Best Free App for Self Employed Plumbers UK — 2026 Guide

Updated June 2026 · 8 min read · PlumberLog Team

If you’re a self employed plumber, you’ve probably tried running your jobs in your head, a notebook, or some battered spreadsheet you built years ago. It works. Until it doesn’t. Here’s what to actually look for — and which free options are worth your time.

Why most plumbers don’t use an app

It’s not because they don’t want one. It’s because most job management apps are built for plumbing businesses with three vans and an office manager.

You’re one person. You get a call, you price the job, you do the work, you invoice. You don’t need route optimisation and a client self-service portal. You need something that takes five minutes to set up and actually saves you time.

The other problem is cost. Most “free” plans lock away the features you actually need — invoicing, reports, mileage — until you pay. And the paid plans often start at £25–£35 a month. For a sole trader doing 15 jobs a month, that’s a hard sell.

What a self employed plumber actually needs from an app

Before we get into the options, let’s be clear about what matters.

• Job tracking — log each job, customer, date and quoted price
• Cost logging — parts, labour, materials, parking — everything that eats your margin
• Invoicing — generate a professional invoice on site, with your Gas Safe number on it
• Mileage — HMRC lets you claim 55p per mile from April 2026. Most plumbers claim nothing
• Tax report — a simple summary at year end so self assessment doesn’t ruin January

That’s it. Everything else is noise for a sole trader.

The main options in 2026

Tradify

Tradify is the most popular job management app among UK tradespeople. It’s well built and handles quoting, scheduling, invoicing and job management all in one place.

The catch? There’s no free plan. It starts at £29/month after a 14-day trial. That’s fine if you’re running a team. For a sole trader doing boiler services and emergency call-outs, it’s a lot to commit to before you know if it fits your way of working.

No mileage tracking either. You’d still need a separate app or a spreadsheet for that.

Jobber

Jobber is strong on scheduling and customer communication. Brilliant if you have multiple engineers and need to dispatch jobs. Starts at £25/month — again, no free option. Built more for teams than sole traders.

QuickBooks Self Employed

If you mainly want expense and tax tracking, QuickBooks Self Employed is solid. Around £8/month. Does mileage, expenses and self assessment. Doesn’t do job tracking or invoicing for trades specifically. You’d still need something else for your jobs.

PlumberLog

PlumberLog is built specifically for self employed plumbers. Not plumbing businesses. Plumbers.

The free plan gives you up to 10 jobs a month with full cost tracking and payment status. That covers most plumbers starting out or those doing part-time work.

Pro is £9.99/month — which gets you unlimited jobs, PDF invoices with your Gas Safe number, a full tax report for self assessment, and quote-to-job conversion.

Mileage tracking is built in on both free and Pro. You log a journey and it calculates the claimable amount at the HMRC approved rate automatically.

Works on any phone — iPhone or Android — with no download needed. Open it in your browser and add it to your home screen. Done.

Side by side comparison

Feature	PlumberLog	Tradify	Jobber	QuickBooks SE
Free plan	✅ Yes	❌ No	❌ No	❌ No
Job tracking	✅	✅	✅	❌
Cost tracking	✅	✅	✅	✅
Gas Safe invoices	✅	❌	❌	❌
Mileage tracking	✅	❌	❌	✅
Tax report	✅ Pro	Needs Xero	Needs Xero	✅
No download needed	✅	❌	❌	❌
Starting price	Free / £9.99	£29/mo	£25/mo	£8/mo

What about spreadsheets?

Plenty of plumbers still use Excel or Google Sheets. And honestly, if it’s working for you, there’s no shame in it.

The problems usually show up at tax time. A spreadsheet doesn’t calculate your mileage claims. It doesn’t generate an invoice. It doesn’t tell you which jobs you’ve been paid for and which are still outstanding. You end up doing all of that manually every January.

The other thing spreadsheets miss is the day-to-day picture. You finish a job, log the parts you used, and suddenly you can see your actual margin — not just what you quoted. That’s the kind of visibility that helps you price better next time.

Making Tax Digital — what plumbers need to know

From April 2026, sole traders earning over £50,000 must use Making Tax Digital for Income Tax. That means quarterly digital submissions to HMRC instead of one annual return.

If you’re anywhere near that threshold, you need your records in order throughout the year — not scrambled together in January. An app that tracks every job and cost as you go makes that significantly less painful.

PlumberLog keeps records in a clean, organised format from day one. When the quarterly deadline comes around, the data is already there.

How to pick the right one for you

If you’re doing fewer than 10 jobs a month and mainly want to track costs and mileage — start with PlumberLog free. It costs nothing and you’ll know within a week whether it suits the way you work.

If you’re doing 15+ jobs a month and need proper invoicing and a tax report for self assessment — PlumberLog Pro at £9.99 is the most affordable option that covers everything a sole trader plumber needs.

If you’re running a small team and need scheduling, dispatch and customer communication — Tradify is worth the £29/month. It’s built for that scenario.