Buyer’s guide · prices checked 28 July 2026

Painting & Decorating Software UK — Prices Compared

Decorating is won on the quote. Price a hallway, a stairwell and three bedrooms clearly enough that the customer can see what they are paying for, and you win work you would otherwise lose to someone cheaper. This guide compares five options UK painters and decorators shortlist, with prices taken from each vendor’s own page.

Painters & Decorators software compared on price

Entry price is what one person pays to start. Tools marked per user charge that figure again for every extra seat, which is what makes them expensive for small outfits.

SoftwareFromFree trialUK-builtSuits
YourTradebase£29 / month30 days, no card requiredYesDecorators competing on presentation against two other quotes
Traddie£9.99 / month14 daysYesSolo decorators and two-hand teams
Tradify£34 / user / month14 daysNoDecorating firms with staff to schedule across sites
Powered Now£28 / user / month14 daysYesVAT-registered decorating firms filing their own returns
XeroSee xero.com30 daysNoBookkeeping and tax, alongside a separate workflow tool

Prices read from each vendor’s own pricing page on 28 July 2026 and quoted as they state them. Vendors change pricing without notice — check before you buy.

How to choose software for painters & decorators

The quote document is doing your selling for you

Unlike most trades, decorating customers routinely get three quotes and compare them side by side on a kitchen table. A tidy, itemised quote that separates prep, materials and labour per room reads as professional; a figure scrawled on a compliment slip reads as a guess. This is the one area where how the document looks is worth paying for.

Quote by room or by phase, and keep prep visible

Prep is where decorating jobs are won and lost — filling, sanding, stripping and lining are real hours the customer cannot see and will not value unless you show them. Software that lets you build reusable room or phase templates, with prep as its own line, stops you either undercharging for it or hiding it in a lump sum that invites haggling.

Snagging needs to bill against the original job

Every decorating job ends with a walk round and a list. If your software cannot add those retouches to the original job, they end up either unbilled or on a second invoice the customer disputes. Look for the ability to add work to a job after completion and invoice it cleanly against the same reference.

Watch the per-user pricing if you take on a second pair of hands

Most decorators work alone or with one other person, which makes the pricing model matter more than the feature list. Flat-rate tools stay flat; per-user tools double the moment you take someone on. On this page the entry prices range from £9.99 to £59 a month, and the cheapest option for one person is not the cheapest for three.

The options, by who they suit

These are grouped by the kind of business they fit rather than ranked one to five — the right pick for a sole trader is rarely the right pick for a firm with four vans.

If your quotes need to look the part

YourTradebase

From £29 / month30 days, no card required free trial

A UK small-business favourite with the tidiest customer-facing quote documents here, one flat base price rather than per-user from the off, and the longest trial on this page.

Plans: Flat £29 base, additional users £15 each

Strengths

  • Longest trial here at 30 days with no card up front
  • Flat base price instead of per-user from the first seat
  • Well-presented quote and job documents for the customer

Trade-offs

  • Extra users are £15 a month each, so a team catches up with per-user rivals
  • Lighter on heavy field-service features than Tradify
Visit YourTradebase

If you are a sole trader watching costs

Traddie

From £9.99 / month14 days free trial

UK-built job software running quote → job → invoice in one flow, with quote approvals, automatic payment reminders and VAT/CIS tracking. At £9.99 for a single user it is the cheapest option on this page.

Plans: Solo £9.99 · Pro £19.99 · Team £49.99 for 3 users, extra seats £7

Strengths

  • Lowest entry price here — a sole trader pays £9.99 where most rivals start at £28–34 per user
  • CIS deductions and VAT threshold tracking built in, not an add-on
  • Card, GoCardless and bank payments on every plan
  • Syncs to Xero and QuickBooks on Pro and above

Trade-offs

  • Newer than the established names, so there are far fewer third-party reviews to read
  • No workshop stock or materials-inventory module
  • Made by us — weigh this entry accordingly and use the free trial rather than our word
See Traddie pricing

If you are scheduling a team across several sites

Tradify

From £34 / user / month14 days free trial

The most widely used trade job-management tool in the UK, and the strongest here on scheduling and dispatch. Pro adds job templates, timesheets, subcontractor scheduling and compliance certificates.

Plans: Lite £34 · Pro £37 · Plus £44, all per user

Strengths

  • Deepest scheduling and dispatch of any tool on this page
  • Large UK user base, so plenty of independent reviews and help material
  • Syncs with Xero, Sage and QuickBooks Online
  • Compliance certificates included from the Pro tier

Trade-offs

  • Priced per user from the first seat — a three-hander on Pro is £111 a month
  • Text messages are charged per message and the website builder is a paid add-on
  • More tool than a one-van business usually needs
Visit Tradify

If you want VAT returns filed from the same app

Powered Now

From £28 / user / month14 days free trial

UK-built and Making Tax Digital compliant, with VAT return submission on the Professional tier alongside forms, certificates and team management.

Plans: Business £28 · Professional £32 · Premium £40, per user, excluding VAT

Strengths

  • Submits VAT returns directly — few job-management tools do
  • Forms and certificates included from the Professional tier
  • Annual billing works out at two months free

Trade-offs

  • Priced per user, and quoted excluding VAT so the real figure is higher than it first reads
  • Customer portal and automatic quote chasing are held back for the £40 Premium tier
Visit Powered Now

If your accountant already runs your books

Xero

From See xero.com30 days free trial

The accounting platform most UK accountants already work in. It is not job-management software and does not pretend to be — it belongs on this page because most trades end up running one of the tools above and syncing it to Xero.

Plans: Plans change often; check current UK pricing directly

Strengths

  • The default at most UK accountancy practices, so handover is painless
  • Making Tax Digital ready

Trade-offs

  • No quoting workflow, scheduling or job costing — this is books, not jobs
  • You will still be paying for a workflow tool alongside it
Visit Xero

How we put this together

Every price on this page was read off the vendor’s own pricing page on 28 July 2026 and is quoted the way they state it, including whether it is per user and whether VAT is excluded. We judged the tools against the things that decide the job for UK painters & decorators:

  • Quote-to-job-to-invoice workflow quality
  • Real cost for the way your business is actually staffed
  • Mobile usability for quoting and updating jobs on site
  • VAT threshold tracking and CIS deduction handling
  • Integration with Xero, QuickBooks, FreeAgent and Sage
  • Length of the free trial, and whether it needs a card
  • Quoting by room or phase with prep as a visible line
  • Billing snags and retouches against the original job

Disclosure:we make Traddie, one of the tools listed here. We have tried to describe it as plainly as the others, trade-offs included, and we have not put it top of the page. Every tool here has a free trial — use them rather than taking anyone’s word, ours included.

Painters & Decorators software: common questions

What is the best software for a self-employed painter and decorator?

It depends on which problem is costing you more. If you are losing work at the quoting stage, YourTradebase produces the tidiest customer-facing documents here and gives you 30 days to test it without a card. If cost is the binding constraint, Traddie is £9.99 a month against £28–34 per user for most rivals. Prices checked 28 July 2026.

Can I quote decorating by room?

Yes — every workflow tool on this page supports itemised quoting. What varies is whether you can save a room as a reusable template with your own prep, materials and labour rates, so a three-bedroom repaint takes two minutes to price rather than twenty. That is the feature to test during a trial.

How do I bill for snagging without upsetting the customer?

Add the retouches to the original job rather than raising a fresh invoice out of nowhere. A customer who sees snagging on the same job reference, under the original quote, reads it as completing the work. The same amount arriving as a standalone second invoice a fortnight later reads as a surprise charge, and that is the one people query.

Do painters and decorators need to worry about CIS?

Only if you subcontract on construction work — a decorator working directly for homeowners does not touch CIS, but one taking work from a builder or main contractor does, and will have 20% deducted at source (30% if unverified). If you do both, pick software that handles CIS so the deductions are recorded against the right invoices and you can reclaim them.

Is free decorating software worth using?

Free tiers and spreadsheets work while you are quoting one job a week. They stop working when you are chasing four invoices, cannot remember which quote you sent the customer in Hedge End, and have no record of what you charged for a similar job last spring. Every tool here offers a free trial — 30 days at YourTradebase, 14 at Traddie, Tradify and Powered Now — which is enough to find out on real jobs. Checked 28 July 2026.

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