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BuildEstimate vs Tradify vs Powered Now: An Honest UK Comparison

By · 25 September 2026 · 5 min read · More guides

Monthly prices from each company's own website on 25 September 2026: BuildEstimate £20 for one login, Tradify £34 to £44 per user, Powered Now £28 to £40 plus VAT.

If you're choosing quoting software for a UK trade business, these three names come up a lot. We make one of them, so read this knowing that. Everything below about Tradify and Powered Now comes from their own websites, help centres and app store pages, checked on 25 September 2026, with links at the bottom.

We make BuildEstimate. We've tried to be straight about where the other two are better. On several things they are.

The short version

What they cost

BuildEstimateTradify (UK)Powered Now
Monthly£20Lite £34, Pro £37, Plus £44, per userBusiness £28 (one user), Professional £32 per user, Premium £40 per user
Annual£220Not published, ask sales£280 (one user), £320 or £400 per user
Free trial7 days, no card14 days, no card14 days, no card

Powered Now's prices exclude VAT, which it adds at checkout. Tradify's UK pricing page doesn't say either way.

Per-user pricing is the real difference. A three-person firm on Tradify Pro pays £111 a month. BuildEstimate is £20 for the account, but it's a one-login account with no team features, so for a firm with staff that isn't a like-for-like saving. It's cheaper because it does less.

Writing the quote

BuildEstimate starts from a sentence. Describe the job, or upload the plans, and the AI returns a line-item quote priced at UK material and labour rates, with the sources it checked for prices online. You edit every line before it goes anywhere. The drawing analyser is on the paid plan, not the free trial.

Tradify's AI features, called SmartTools, come with the Plus plan. One reads the costs off a photographed supplier bill and the other writes or tidies line descriptions. You build your own price list, import supplier lists as CSV files, and Plus adds kit bundles of parts and labour.

Powered Now's AI writing tool and receipt scanner are on Premium. Its product catalogue and CSV import are on Professional and Premium.

None of the three measures quantities off a drawing for you in the way a takeoff tool does, as far as we could find. Powered Now Premium lets you draw on and annotate an uploaded image.

Getting the quote accepted

All three send the client a link. With BuildEstimate the client approves and signs the quote online and you can see when they did. Tradify's link lets a customer accept, decline or comment, and it's listed from the Pro plan up. Powered Now's link has accept and reject buttons, and its Premium customer portal lets clients view, accept and pay.

Tradify and Powered Now both capture signatures in person, on the phone or tablet app.

CIS and the reverse charge

This is where the three split most clearly.

BuildEstimate puts the CIS deduction (20%, 30% or 0%) and the VAT domestic reverse charge on the invoice, with your VAT number and UTR on the PDF, and needs no other software to do it.

Powered Now has CIS built in too: a calculator, deductions on invoices to contractors, subcontractor statements and a summary report for the monthly CIS300. The reverse charge is set line by line.

Tradify's own help centre says it has no native reverse VAT or CIS options. Both work through its Xero or Sage connection. With QuickBooks Online you finish the invoice in QuickBooks instead.

Running jobs and a team

Here BuildEstimate simply isn't in the race. It has no scheduling, no timesheets and no staff logins.

Tradify includes job scheduling with Google Calendar sync on every plan, shows where your staff are on a live map, and adds timesheets with a job timer from Pro up. Subcontractors get free accounts. Powered Now has a diary and job sheets on every plan, timesheets, GPS staff location and team chat from Professional, and drag-and-drop scheduling on Premium.

If you employ people, that alone may decide it.

Getting paid and the accounts

Tradify takes card payments from invoices in the UK, with fees from 1.7% plus 20p for standard cards, and it does deposits and progress invoices from Pro up. Powered Now takes cards through SumUp, sends pay-now links, and handles deposits and staged payments.

BuildEstimate turns an accepted quote into an invoice and tracks payments against it, part payments included. It doesn't collect card payments from your client for you.

Tradify syncs with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks Online on every plan. Powered Now connects to Xero and QuickBooks Online on Professional and Premium. BuildEstimate has no accounting integration; its quarterly VAT summary exports as a CSV file for you or your accountant.

Ratings

On 25 September 2026 Tradify had 4.8 on the UK App Store from about 2,700 ratings and 4.8 on Google Play from 3,130 reviews. Powered Now had 4.1 on the UK App Store from 243 ratings and 4.1 on Google Play from 284.

BuildEstimate had none. It only reached the App Store at the end of June 2026, and we'd rather show you no rating than a made-up one.

Common questions

Which is cheapest for a sole trader?

BuildEstimate, at £20 a month or £220 a year. Powered Now's one-user Business plan is £28 a month plus VAT. Tradify's cheapest UK plan is £34 per user per month.

Which one handles CIS without accounting software?

BuildEstimate and Powered Now both build CIS deductions and the reverse charge into their invoices. Tradify's help centre says it relies on a Xero or Sage connection for both.

Does any of them write the quote for you with AI?

BuildEstimate does: it drafts the priced line items from a description or uploaded drawings. We found no AI quote generation at Tradify or Powered Now, whose AI tools write descriptions and read bills and receipts.

Which is best for a team of five?

Tradify or Powered Now. Both have scheduling, timesheets and staff accounts. BuildEstimate has none of those.

How we checked

Tradify and Powered Now details come from their pricing pages, feature pages and help centres on 25 September 2026. Ratings are from the UK App Store and Google Play on the same day. Prices and features change, so check the linked pages before you buy. If something here is out of date, email hello@build-estimate.app and we'll correct it.

Sources, checked 25 September 2026:

Try it on a real job

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