One publishes its prices. One asks you to request them.

The pricing models are structurally different

This is the part most comparisons get wrong, because they try to line the two up on a per-seat basis and neither works that way.

ServiceM8 meters by jobs per month and states that users are unlimited on paid tiers. That inverts the usual trap: adding an apprentice to the system costs nothing, and growth shows up as job volume rather than headcount. Simpro publishes no pricing — the page offers a "Request Pricing" button and says it has a solution "regardless of the size of your team".

What the pricing posture tells you

A vendor that publishes prices has decided its buyer will self-serve and wants the friction gone. A vendor that does not has decided its deals are large enough to justify a conversation, and that a published number would anchor it wrongly.

Neither is a criticism. But it does predict the experience: one has a free tier you can try this afternoon, and the other has an implementation process. If you are a two-van operation, the second is not a better product for you, it is a heavier one — and buying heavier than you need is the most common expensive mistake in this category.

ServiceM8 leans hard on Apple

Its own pricing page repeatedly references the iOS app, iPhone and iPad, Apple Pencil, CarPlay and Tap to Pay on iPhone, alongside a Mac and PC desktop app.

It stops short of stating an Android restriction, and we are not going to assert one it does not claim. But if your crew is on Android, that emphasis is worth taking seriously and worth testing on a real phone before you commit — which is the field test on the buyer’s checklist.

Which we reach for

Small teams with clear, repeatable jobs and a preference for getting on with it: ServiceM8. The job-volume model suits businesses whose growth is more jobs rather than more office staff, and the free tier means the trial costs nothing.

Larger or more structurally complex operations — multiple entities, projects rather than jobs, heavier scheduling and inventory: Simpro is built for that shape, and the implementation process that comes with it is part of why. Multi-entity structures are also one of the things that drives integration cost up, so factor that in rather than treating the licence as the whole bill.

• One to five vans, jobs not projects ServiceM8. Cheaper to try, cheaper to be wrong about.
• Growth is more jobs, not more staff ServiceM8. The meter matches the growth.
• Projects, stages, progress claims Simpro. That is the shape it is built around.
• Multiple entities or sites Simpro, and budget for the implementation.
• Crew is entirely on Android Test both on a real phone first, whatever the feature list says.

What we won’t claim here

No measured failure rates and no observed per-endpoint quirks. We have implemented against both, and what each vendor documents — limits, webhooks, verification, retries — is published in the capability register. What we have measured ourselves is not.

Passing documented figures off as measured ones would make this page look more authoritative and be worth less. Verified structural facts and an honest framework beats a table of borrowed numbers — which is why the register keeps the two apart, and why its measured column is visibly empty rather than quietly filled.