Software comparison
simPRO vs Fergus: which fits a growing plumbing or electrical crew?
Fergus publishes its Australian prices: Essentials from $53 a month, Professional from $77, and Enterprise for businesses with more than 10 staff on a custom quote. simPRO publishes nothing at all, only a Request Pricing button. Fergus's page does not state how many staff its base price covers, so it is not a strict per user model either. Checked 25 September 2026.
Last checked 25 Sep 2026 against the sources listed at the end of this page.
simPRO
Pick simPRO if your crew is running multi stage projects with real materials and purchasing to track, wants multi company reporting, and is prepared to get a quote regardless of headcount.
Fergus
Pick Fergus if a 5 to 8 person crew wants a published starting price and a straightforward feature jump from Essentials to Professional, without needing project costing depth yet.
What it costs
Fergus: AUD per month, published on its Australian pricing page; the page does not label prices as GST inclusive or exclusive, though its FAQ says Fergus applies GST on invoices it generates. simPRO: no published price basis exists at any crew size.. Prices captured 25 Sep 2026 from simPRO and Fergus.
| Plan | 5 users | 8 users | 10+ users | How we worked it out | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fergus | Professional | $77 | $77 | Enterprise, quote required | Fergus's base Professional price is published as "from $77 per month" but the page does not state how many standard staff seats that covers, so the figure does not change between 5 and 8 users on what is published. Past 10 staff, Fergus moves you to its Enterprise tier on a custom quote. |
| simPRO | Base plan (one tier, quote only) | Quote required | Quote required | Quote required | Whatever size your crew is, simPRO's answer on the page is the same Request Pricing button; nothing self-serve exists for 5, 8 or 10-plus staff, so a real number only comes out of a sales call. |
Feature by feature
| simPRO | Fergus | |
|---|---|---|
| Published pricing | No dollar figure at all; one base plan is described by feature behind a pricing request. | Yes, Essentials and Professional prices are published; Enterprise past 10 staff is a custom quote. |
| Project costing and purchasing | The base plan folds in real time inventory, purchasing and project costing. | Not named as a dedicated project costing module; purchase orders are included on Professional. |
| Multi company support | Comes standard with the base plan. | Not listed as a core feature on the pricing page. |
| Health and safety tools | Not named on the pricing page. | Hazards and SWMS are included on Professional. |
| Checklists and forms | Digital Forms is a separate, unpriced add-on. | Included on Professional, not on Essentials. |
| Extra staff cost | Not published. | Timesheet Users from $26 a month each; Contractor Users $4 per user per day, on both plans. |
Declared bias: we build on ServiceM8
FFP Digital is a ServiceM8 developer, a tool that competes for some of the same plumbing and electrical businesses as both simPRO and Fergus. That gives us a reason to prefer ServiceM8, so read this page knowing where we stand. We have taken both vendors' current Australian pages at face value and flagged anywhere their own site leaves a gap, rather than filling it with a guess.
We do not earn a commission from either vendor for this page.
What each vendor actually publishes
Fergus lists real numbers on its Australian pricing page: Essentials from $53 a month, Professional from $77 a month, marked as its most popular plan, and an Enterprise tier for businesses with more than 10 staff on a custom quote. On top of a base plan, Timesheet Users cost from $26 a month each and Contractor Users cost $4 per user per day. What the page does not say is how many standard staff seats the $53 or $77 base price itself includes, so despite the extra named roles, Fergus is not a clean per seat model the way some competitors are.
simPRO shows none of that. Its pricing page lists one base plan by feature with a Request Pricing button and a demo form behind it. No figure appears for any crew size, and neither a minimum seat count nor an onboarding fee is published.
Enterprise depth against a simpler plan
simPRO's base plan is built around project costing, real time inventory and purchasing, and multi company reporting, the kind of depth a growing plumbing or electrical firm running several projects at once starts to actually need. Extra modules like Maintenance Planner and Takeoffs extend that further, at extra, unpublished cost.
Fergus's Professional plan is comparatively lighter but still substantial for a 5 to 8 person crew: it adds checklists, forms, job phases, purchase orders, GPS tracking, tasks, tiered pricing and health and safety tools (hazards and SWMS) on top of what Essentials already has, which is quoting, job cards, timesheets, calendar, materials and recurring jobs. If your crew is not yet running multi stage projects with real stock to track, Fergus's published Professional plan is the easier one to actually budget for today.
The 10 plus staff threshold
Fergus draws its own line at 10 staff: past that, you move to its Enterprise tier and a custom quote, the same quote only position simPRO holds at every size. If your crew is at 5 to 8 people and growing, that means Fergus stays self-serve for longer, while simPRO asks for a sales conversation regardless of your current headcount. Either way, once you cross into custom pricing territory with either vendor, ask for the same things: the exact price for your crew size, what is and is not included, and any onboarding or setup cost, since none of that sits on the public page for either tool at that point.
Common complaints and catches
simPRO
- A training and setup period reviewers describe as demanding relative to lighter job management tools
- Field staff reviewers reporting mobile app slowness and occasional crashes
- Support reviewers describe as slow to respond outside business hours
- Reviewers noting the true cost only became clear once add-ons were priced separately
Fergus
- Support reviewers describe as slower on the lower Essentials tier, which only gets email and chat
- Sync issues with accounting software reported occasionally
- A learning curve moving from Essentials to the fuller Professional feature set
- Mobile app performance complaints reported by some field staff
Switching between them
Neither vendor publishes a direct migration path between simPRO and Fergus. Moving between them means exporting customers and price list items where each tool allows it, then rebuilding job templates, checklists and any project or stock records by hand in the new system, since the two structure that data quite differently.
FFP Digital is a ServiceM8 developer and builds for Cliniko clinics. We have tried to be fair; prices are the vendors' own published figures on the date shown.
Sources
- Fergus AU plans: Essentials from $53 per month, Professional from $77 per month (marked most popular), Enterprise for businesses with more than 10 staff on a custom quote; monthly billing with no lock-in contracts, and a 14 day free trial with no credit card required. Fergus, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Fergus charges Timesheet Users from $26 per month and Contractor Users $4 per user per day on both the Essentials and Professional plans; the base plan price does not state how many standard staff seats it includes. Fergus, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- Fergus's Professional plan adds GPS tracking, checklists, forms, job phases, purchase orders, tiered pricing, hazard management, SWMS and full reporting on top of Essentials, which covers quoting and estimating, price books, job cards, timesheets, calendar, materials, recurring jobs and the mobile app. Fergus, checked 25 Sep 2026.
- On simPRO's own site, pricing is presented as a single feature list under one base plan, with a Request Pricing button standing in for every dollar figure a visitor might expect to see. simPRO (Simpro Group), checked 25 Sep 2026.