Best Powered Now Alternative for UK Trades in 2026
Powered Now gates gas and electrical certificates to its Professional plan at £32 a user a month. Compare it with Checker, which includes certificates from the entry LITE plan at £10.99 a month, with no lock-in contract.
We built Checker, rebranded from Gas Checker in 2025, for gas, electrical, plumbing and heating businesses. We include compliance certificates from our cheapest plan, at £10.99 a month, with no lock-in contract.
By Daniel Sedgwick, Founder and Managing Director of Checker
Last updated: 10 September 2026
If your business needs gas and electrical certificates and Powered Now puts those features on a higher-priced plan, compare the included forms and total cost for your own team size. For a compliance-heavy trade, certificates included from day one may be a useful criterion rather than an upgrade discovered after signing up.
Who is Powered Now actually built for?
Powered Now is a general job management app used across gas and heating, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, construction, roofing and more than a dozen other UK trades. It covers quoting, invoicing, expense tracking, Making Tax Digital compliance, project management and job sheets on its entry Business plan, £28 a user a month, or £280 a year.[1]
Forms and certificates are not part of that entry plan. To create a certificate at all, a business needs the Professional plan, £32 a user a month, which adds Forms & Certificates alongside unlimited text and email communications, VAT return submission, Xero integration and staff tracking.[1]
The certificate categories Powered Now lists are broad groupings: Gas Safety Certificates, Electrical Certificates, Service & Maintenance Certificates, Installation & Commissioning Certificates, and Risk Assessments & Customisable Forms.[2] Its trade pages for gas and heating and for electricians describe the same certificates as a large, regularly updated library rather than a named list of formats.[3][4]
Automated certificate reminders, which nudge a customer when a service or inspection is due, are bundled into that same Professional tier at £32 a user a month, alongside Forms & Certificates.[1] For a business that only wants quoting and invoicing and does not touch compliance paperwork, the Business plan is genuinely competitive. For a gas, electrical, plumbing or heating business whose main paperwork is the certificate itself, the plan that actually does that job, certificates and reminders together, starts at £32 a user a month, not £28.
Why compliance-heavy trades look for a Powered Now alternative
Two things push a compliance-led business to shortlist something else.
Certificates sit behind the upgrade, not the entry price. A gas engineer who signs up expecting to fill out a Gas Safety record on day one finds that certificate work needs Powered Now’s higher-priced tier, a jump before the app does the one job it was bought for.
That upgrade costs almost three times Checker’s entry price. We include the same core certificate work, gas reports and an Electrical Installation Certificate tied to BS 7671, from our entry LITE plan at £10.99 a month.
Powered Now vs Checker: 2026 pricing and certificates compared
| Software | Best for | UK compliance certificates | Pricing |
|---|---|---|---|
| Powered Now |
General UK trade job management, sole trader upward, across many different trades | Gated to the Professional plan and above: Gas Safety, Electrical, Service & Maintenance, and Installation & Commissioning certificate templates[1][2] | Business £28, Professional £32, Premium £40 per user a month, ex VAT; annual billing gives two months free[1] |
 Checker |
One to fifteen person compliance-heavy trades: gas, electrical, plumbing, heating, oil and refrigeration | Included from the entry LITE plan: unlimited gas reports and an Electrical Installation Certificate tied to BS 7671 | LITE £10.99, PRO £19.99, PRO+ £25.99 a month plus VAT (plan prices); PRO+ adds sub-users at £10.99 a month each, no lock-in contract |
A business that wants a wide range of trade categories under one roof and does not mind paying more once it needs certificates fits Powered Now’s Professional tier. A business built around gas, electrical, plumbing or heating compliance work, where the certificate is the job, gets that from our cheapest plan.
Checker in depth
We built Checker for the one to fifteen person compliance-heavy trade: gas, heating, electrical, plumbing, oil and refrigeration businesses whose main paperwork is the certificate itself. Records and reports are unlimited on every plan, starting with LITE at £10.99 a month, which also covers invoicing, quotes, job sheets, Zettle card payments and KANE analyser integration.
PRO, at £19.99 a month, adds the customer database, annual service reminders, job scheduling and diary, email marketing, business analytics, and two-way sync with Xero, plus QuickBooks and Sage integrations.
PRO+, at £25.99 a month, lets a business add sub-users at £10.99 a month each, with every engineer on their own login and all the work landing on one account.
Our gas paperwork is a report, not a certificate; our electrical certificate is the formal Electrical Installation Certificate tied to BS 7671, the wiring regulations UK electricians work to. We do not submit either document directly to the Gas Safe Register or any other registry; the signed PDF goes to the customer and stays on their record.
Our four automations run in the background once a customer record exists. Appointment Reminders go out 24 hours before a booked job by default. Quote Chaser follows an unanswered quote on day 7, 10 and 14. Invoice Chaser starts the moment payment terms lapse. Annual Service Reminder fires 11 months after the customer record was created, turning last year’s job into next year’s booking.
We don’t cover the dozen-plus non-compliance trades Powered Now serves, from landscaping to pest control. Our focus is gas, electrical, plumbing and heating businesses, where certificates are the job.
How do you switch from Powered Now to Checker?
Four things are worth doing in order.
- Export certificate history first. Pull every completed Gas Safety record, electrical certificate and service form out of Powered Now before you close the account. Landlords must keep gas safety records for at least two years, so hold onto the export.[5]
- Check your live legal minimum. The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 set out what a landlord’s gas safety record must cover; make sure whatever you export still meets that standard once it sits outside Powered Now.[6]
- Time it around your billing period. Powered Now bills monthly or annually. Move at the end of a paid period rather than mid-cycle, so you are not paying both platforms at once.
- Set up Checker’s plan to match what you actually need. LITE if certificates, quotes and invoicing are the job. PRO if you also want reminders, CRM and accounts sync. PRO+ once you are adding sub-users.
How do you choose between Powered Now and Checker?
Three questions settle it for most compliance-heavy trades.
Is the certificate the job, or one part of a wider trade mix? If your business runs across several different trades, from construction to landscaping to property maintenance, Powered Now’s breadth across those categories is a real advantage, and our roundup of job management apps for UK tradespeople covers the wider field. If gas, electrical, plumbing or heating compliance work is the core of what you do, we build that in from the entry plan.
What do you actually need on day one? Powered Now’s Business plan does not include certificates, so a certificate on day one means budgeting for the higher tier.
Does your team need to hit a minimum size before contract terms change? Neither Powered Now nor Checker states a minimum team size the way some larger platforms do. On our PRO+ plan, extra engineers are added as sub-users at a flat £10.99 each, whether you are adding your second engineer or your fifteenth.
Who should stick with Powered Now?
A business running several different trades under one roof, where compliance certificates are only one part of the job mix, gets real breadth from Powered Now: staff scheduling, a customer portal, drag and drop diary management and AI text tools all sit on its higher tiers.[1] If certificates are a minority of your paperwork and you value that range across trades, moving away from Powered Now would cost you capability you use. For a full view of where Powered Now sits against other general field service tools, our field service management software comparison covers it alongside several others.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best Powered Now alternative for a compliance-heavy UK trade business?
If you run a one to fifteen person gas, electrical, plumbing or heating business, we build for that size and trade mix specifically. Check the entry plan before you commit: certificates are included from our LITE plan at £10.99 a month, rather than gated to a higher tier.
Does Powered Now include gas and electrical certificates on every plan?
No. Powered Now’s entry Business plan, £28 a user a month, does not include Forms & Certificates. That feature starts on the Professional plan, £32 a user a month.
How much does Powered Now cost compared with Checker?
Powered Now runs Business at £28, Professional at £32 and Premium at £40 per user a month, ex VAT, with two months free on annual billing. Weigh that against your own headcount: we run LITE at £10.99, PRO at £19.99 and PRO+ at £25.99 a month plus VAT, with PRO+ letting a business add extra engineers as sub-users at £10.99 a month each.
Can I switch from Powered Now to Checker without a long contract?
We have no lock-in contract on any plan, billed monthly or annually, so you can move across whenever your current billing period ends. Powered Now also bills monthly or annually, with no minimum contract length published beyond the billing period chosen.
Is Checker built specifically for gas and electrical compliance work?
Yes, certificate work runs natively on every plan we offer, from the entry LITE tier, rather than held back as a paid upgrade the way Powered Now gates Forms & Certificates to Professional. Gas reports and an Electrical Installation Certificate tied to BS 7671 are part of that from day one.
Authoritative sources
- Powered Now pricing, Powered Now
- Powered Now certificate software for trades, Powered Now
- Powered Now gas and heating engineer software, Powered Now
- Powered Now electrician software, Powered Now
- Landlord gas safety: frequently asked questions, Health and Safety Executive
- The Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998, legislation.gov.uk
- Checker home page, Gassoft Limited, live counters read 6 September 2026
If Powered Now’s certificates cost more than you expected
Gas reports and Electrical Installation Certificates are both included from our cheapest plan, at £10.99 a month, month to month, no lock-in contract.
Compare certificate options