Three different answers to the same question.
These are not three versions of one product. They are a broad multi-trade platform, a free landscaping tool, and a paid landscaping-only system — and which one fits depends almost entirely on your stage and what you actually run.
Worth saying plainly: we make one of the three. We have tried to be useful anyway, which means telling you when the other two are the better call.
What each one is
Jobber
Field service management for home-service businesses generally — Jobber markets to trades including HVAC, plumbing, cleaning and landscaping.
Broad platform, large user base, big ecosystem.
Yardbook
A free platform aimed at lawn care and landscaping, widely used by smaller operations and startups.
Free to use, landscaping-focused.
SodStack
Landscaping and lawn care only. Clients, jobs, scheduling, estimates, invoices, expenses and payroll, with QuickBooks, Stripe, Plaid and Gusto connected.
Narrow on purpose. Plans from $29/month.
Descriptions of Jobber and Yardbook are drawn from how those companies position themselves publicly. For current pricing, plan limits and features, check their own sites — those change, and we will not pretend to track them for you.
Four questions that actually decide it
Is budget the binding constraint right now?
If you are in your first season and every dollar is equipment, free is a serious answer and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Yardbook exists precisely for that, and plenty of good businesses started on it.
Do you run more than landscaping?
If you also do HVAC, cleaning or plumbing under one roof, a general platform serving all of those is genuinely the right shape. If you only cut grass and build patios, most of that breadth is weight you carry and never use.
Where does the accounting end up?
Ask all three exactly what moves between the software and QuickBooks, and how much still gets typed twice. "Integrates with QuickBooks" covers everything from a live connection to a CSV you import by hand. It is the question that separates them fastest.
What happens as the crew grows?
Model the cost at the headcount you expect next spring, not today’s. Per-user pricing behaves very differently at two people and at nine — on any of the three, including us.
Which one, honestly
Pick Yardbook if
- You are starting out and cost is the deciding factor
- Your needs are scheduling and basic invoicing
- You would rather not commit to a subscription this season
Worth asking how a free product is funded, and what that means for your data — a fair question of any free tool, not a criticism.
Pick Jobber if
- You run several trades, not just landscaping
- You want the largest ecosystem and integration marketplace
- You value a big community and a deep library of how-to material
Breadth is a real advantage. If you need it, it is worth paying for.
Pick SodStack if
- Landscaping and lawn care is all you do
- You want job costing that tells you what actually made money
- Your books live in QuickBooks and you want them to stay current
- You would like to see the price before talking to anyone
We are narrower than both of the others. That is the trade.
What you get with SodStack
- Built only for landscaping and lawn care — no other trades in the way
- Client, property, jobs and invoices on one record
- Estimates from your own service catalogue, converted to jobs and invoices without retyping
- Job costing, so you learn which services actually make margin
- QuickBooks expenses sync hourly; invoices push across
- Stripe, Plaid and Gusto connected directly
- Pricing published on the site — no quote required
More detail on the client record, estimating and job costing, the QuickBooks connection and pricing.
Common questions
- What is the difference between Jobber and Yardbook?
- Broadly, scope and price model. Jobber is a field service platform serving many home-service trades; Yardbook is free and focused on lawn care and landscaping. Which is right depends on whether you need breadth or whether budget is the constraint — check both against your own current pricing and requirements rather than any third-party summary, including this one.
- Is Yardbook really free?
- Free is its core public positioning and a large part of why it is so widely used. As with any free product, it is worth understanding how it is funded and reading the terms on data — not as an accusation, just as the same due diligence you would do on a paid tool.
- Why does this page not have a feature comparison table?
- Because we would get it wrong. Competitors change plans, limits and features without telling us, and a table that is six months stale is worse than no table — it misleads you and it embarrasses us. Open all three pricing pages side by side and compare the live versions.
- You are one of the three. Why should I trust this?
- You should not, entirely. We wrote it and we sell one of the options. What we can do is be straight about where the other two are the better choice, which is what the section above does, and avoid stating anything about them that we cannot source to their own public material.
- Can I move my existing clients across?
- To SodStack, yes — an existing client list imports from CSV, so switching does not mean retyping every record. Ask the same question of anything else you evaluate; getting data out is usually harder than getting it in.