I added a price comparison chart. Then I felt sorry for our competitors’ customers

I added a price comparison chart to our website last week.

Then I had to go and sit down for a bit.

I checked the numbers three times. I assumed I’d misread a decimal point. I hadn’t.

Some of the software out there costs tradespeople £32, £37, even £59 a month for one person. Checker PRO is £19.99. That’s often around half the price, and up to 66% cheaper.

Honestly, I felt a bit sorry for their customers.

A few weeks ago I posted that AI isn’t coming for plumbers, heating engineers, sparkies or renewables installers. Nobody’s training a robot to crawl under a kitchen sink, bleed a radiator, chase a cable through a 1930s wall or commission a heat pump in the rain. AI is coming for the admin, and good riddance to it.

But here’s the bit that keeps me up at night.

AI is replacing jobs in plenty of other industries. Fewer jobs means tighter household budgets. Tighter budgets means people put off the boiler service, live with the dodgy socket, and “see how it goes” with the heat pump they were thinking about.

Now add expensive software on top. The tradesperson has to cover that cost somehow, so their prices go up. Customers can’t afford it, so the work doesn’t get done. And the tradesperson ends up out of work anyway.

When software prices get out of hand, the only real loser is the trade.

So why can we charge so much less?

Because someone has to pay for the sales team’s leased Audis. Spoiler: it’s you.

Because we don’t feel the need to win the annual “who’s got the biggest stand at the trade show” contest. We’ll leave the 40ft banners and free branded stress balls to the big boys.

Because some apps have been “new and improved” since about 2014. Ours is genuinely brand new.

And because you shouldn’t need to book a demo, sit through an onboarding call and “speak to our team for pricing” just to find out what something costs.

Checker is plain, honest, simple software for heating, plumbing, electrical and renewables businesses. It’s the most intuitive app on the market, and it does everything the expensive ones do, usually more.

We support trades. That’s why we keep our pricing low on purpose, and we intend to keep it that way.

Don’t take my word for it. See the full comparison, features and prices side by side.

And if you fancy a go, it’s 30 days free. No card needed. Have a look at our pricing.

So, what are you paying for your software right now? Go on, I won’t judge. Much.