Before you buy

Straight answers to the questions buyers ask before choosing job software, with every limit listed at the end.

Watch one garage door job go from the first call to paid, in the real app with a made-up company. About three minutes, no sound.

On this page

Price and ownership

Is the price really one-time?

Partly. The $490 license is paid once and includes your first year of hosting. From year two, an annual platform fee of at most $99 a year brings new features; without it you keep using everything you have. Or pay $49 a month for 12 months ($588 total), and the license is yours after the 12th payment.

Can I keep using it without the $99 yearly fee, and what does the fee bring?

Yes. From year two, or month 13 on the monthly plan, the platform fee brings new features, and it is capped at $99 a year for the life of your license. Without it you keep everything you have, and bug and security fixes still reach you. You get the exact amount in writing before any payment is due.

Is the price free of per-user, per-device and per-location fees?

Yes. One license includes 10 seats, with no per-user fees and no charge per device or per location. With the one-time purchase, the Terms name the annual platform fee as the only recurring cost.

Is everything included, with nothing billed separately?

Partly. Card payments from your customers go through your own Stripe account, and Stripe charges its own processing fee; Own Your Tools takes no cut. Own Your Tools charges nothing extra for invoice and quote emails, proposal alert texts, maps or calendar sync. There are no AI features to pay for.

If I stop paying the yearly fee, do I keep using it, data and all?

Yes. Your account stays open and works as it does today, with all your records and your team. You get no new features until you pay the fee again, and bug and security fixes still reach you, because every account runs the same app.

Do I own the software and its source code?

Partly. You buy a license to use the software; the code stays with Own Your Tools while it runs the service. Your data is always yours. If Own Your Tools stops, the source code is released to everyone under the MIT License.

Am I protected if Own Your Tools shuts down?

Yes. If it closes the service, you get at least 30 days’ notice by email, with your export open until then. The app keeps working on devices that synced while your license was paid up, without Own Your Tools’ servers. Within 90 days the source code, database schema and a self-host guide are released under the MIT License, so you can run your own copy.

Is there a refund policy and a way to try before paying?

Yes. The free trial lasts 30 days with no card needed. After buying, a 60-day money-back guarantee refunds the full price for any reason; on the monthly plan, ask within 60 days of your first payment and every payment is refunded.

Will features I’ve paid for always stay included?

Yes. Everything your license includes today stays included. Future AI features may be a separate, optional add-on.

Can I transfer the license if I sell my business?

Yes. Sell your business and the license goes with it. Email us to move it.

Customization

Can I build my own checklists and inspection forms?

Coming by January 2027. Until then, five built-in forms are ready: daily safety checklist, pre-job walkthrough, general inspection, vehicle inspection and change order. You can ask for a new template from the Forms page.

Can I add, rename or reorder fields?

No. Customers, jobs, quotes, invoices and forms have fixed fields. Notes fields hold anything else.

Can I set my own job types, statuses and workflows?

No. Jobs move through fixed statuses: scheduled, in progress, complete and cancelled. Leads move through fixed stages from New to Won or Lost. Automations are built in; you can’t build your own.

Can I use my own estimate and invoice templates?

Partly. Save any quote as your own template and start new quotes from it. Invoices have no templates of their own.

Can I require a checklist before a job is closed?

No. Completing a job doesn’t check for a finished form.

Are there roles and permissions?

Partly. There are two roles, admin and technician. A technician’s menu has jobs, the schedule, the job map and customers. There are no custom roles.

Can I build custom reports and dashboards?

No. Reports are fixed: profit and loss, a Schedule C tax summary, job profitability, customer analysis and a monthly trend. Each one exports as a CSV file.

Is setup done in the app, without code?

Yes. Everything you can change is changed in the app’s own screens. Nothing needs code. In Settings, Your tools turns Team, Expenses & Mileage, Inventory & Purchase Orders, Map, Forms & Checklists and Automations on or off: one that is off is hidden, and everything in it is kept.

Customers and CRM

Does each customer hold contacts, service addresses, notes, photos and documents?

Partly. Each customer has a name, phone, email, one address and notes. A customer can’t hold several service addresses, photos or documents.

Is there a full history for each customer?

Partly. Each customer shows their jobs, quotes, invoices and payments, newest first. Warranties are not tracked.

Can I keep equipment records for each property?

No. There is no place for equipment details such as door size, opener, springs, install date or warranty, apart from a customer’s notes.

Does it track leads, follow-ups, open quotes and lost jobs?

Yes. Leads live on your Customers list: each one is marked Lead until you win it, and Won makes it a customer, with nothing to copy over. Quotes show whether they are sent, accepted, declined or expired. A built-in automation reminds you to follow up on a quote that hasn’t been answered.

Can it follow up with customers automatically?

No. By design, Own Your Tools never sends a follow-up for you: you send each email or text yourself. Automations remind you when a quote goes unanswered or an invoice is overdue.

Does it handle commercial accounts and property managers?

Partly. A customer can be a business. There are no parent accounts or several properties under one customer, so each building is its own customer.

Scheduling and dispatch

Can I assign jobs to technicians, and do they see them on their phones?

Partly. You can assign each job to a team member, and your schedule shows who has it. A technician’s own app doesn’t list the jobs you assign them yet, so they can’t open, start or complete them on their phone. Jobs you assign are coming to a technician’s phone in November 2026.

Is there a calendar with drag-and-drop and a dispatch board?

Yes. The schedule has day, week and month views, and you move a job by dragging it. The Jobs page shows a board of scheduled, in-progress and complete jobs.

Can I set up recurring jobs?

Yes. A job can repeat every week, every 2 weeks, every month, every 3 months or every year, until a day you pick (52 visits at most). Its visits go on the schedule, and each one is invoiced when it’s done; nothing bills the series as a whole.

Does it send appointment reminders to customers?

Coming by December 2026. Until then, customers get no automatic appointment reminder. You can text an on-my-way message from the Map.

Can I see technician availability and status?

Partly. Each job shows whether it is scheduled, in progress or complete. There is no availability calendar or time-off tracking.

Is there GPS tracking, route planning and ETA texts?

Partly. The Map lists the day’s stops in the order you set and opens them in Google Maps or Waze. It writes an on-my-way text with an ETA for you to send from your own phone. Technicians’ live locations are not tracked.

Can customers book online?

Partly. Your public request form sends each request to your Customers list as a lead. Customers can’t choose an appointment time themselves.

In the field

Does it work on iPhone, Android, tablets and computers?

Yes. It runs in the browser on each of them and can be added to the home screen like an app. On an iPhone or iPad, add it to your Home Screen so Safari keeps its data.

Can technicians see job details and history on site?

No. A technician’s app shows only the jobs and customers they add themselves, not the jobs you assign them or your customer records. Jobs you assign are coming to a technician’s phone in November 2026.

Can technicians fill in checklists on site?

Partly. A technician can fill in and sign the built-in forms on a phone. What they fill in stays in their own account, where you can’t see it, and it can attach only to a job they added themselves.

Can technicians take before-and-after photos on a job?

Coming by December 2026. Until then, jobs can’t hold photos. Photos are kept only for expense and inventory receipts, and signatures for forms.

Can technicians record diagnosis, labor and parts used?

Partly. The job’s notes hold the diagnosis, and a job timer records time spent. Labor and parts go on the invoice as lines. Taking used parts off inventory automatically is coming by January 2027.

Can I invoice and collect payment on site?

Partly. Completing a job turns it into an invoice you can send right away, and cash or check payments can be recorded on the spot. Card payments are made by the customer online, from the invoice; there is no card reader.

Does it track warranties?

No. There is no warranty record on jobs, customers or equipment.

Does it work with no signal?

Yes. Once a phone or computer has signed in and synced, customers, jobs, the schedule, quotes, invoices, expenses, mileage and inventory work with no signal and sync when you’re back online. Cash and check payments can be recorded offline too. On a paid license there is no time limit; on a trial, up to 30 days after the device last connected.

Does every feature work with no signal?

Partly. Signing in, sending email or texts, payments other than cash or check, marking an invoice paid, changing a sent invoice or quote, leads, maps, imports, quote templates and your business profile need a connection.

Estimates, invoices and payments

Does an estimate flow into a job and then an invoice?

Yes. When a customer accepts a quote online, a job is created from it. Completing the job starts its invoice, and an accepted quote can also become an invoice with one tap.

Can I set up priced items, labor, taxes, discounts and trip fees?

Partly. Saved items carry a price and a labor amount, and sales tax is applied by line type. There is no discount field; a trip or diagnostic fee goes in as its own line.

Can customers approve or sign an estimate online?

Partly. The customer accepts or declines the quote in their own online portal, and you can get a text when they accept. Signing a quote isn’t part of the standard app yet.

Are card payments free of any Own Your Tools fee?

Yes. Card payments go through Stripe into your own Stripe account. Stripe charges its own processing fee; Own Your Tools takes no cut.

Can customers pay online?

Yes. Once you connect Stripe, each invoice you send carries a pay-online link, and the customer pays by card. An online payment covers the invoice’s full balance.

Can I take deposits?

Partly. You can record a part payment, such as a deposit, on an invoice. After a payment is recorded, the rest can’t be paid online by card; you collect it another way.

Are invoices, receipts and reminders automatic?

Partly. Completing a job offers to create and send its invoice, and you send payment reminders from the invoice yourself. Own Your Tools doesn’t email a receipt; a customer who pays online sees a confirmation page.

Parts and inventory

Can I track stock by truck and warehouse?

Partly. Each item is marked as kept in the warehouse or on the truck. There are no separate counts for each truck.

Does stock go down automatically when parts are used on a job?

Coming by January 2027. Until then, parts go on quotes and invoices as lines, but stock changes only when you tap Use or Add, or enter a receipt.

Are there low-stock alerts?

Yes. Set a restock level for each item, and items at or below it are marked low stock, with a filter to list them.

Does it handle purchase orders, suppliers and costs?

Partly. Each item keeps its vendor, cost and price, and a receipt entry restocks several items at once and can keep a photo of the receipt. Purchase orders aren’t part of the standard app yet.

Money, reports and integrations

Does it connect to QuickBooks or other accounting software?

Yes. On the Reports page, Export for QuickBooks saves the period you pick as one zip for QuickBooks Online: invoices in its import layout, plus payments and expenses as CSV files. You import them yourself; it is not a live sync, and not for QuickBooks Desktop. Reports, expenses, mileage and inventory also export as CSV files for your bookkeeper.

Does it show revenue, expenses, unpaid invoices and profit?

Yes. Reports show profit and loss, income (what you billed and what is still unpaid), job profitability and a Schedule C tax summary. The Invoices page shows what is collected, unpaid and overdue, and each invoice lists the payments recorded on it.

Can I see reports by month, technician, job type and customer?

Partly. Reports cover a year or a quarter, with a monthly trend, and break down by job and by customer. There is no breakdown by technician or job type.

Does it track commissions and labor cost?

No. A job timer records time spent on each job, but there are no pay rates, labor-cost reports or commissions.

Can it send emails, texts and review requests?

Partly. Invoices, quotes and payment reminders are emailed from the app. Texts to customers open your phone’s messaging app to send from your own number. Review requests are not sent from the app.

Is there an API?

No. There is no public API.

Support, updates, security and your data

Are updates included, and do they install themselves?

Yes. Bug and security fixes reach every account, whether or not the platform fee is paid, and the app installs them itself when it is online; there is nothing to reinstall. New features come with your first year, then with the platform fee.

Is hosting, security and backup handled for me?

Partly. Own Your Tools runs the app on Netlify and keeps your data in a Supabase database, and secures both. The Terms still ask you to keep your own copies of critical data; download one from Settings any time.

Is my data backed up, and can it be restored?

Partly. Your records are backed up daily and kept 7 days, and we’ve tested a full restore. Worst case, you lose up to one day of changes. Photos and files (receipts, signatures, profile photos) aren’t in that backup yet, so keep your own exports too.

Is support included, for how long, and how fast?

Yes. Email support while your platform fee is current. We aim to reply within 1 business day.

If an update breaks something, does Own Your Tools fix it?

Yes. If an update we shipped breaks something, we fix it free, aiming for 3 days.

Do I own my data?

Yes. You keep full ownership of everything you enter, and Own Your Tools claims none of it (Terms, Section 5).

Can I export everything, and is it free?

Yes. Settings downloads all your records as one JSON file, and a zip file adds every photo and signature, at no charge.

Is there a change history showing who changed what?

No. There is no log of who changed a record.

Can several people work at once without overwriting each other?

Partly. Changes sync field by field, so edits to different fields both stand. When two people change the same field, one value stands and the other is kept and shown in Settings, never silently dropped.

Is my data secured?

Yes. Database access rules keep each account to its own records, traffic uses HTTPS, stored data is encrypted with AES-256, and passwords are hashed. Card numbers are handled by Stripe and never stored by Own Your Tools.

Is there an uptime guarantee or a status page?

No. The Terms promise reasonable efforts, not uninterrupted service (Section 8), and there is no public status page. On a paid license, a synced device keeps working without a connection during an outage.

Growing

Are there limits on users, customers, jobs, storage or transactions?

Partly. A license covers 10 seats, and your own login as the owner is not one of them. Customers, jobs and invoices have no set limit, and one import takes up to 5,000 rows. Uploads have size and type limits to keep the system safe and fast.

Can I run more than one location?

No. One account is one business, with one business profile.

Can I add more than 10 team members?

Coming by January 2027. Today’s plan covers you plus 10 team members.

Is there a complete list of costs?

Yes. The license costs $490, the founding price for the first 25 shops, then $700; or $49 a month for 12 months ($588 total); renting instead costs $29 a month, cancel any time, and never becomes ownership. From year two, or month 13 on the monthly plan, the platform fee is at most $99 a year, and card payments you take carry Stripe’s own fee. The only other charge the Terms name is a one-time team upgrade, offered on some accounts, that lifts a team to you plus up to 25 team members.

Trying it

Is there a free trial, and what does it include?

Yes. The trial lasts 30 days, with no card needed. It gives every tool to one person; crew seats come with the license.

Can I test it with a real technician?

Partly. Not during the trial: a technician you invite can’t work until you buy. After buying, add your crew; the 60-day money-back guarantee still covers you.

Can I import from my current software?

Partly. Import customers from Jobber, Housecall Pro, QuickBooks, a spreadsheet or your phone contacts, and your price list too. Jobs and invoice history are not imported.

Is it live, with a team behind it?

Yes. A small founding team. Live since February 2026.

Does it have limits I should know about?

Yes. Every limit on this page is listed together below.

What Own Your Tools doesn’t do yet

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Questions? support@ownyourtools.work