Tradify line items, digging out to 250mm. The figures are illustrative, not current merchant prices, so swap in your own costs and rates.
| Line item | Qty | Cost each | Markup | Customer sees |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mini digger and dumper hire, per day | 3 | £150.00 | 20% | £540.00 |
| Muck away, per grab load | 2 | £280.00 | 20% | £672.00 |
| Type 1 sub-base (tonnes) | 12 | £35.00 | 20% | £504.00 |
| Sharp sand bedding (tonnes) | 3.5 | £45.00 | 20% | £189.00 |
| Block paving (m²) | 42 | £22.00 | 20% | £1,108.80 |
| Groundworks gang, per day | 4 | – | – | £2,400.00 |
| Total (before VAT) | £5,413.80 |
In this example the materials and hire cost £2,511.50 and are sold at £3,013.80, so the job carries £502.30 of margin on top of the labour. Tradify shows you that gross profit on the quote without it ever appearing on the customer’s copy. If you are VAT registered, 20% takes the total to £6,496.56. A 50% deposit invoice would then be £3,248.28, with the remaining amount invoiced once the job is finished.
The Materials Maths Tradify Won’t Do for You
Tradify works out prices, not quantities, so the volumes still need working out before they go on the quote:
- Dig-out volume: area x depth. 40m² at 250mm is 10m³ in the ground.
- Bulking: soil takes up more room once it is dug, commonly allowed at around a quarter to a third more, so plan the muck away on 12.5 to 13m³, not 10.
- Type 1: roughly 2 tonnes per cubic metre once compacted. 150mm over 40m² is 6m³, so about 12 tonnes.
- Sharp sand: roughly 1.5 to 1.6 tonnes per cubic metre. 50mm over 40m² is 2m³, so about 3.2 tonnes, ordered as 3.5.
- Blocks: the area plus around 5% for cuts.
Plant hire as its own line also makes it easy to show the customer what an extra day costs if the ground turns out worse than expected.
Where Tradify Falls Short for Groundworkers
No Earthworks Takeoff or Cut and Fill Calculation
Tradify has no built-in tool for calculating cut and fill volumes, muckaway loads, or earthworks quantities from a survey or drawing. You will still need dedicated takeoff software such as Kubla Cubed, or a carefully built spreadsheet, to work out those numbers before pricing them into a Tradify quote.
No Dedicated Plant Hire Scheduling
You can add plant hire as a line item on a quote or invoice, but there is no separate hire schedule tracking return dates or which machine is on which site. If you are hiring plant regularly across multiple jobs, you will still need to manage that separately.
Limited Client Portal
Tradify’s client-facing features are basic, quote approval and invoice payment, essentially. There is no client portal where a homeowner or main contractor can log in to see job history or upcoming schedule. Jobber has a stronger client portal if this matters to your business, which suits groundworkers doing more direct domestic work. Tradify does take online card payments on every plan, so the difference is the portal, not getting paid.
Tradify Pricing for UK Groundworkers
Tradify is priced per user across three plans: Lite at £34, Pro at £37 and Plus at £44 per user a month (from Tradify’s UK pricing page, checked September 2026). Every plan includes quoting, job management, scheduling, invoicing, and integrations with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage (CIS needs the Xero or Sage connection). Progress invoicing, automatic quote and invoice reminders and compliance certificates start on Pro, and the AI SmartTools are on Plus only.
A 14-day free trial is available with no credit card required.
Who Should Use Tradify as a Groundworker?
Tradify works best for groundworkers who:
- Are managing jobs across more than one site at a time
- Pay or are paid as CIS subcontractors regularly
- Currently quote and invoice via WhatsApp messages, PDF templates, or spreadsheets
- Have at least one member of staff or a regular subcontractor
- Want a tool that connects to their accountant’s software for MTD
If you are a solo groundworker doing one or two small domestic jobs a week and your current setup works, Tradify might be more than you need right now. But if you are growing, or if you have had even one payment dispute that could have been avoided with a proper written record, it is the right tool.
Tradify vs the Alternatives for Groundworkers
| App | Best For | Groundworks Fit | Starting Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tradify | Job management + CIS invoicing | Strong, built for UK trades | ~£34/month |
| Jobber | Client portal, online payments | Strong for direct domestic work | $29/month (USD, annual) |
| Xero | Accounting + invoicing | No job management | ~£15/month |
| QuickBooks | Accounting + MTD VAT + CIS | No job management | ~£10/month |
Jobber is worth considering alongside Tradify, particularly if a meaningful share of your work is direct domestic driveway or drainage jobs where a client portal and online card payments make a real difference to how quickly you get paid.
The Verdict
Tradify is a well-built, practical tool that fits groundworks admin well. It handles the quoting, scheduling and invoicing that take up the most admin time, and does it in a way that is fast enough to use from a phone on site rather than requiring a laptop and a quiet evening. It will not calculate your cut and fill volumes for you, but for the job management and payment side of the business, it is genuinely strong.
The 14-day free trial is risk-free. Give it a fortnight and see if it fits your workflow.
Frequently Asked Questions: Tradify for Groundworkers
Yes. In our test, an accepted Tradify quote could be invoiced as the entire quote, selected line items, a percentage, a fixed amount or the remaining amount. That covers a deposit before you order materials, stage payments on longer jobs, and the final balance on completion. In our test a 30% deposit came out 1p higher than the dialog showed, so check the final figure before sending.
Yes, Tradify works well for groundworks businesses that are regularly managing multiple sites, subbies, or CIS subcontractor relationships. If you run CIS, note that it works through a Xero or Sage connection rather than inside Tradify itself. If you are currently running your diary and invoicing through WhatsApp and a spreadsheet, Tradify will pay for itself in saved admin time and reduced payment disputes within the first month.
Tradify costs from £34 a month per user on the Lite plan, which includes quoting, job management, scheduling, invoicing, and integrations with Xero, QuickBooks and Sage (CIS needs the Xero or Sage connection). A 14-day free trial is available with no credit card required.
Only through an accounting connection. Tradify has no CIS options of its own: connected to Xero or Sage it shows the CIS deduction on invoices and subcontractor bills, but CIS is not supported with QuickBooks. For groundworks businesses that regularly bring in day-rate subbies or specialist plant operators, this removes a significant amount of manual admin and reduces the risk of getting deductions wrong.
The main limitations for groundworkers are: no built-in earthworks takeoff or cut and fill calculation (you will still need dedicated software like Kubla Cubed for that), no dedicated plant hire scheduling beyond adding it as a line item, and a limited client portal compared to Jobber. If a log-in client portal for domestic clients is a priority, Jobber is meaningfully better for that use case. Both take online card payments.
Yes, Tradify integrates directly with Xero and QuickBooks, and with Sage too. Invoices raised in Tradify sync to your accounting software automatically, with CIS supported through Xero and Sage only, and expenses recorded against jobs flow through as well. This removes manual data entry between invoicing and accounts at month end and helps keep your records MTD-compliant.
Jobber is the strongest alternative to Tradify for groundworkers, particularly those doing a significant share of direct domestic work. It has a more developed client portal where customers can approve quotes, pay invoices by card, and request new work without calling, which reduces payment friction for driveway and drainage jobs. Jobber is, however, less suited to subcontractor-heavy groundworks businesses that need CIS, where Tradify connected to Xero or Sage is the better fit.
Related Guides for Groundworkers
- UK Groundworkers Hub, all our groundworker guides and reviews in one place
- Best Apps for Groundworkers UK
- Best Job Management Software for Groundworkers UK
- Best Invoicing Software for Groundworkers UK
- How to Quote Groundworks Jobs in the UK
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