LoadingLoadingLoadingLoadingTradify is a well-established job management app aimed at trade businesses, and for a lot of them it is the right answer. The reasons teams move to Cushty cluster around what happens as the team grows — per-user pricing, features that sit behind higher tiers, and wanting the setup done with them before go-live rather than handed over as an empty account.
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Tradify is good at being Tradify, and there are rows below where it is straightforwardly ahead of us. The reasons teams switch are usually about pricing shape, tier gating and how much of the setup is done with you — not about basic features.
| Criterion | Tradify | Cushty |
|---|---|---|
| Best fit | Trade businesses of any size, but the entry plan is priced and shaped around very small teams | Growing UK service businesses, typically 5–30 staff |
| Setup | Self-serve, with training and support included in the subscription | Set up with you before go-live — your presets, templates and Xero customer contacts — quoted separately as an implementation fee |
| Pricing model | Per user, per month, across tiered plans — see their site for current prices | £249/month including 10 staff accounts, then £25/month each, plus separately quoted setup |
| Support | Help centre, in-app chat, email and phone support | Named onboarding, then a UK team on the support email |
None of these are 'Tradify can't do it' arguments. They are about the shape of the product and the pricing as a team grows.
Tradify charges per user, per month. Every time you take someone on, the bill goes up — and hiring is exactly the moment you want software to be helping rather than costing more. Cushty's Team plan includes 10 staff accounts, so most teams hire several times before the bill moves at all, and after that each extra account is a flat £25/month rather than a per-user rate applied across everyone. Your customers use the customer portal free and never count as staff accounts.
Tiered plans mean deciding which of your people get which capabilities, and re-visiting that decision every time the business changes. Cushty has one platform: whichever plan you are on, you get the whole thing — recurring work, bulk invoicing, the customer portal, reporting. The plan governs how many staff accounts you have, not what the software is allowed to do.
Tradify is built to be quick to set up out of the box, which is genuinely useful when you want to be running by Friday. Cushty takes the other trade-off: we spend onboarding time on your quote line-item presets, your recurring job templates and your Xero customer contacts before you go live, and quote the implementation fee separately. If you would rather self-serve in an afternoon, that is a point for Tradify, not for us.
Cushty includes a branded customer portal on every plan — each client sees their jobs, pending quotes, outstanding invoices and completed work, signs off work, and pays by card, all through a secure link with no password to remember. For businesses whose customers are facilities managers or letting agents chasing updates, that removes a category of phone call rather than a step in a process.
The honest version, including the rows where Tradify comes out ahead. Tradify's exact tier contents change, so this describes capabilities rather than which plan they land on.
| Feature | Tradify | Cushty |
|---|---|---|
| Job and work-order management | Job dashboards, notes, photos and files; some capabilities sit on higher plans | One job record — status, notes, photos, materials, costs, sign-off — the same on every plan |
| Scheduling and dispatch | Calendar, dispatch, timesheets, live staff locations and a map view | Drag-and-drop calendar, availability and holidays, conflict warnings before you double-book — but no route planning, no live location tracking and no map view |
| Quoting | Quote templates and line items | Reusable templates, quote from the van, approval by secure link, deposit on approval through Stripe |
| Invoicing | Branded invoice templates; some invoicing capabilities sit on higher plans | One-click from a completed job, deposit via Stripe, retention on commercial invoices, bulk invoicing and optional automatic chasers — on every plan |
| UK VAT and CIS | Standard invoicing; check with them how UK reverse charge is handled | UK domestic reverse charge for construction as a per-document switch, and CIS subcontractor deductions with Payment & Deduction Statements. Cushty does not file the CIS300 with HMRC. |
| Client and site records | Customer records with job history | Customer records with notes and job history, and multiple sites per customer, each with its own access notes and on-site contact |
| Accounting integrations | Xero, QuickBooks Online, and MYOB in Australia and New Zealand | Xero: invoices and payments are pushed from Cushty, and Xero contacts can be imported. It is a one-way push, not a two-way sync, and QuickBooks is not live — if you run QuickBooks, Tradify is ahead of us |
| Pricing model | Per user, per month across tiered plans, with a 14-day free trial | £249/month including 10 staff accounts, then £25/month each, plus separately quoted setup. No long-term contract |
Every row above is a claim about what Cushty does. These pages are where each one is set out in full, including what it does not do.
Plenty of businesses shouldn't switch. Here is where Tradify is the better answer, and we will say so on a discovery call rather than let you find out later.
Tradify is designed for this end of the market and it is good at it. You don't have the volume or the complexity to justify a setup project and an implementation fee, and an app that works out of the box is the right call. Come back to us when you're hiring your fifth person.
Tradify has all four and we don't. Our calendar shows you each job's address but does not sort a day into a route or optimise for travel time, and it does not show you where a van is right now. Our accounting integration is Xero — QuickBooks is on the roadmap and MYOB isn't. If any of those are load-bearing for you, this is not a close call.
Tradify is self-serve with a free trial, and you can have it working before the end of the week without talking to anybody. Cushty goes live after a setup step that we do with you, and that takes longer and costs a one-off fee. If speed to first job matters more than fit, that trade-off goes their way.
A realistic version of the first 90 days.
Discovery call. An honest assessment of whether Cushty is the right move, including what would need re-keying, since only your Xero contacts come across. If it isn't the right move — and we do say that — you've spent 45 minutes and got a second opinion on your operational stack.
Configuration and data import. Your Xero contacts are the one import we do. Tradify data, job history, quotes and invoices do not come across; we discuss what would need re-keying on the discovery call. Quote line-item presets, rates and recurring templates get set up around how you actually work. Job types and the product's own labels are not among them — they come with your trade's setup, where Cushty is configured for your trade, and are compiled into the software rather than set per business — so we show you exactly what your team will see on the discovery call.
Quoting and invoicing running in Cushty, Tradify wound down. How long that takes depends on how much configuration you want before go-live and how quickly the decisions come back — we give you a specific plan after the discovery call rather than a number now.
What comes across from your old system, what we need from you and how go-live is planned
Competitor pricing, plan inclusions and support channels change without notice, so this page avoids quoting Tradify's prices and tier contents as fixed facts. Check their site for current figures before you decide — and if you find something here that is out of date or wrong, tell us and we'll correct it.
We publish Cushty, so treat this as our view of the market rather than an independent review. Everything we claim about Cushty is something the product does today; where a capability is on the roadmap rather than live, we say so.
Tradify prices per user per month across tiered plans, with regional pricing. Check their current figures directly.
Tradify's own page on the training and support included with a subscription.
Book a 30-minute walkthrough — we'll show you how Cushty fits your business. No commitment, no contract until you choose to subscribe.
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