A trade CRM does two things. Capture the enquiry, and follow it up until it answers.
A CRM for a trade business has two jobs: capture every enquiry from the phone, the website and Facebook into one list, and follow each one up until it books or says no. Everything else is for salespeople. Five products compared on published pricing and the Spam Act rules every sequence has to obey. We have built against two.
Read this first: your job system may already be the CRM
Before you buy a CRM, look at what you own. ServiceM8 ships a free Simple Online Enquiry add-on that puts an enquiry form on your website or Facebook page, and a free Automation add-on to act on it (ServiceM8 add-ons, read 3 September 2026). Simpro holds customer records, quotes and follow-ups. For a trade under about ten staff, the job system plus a disciplined follow-up rule is usually the CRM, and a second subscription is a second place for a lead to die.
We have built against GoHighLevel and ServiceM8, and Simpro, in production. HubSpot and Pipedrive are described from their published pricing pages, read on 3 September 2026. We also run our own outreach through GoHighLevel, which is a bias you should know about.
The one thing a dedicated CRM does that a job system does not is the sequence — the seven-touch follow-up that goes out whether or not anyone remembers. If you do not need that, stop reading and tidy your ServiceM8. If you do, read on, because the sequence is also where the law applies.
Follow-up sequences are commercial electronic messages — the Spam Act applies
Every automated SMS or email in a follow-up sequence is a commercial electronic message under the Spam Act 2003. The rules are three: you must have the recipient’s consent, express or inferred from an ongoing business relationship; you must accurately identify your business and include correct contact details; and every message must carry an unsubscribe option that is honoured within 5 working days and stays functional for at least 30 days after sending (ACMA, avoid sending spam, read 3 September 2026).
An enquiry is usually enough for inferred consent to follow up about that enquiry. It is not consent to add the person to a monthly newsletter, and a CRM that makes it easy to do both in one click is making it easy to breach. Build the sequence about the job they asked about, stop when it books or declines, and put the unsubscribe on the SMS as well as the email.
The Privacy Act applies to organisations with annual turnover over $3 million, with exceptions including health service providers and businesses that trade in personal information (OAIC). Most trades sit under the threshold; the Spam Act has no such threshold and applies from your first message.
Enquiry capture: the phone is still where most of it happens
A web form is the easy part. Every product below has one. The enquiries that go missing are the missed calls at 10:40am while you are under a house, and the Facebook message answered from the wrong account.
That is why phone capture decides a trade CRM more than a form does. GoHighLevel bundles phone numbers, SMS and calling with usage charges on top of the subscription and lets you rebill them (HighLevel pricing). ServiceM8 Phone is an add-on from $29 a month that turns a missed call into a job card (ServiceM8 pricing). HubSpot and Pipedrive are built around email and a sales pipeline first; they will hold a call log, but a missed call does not become a lead by itself.
If missed calls are the leak, the CRM question becomes a receptionist question, and AI receptionists in Australia is the page for that. Customer intake covers the join either way.
Five products, on what they publish
Published pricing as at 3 September 2026. Three of the five price in US dollars; the two Australian-dollar options are the job systems.
- #1GoHighLevel — the one we run our own business on; unlimited contacts, US dollars, usage on topUS$97 a month Starter for three sub-accounts, US$297 Unlimited with basic API access, US$497 Agency Pro with SaaS mode and advanced API; unlimited contacts and users on all; "Usage based charges apply" for phone numbers, SMS, email and Voice AI (HighLevel pricing). Sequences, forms, calendars, pipelines and phone in one. Implemented — integration page. The constraint: it is an agency platform with an agency learning curve, priced in US dollars, and the usage line is real.
- #2HubSpot Sales Hub — free for two, then per seat in US dollars with onboarding feesFree for up to 2 users; Starter from US$7 a seat a month annually or US$20 monthly; Professional from US$90 a seat annually plus mandatory US$1,500 onboarding; Enterprise from US$150 a seat plus US$3,500 onboarding; up to 300 workflows on Professional (HubSpot pricing). Documented, not implemented — HubSpot appears in our legacy copy as a system read from, not built against. The constraint: the sequences you want start at the tier with the US$1,500 onboarding fee.
- #3Pipedrive — the cleanest pipeline, sequences from the second tier, US dollarsUS$14, US$39, US$59 and US$79 a seat a month on monthly billing for Lite, Growth, Premium and Ultimate, or US$168 to US$948 a seat a year annually; email sequences and automations from Growth (Pipedrive pricing). Documented, not implemented. The constraint: a salesperson’s tool with no phone system, no job and no Australian pricing.
- #4ServiceM8 — free enquiry capture and automation inside the job system you may already pay forSimple Online Enquiry and Automation add-ons at no extra cost; ServiceM8 Phone from $29 a month; plans from free to $349 a month including GST (add-ons, pricing). Implemented — integration page. The constraint: automation is rules, not a multi-step sequence with branching, and there is no marketing list.
- #5Simpro — customer records and quote follow-up at project scale, no published priceNo prices on the Australian pricing page (Simpro pricing); full API and webhooks. Implemented — integration page. The constraint: it is not a marketing tool and does not pretend to be; it is here because a Simpro business rarely needs a separate CRM.
What a follow-up sequence should actually look like
Short, specific and about the job. A text within five minutes of the enquiry saying who you are and when you will call. A call. If no answer, a text with two booking times. A day later, one more. A week later, a last one that says you will close the enquiry unless they reply. Then stop.
That is five messages over eight days, each carrying your business name and a way to stop them. It books more work than a fortnight of remembering, and it is inside the rules. Anything longer, or anything that drifts into "here are our services", needs express consent you did not get from a quote request.
We build these on GoHighLevel and on n8n depending on what you already run; the n8n integration page and after-hours cover the two shapes. We would build the five-message version and argue against the fifteen-message one.
What this page does not do
It does not rank. Three of five are described from pricing pages, and GoHighLevel is the one we run our own business on, which disqualifies us from calling it best with a straight face.
It does not say you need a CRM. Most trades under ten staff do not, and the ones who buy one usually end up with two lists and a lead that fell between them.
And it is not legal advice on the Spam Act. The ACMA page is linked; read it, and if you are unsure whether a message is commercial, assume it is.
The questions people actually ask.
01You use GoHighLevel yourselves. Why not just recommend it?
Because it is an agency platform priced in US dollars with a usage line on top, and a four-person electrical business does not need most of it. We use it because we run outreach and client sub-accounts, which is the shape it was built for. For a trade whose only need is a follow-up sequence on enquiries, the job system plus a small automation is cheaper and has one fewer place for a lead to die.
02Can I text a customer who enquired six months ago about a new offer?
The ACMA draws the line at consent that is express, or inferred from an ongoing business relationship where the message is directly related. A six-month-old quote request for a hot water system is a weak basis for a message about solar. It is also a fast way to be reported. Ask for the consent when they enquire, record it in the CRM, and honour every unsubscribe within five working days.
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