Autopilot vs Joist

Joist is a mobile-first estimates, invoices, and payments app for contractors, owned by EverCommerce since 2018. It claims over a million contractors have used it, and the appeal is obvious: for $10 to $32 a month you can build a clean estimate on your phone in the driveway, get it signed, invoice it, and take payment, with homeowner financing offered on every plan.

The plans are simple. Basics is $10 a month and caps you at five documents. Pro at $17 removes the cap and adds your logo, line item photos, work orders, and QuickBooks Online sync. Elite at $32 adds change orders and business reports. Every new account gets a 14-day trial of the full feature set, and annual billing gives you two months free.

What Joist is not, and does not claim to be, is a field service platform. There is no dispatch calendar, no online booking, no customer texting, no marketing, and no phone system. It is an invoicing-first tool for a solo operator, and plenty of contractors run it alongside two or three other apps that handle everything else.

Autopilot is an all-in-one CRM built for home service businesses: junk removal, cleaning, landscaping, moving, and the rest of the trades that keep neighborhoods running. Plans start at $49 a month for scheduling, estimates, invoicing, payments, and online booking. Crew at $99 adds two-way texting and limited calling. Full Throttle at $149 adds the full phone system, AI receptionist, QuickBooks, GPS, and marketing tools. Plans include 1, 5, or 10 team members respectively.

It was built by a founder who ran his own junk removal company and got tired of paying for three tools that didn't talk to each other. Over 400 businesses run on it today, and it holds a 4.8 rating on the App Store and 4.9 on Google Play.

Against Joist, Autopilot replaces the three-apps-and-a-notebook setup: the estimates and invoices are in there, and so are the schedule, the business phone, the AI receptionist, and the marketing.