Tradify has no API. Fergus got one in 2025. We have built against neither.
Tradify publishes Australian prices of $48, $52 and $62 per user a month excluding GST and no API. Fergus publishes plans from $53 and $77 a month and an open API with personal access tokens since July 2025. We have built against neither product, so this page compares what each one publishes, on one day, with links.
Neither of these is a product we have built against
Say it first. We have implemented against ServiceM8 and Simpro, and we have never built against Tradify or Fergus. Everything on this page about either of them is its own pricing page, help centre and developer documentation, fetched on 3 September 2026 and linked. Where we cannot verify something we have said so rather than filling the gap.
That makes this a different kind of page from ServiceM8 versus Simpro, where at least one side is implementation experience. It is still worth writing, because the published facts about these two are not usually put side by side, and two of them — one has an API and one does not; one states GST and one does not — decide a lot.
If you want a comparison written by someone who has run jobs through both, this is not it. If you want the two vendors’ own claims lined up so you can check them in five minutes, read on.
Two ways to read “from”: the published prices
Tradify is unambiguous. Lite is $48, Pro is $52 and Plus is $62, each “per user/month” in AUD and each marked ex GST, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card, plus add-ons at $19 a month for an Instant Website and $0.20 per SMS (Tradify Australian pricing, fetched 3 September 2026). Add ten percent to compare with anything quoted inclusive.
Fergus publishes Essentials “from $53/month” and Professional “from $77/month”, an Enterprise tier for ten or more staff on request, timesheet users “from $26/month” and contractor users at $4 per user per day, with a 14-day free trial and a free one-hour onboarding (Fergus Australian pricing, fetched 3 September 2026). The page does not say whether those figures include GST, and it does not say what “from” is per — a user, a business, or a minimum bundle.
That is not a small omission for a price comparison. On Tradify’s figures a three-person team on Pro is $156 a month ex GST, or about $172 inclusive. On Fergus’s figures we cannot tell you what the same team pays without asking Fergus, and neither can anyone else writing about it. When you get the answer, ask for it in writing with GST stated.
The fact that decides it for anyone with a third system
Fergus publishes an API and Tradify does not. Fergus launched personal access tokens in July 2025 for “custom integrations with our Open API service”, added job creation and user management endpoints in August 2025, and introduced company-specific rate limiting in November 2025 (Fergus release notes 2025, fetched 3 September 2026). The reference is an OpenAPI 3.1 document at api.fergus.com.
Tradify publishes no developer portal, no API reference and no OpenAPI specification on any official domain. Its help centre articles mentioning “API” are all about somebody else’s — Xero’s, MYOB’s, QuickBooks’. We established this for ServiceM8 versus Tradify and it has not changed as at 3 September 2026. Tradify has a fixed set of first-party integrations instead: Xero, MYOB, QuickBooks Online, Google Calendar and Stripe (Tradify pricing).
For a business that only ever needs job management plus its accounting package, that gap is irrelevant. For a business that wants a quoting tool, a customer portal, a dashboard or an automation to talk to the job system, it is the only thing that matters.
| Tradify | Fergus | |
|---|---|---|
| Published AUD price | Yes $48, $52 and $62 per user a month, ex GST, stated on the page. | Partly “From $53” and “from $77” a month. Unit and GST treatment not stated. |
| Pricing axis | Yes Per user, unlimited jobs. A growing crew costs more; job volume does not. | Partly Base plan plus per-user extras: timesheet users from $26 a month, contractors $4 a day. |
| Public API | No No developer portal, reference or OpenAPI spec on any official domain. | Yes OpenAPI 3.1 at api.fergus.com. Personal access tokens since July 2025, 365-day expiry. |
| Rate limit published | Not assessed No API to limit. | Partly “Company-specific rate limiting” from November 2025. No figure published. |
| Webhooks | No None. | No None documented in the help centre or the API notes as at the fetch date. |
| Zapier app | No None listed by Tradify. | Yes Triggers and actions “through the open API”. Fergus does not build Zaps for customers. |
| Assessed by us | No Never built against. Documentation only. | No Never built against. Documentation only. |
What the Fergus API actually is, from its own help centre
It is a personal access token model, and that shapes what you can build. Only Admin and Full Users can generate a token, the token “is only shown once”, it expires after 365 days, and it is “linked to your user account” so “any actions performed using it are attributed to you”. If that user is deactivated, the token is disabled with them (Fergus help centre, fetched 3 September 2026).
That is fine for a small business connecting its own Fergus account to a reporting tool. It is a real design constraint for anything longer-lived: every integration is impersonating a person, and when that person leaves, the integration stops. Build it against a dedicated admin account that nobody uses to log in, and put the 365-day expiry in a calendar.
The rate limit is described but not numbered. “Company-specific rate limiting” in the November 2025 release notes tells you a ceiling exists; it does not tell you where. That is a better position than Tradify’s, which has nothing to limit, and a worse one than ServiceM8’s, which publishes 180 requests a minute and 20,000 a day (our ServiceM8 page).
Where Tradify probably wins
Clarity. Its prices are per user, in AUD, ex GST, on the page. Its feature ladder is explicit: Pro names timesheets, subcontractor scheduling, health and safety forms and compliance certificates; Plus names AI bill reading, service reminders, purchase orders, bulk invoicing and reporting (Tradify pricing, fetched 3 September 2026). You can cost a decision from the public page without a phone call.
Support hours, as we found for the ServiceM8 comparison: Tradify publishes Australian phone support 24 hours a day, five days a week, from a Chatswood address. That is a legitimate reason for a sole trader to choose it, and a better one than most feature differences.
And it has been unambiguous about what it is not. No API is a fine answer for the business that only needs Tradify and Xero. It is a fine answer right up until the third system, and Tradify has never pretended otherwise.
Where Fergus probably wins
The API, obviously — and the Zapier app that sits on it, which means a business without a developer can still connect Fergus to something else. The help centre is candid that Fergus “do not create Zaps for individual customers” (Fergus, updated 19 January 2026), which is the honest position.
Its Professional tier publishes GPS tracking, job phases, purchase orders, tiered pricing, health and safety modules and phone support (Fergus pricing, fetched 3 September 2026). Phone support being a Professional-tier feature rather than a given is worth noticing if you are comparing the $53 plan to Tradify’s $48.
Fergus is a New Zealand company — its head office is in Eden Terrace, Auckland (Fergus about page, fetched 3 September 2026) — with a Sydney office at Woolloomooloo. Neither of those is a mark against it. It does mean “local” means something slightly different for each product, and that a Fergus release note about NZ payee-name fields is not a bug.
How to decide in ten minutes
Three questions, in this order. The first one you have to ask Fergus; the other two you ask yourself.
- KNDR·011. What is “from $53” per, and does it include GSTGet it in writing. Until you have it you cannot compare the two prices and neither can we. Then run the Tradify side: users, times $52, times 1.1.
- KNDR·022. Will a third system ever touch thisA quoting tool, a customer portal, a dashboard, an automation. If yes, Fergus is the only one of the two where that is possible without the vendor building it. If no, choose on the product and the support hours.
- KNDR·033. Which one survives a fortnight of real jobsBoth publish 14-day trials. Real quotes, a real variation, a real invoice. Choosing job management software lists what to watch while you do.
What we have not assessed
Both products, as products. We have not run a job through either, not tested either mobile app, not watched either accounting sync under a messy file, and not exported data from either. We have not called either support line.
We have not tested the Fergus API. We know it exists, how it authenticates and how long a token lasts, because Fergus publishes those things. We do not know its rate limit, its error behaviour or its pagination, because Fergus does not, and we have not measured them.
Neither have we compared either against AroFlo or Simpro here. Simpro versus AroFlo covers those two, and the capability register lists the nine systems we have actually built against, none of which is on this page.
The questions people actually ask.
01Why publish a comparison of two products you have never used?
Because the published facts are not usually put side by side, and two of them — API or none, GST stated or not — decide the choice for a lot of businesses. We have been explicit about what this page is. If that is not what you want, the ServiceM8 comparisons on this site have implementation experience on one side.
02Is Fergus’s API good enough to build a real integration on?
We do not know, and we would want to know the rate limit before promising anyone anything. It exists, it is documented in OpenAPI form, and it authenticates in a way that ties every integration to a person. That is enough to build a first version against and enough to know what to watch. It is not enough for us to give you an uptime figure.
03Prices change. How current is this?
Both pricing pages were fetched on 3 September 2026 and are linked under the table. Check them in a minute. We publish the date rather than pretending a comparison stays true, and if Fergus adds a GST line or Tradify adds an API, tell us and we will update the table and the date.
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