Powered Now alternatives for a one-person trade
Powered Now's Business plan is £28 a month before VAT, and the automatic invoice chasing a lot of people went looking for is two tiers up on Premium at £40 per user. This page is the field of alternatives for a UK sole trader: what each one costs off its own pricing page, which of them file Making Tax Digital the way Powered Now does, and the case for not moving at all.
We make one of the alternatives, so read this knowing that. If you finish the page and stay put, it did its job.
Why people look for a Powered Now alternative
Two things, and neither of them is quality. The first is the ladder. The plan sold to sole traders is £28 a month before VAT and it is the bottom rung of a product that climbs to teams, so automatic invoice and quote chasing sits on Premium at £40 per user, while compliant certificates and unlimited texts sit on Professional at £32 per user. A one-person business that wants chasing gets quoted a per-user price for it. The second is trial expiry: fourteen days, then a paid plan, with no free tier to fall back to in a quiet month.
What Powered Now costs one person
£28 a month on Business, before VAT, which is the only single-user plan they sell. Add VAT at the standard rate and a trader who cannot reclaim it is paying £33.60, or £280 for the year on annual billing. What the headline does not say is where the features sit. Automatic invoice chasing and automatic quote chasing are both on Premium at £40 per user a month, and unlimited text messages and compliant certificates are on Professional at £32 per user. So for a sole trader who came for the chasing, the real number is £40 before VAT rather than £28.
Powered Now's pricing page, read September 2026. Every plan and the full side-by-side is on SoloDesks vs Powered Now.
Who should stay on Powered Now
Anyone who wants Making Tax Digital handled inside the same app. Powered Now is HMRC-recognised for it and carries MTD for Income Tax on all three plans including the £28 one, and we do not do MTD at all. The same goes for compliant certificates, VAT returns filed to HMRC, and supplier invoices and purchase orders: those are on Powered Now and not here. And if you are about to take somebody on, the per-user tiers stop being a penalty and start being the reason to stay.
Powered Now is a UK trade app with a single-user plan at £28 and two per-user tiers above it, built to carry a sole trader up to a team with compliance paperwork.
What you would be giving up
Making Tax Digital, which is the big one and is on every Powered Now plan including the cheapest. If you want your software to file for you, that decision is already made and no saving covers it. You would also give up compliant certificates and custom forms, submitting VAT returns to HMRC, and supplier invoices and purchase orders, none of which we have. What you would not give up is the chasing, because that is on our £12 plan and on their £40 one.
The options, with prices
The realistic options, including staying where you are. Prices as published by each company, read on the dates shown.
SoloDesks
£12/month, flat
If you're leaving over the price for one person. Priced per business rather than per seat or per job, with a free plan that has no card and no expiry. Quotes, invoices, payment chasing and a job calendar, and nothing else. That is the trade-off. No team seats, no dispatch, no timesheets.
Jobber
From $29–$49/mo (1 user; annual vs monthly)
Jobber is built for growing teams with dispatch, a scheduling desk and staff to manage. The nearest like-for-like swap, which is also the risk: check its pricing model is genuinely different before you move, because paying the same money through a new interface solves nothing.
Tradify
From £34/mo (per user)
Tradify is priced per user and aimed at trades businesses with a few people on the tools. The nearest like-for-like swap, which is also the risk: check its pricing model is genuinely different before you move, because paying the same money through a new interface solves nothing.
ServiceM8
From £0 (30 jobs/mo, 1 user)
ServiceM8 prices by monthly job volume, stepping up through tiers as you do more work. The nearest like-for-like swap, which is also the risk: check its pricing model is genuinely different before you move, because paying the same money through a new interface solves nothing.
Accounting software you already pay for
If invoicing is the only part you actually use. If you're already paying for bookkeeping software for Making Tax Digital, it almost certainly raises invoices too. One subscription instead of two. You lose the job-side of things (the calendar, the quote-to-invoice flow, the chasing), so it depends whether you were using those.
Stay where you are
If it works and the price doesn't hurt. Migrating costs you an evening of exporting, a week of muscle-memory, and the small risk of losing a client record you only notice needing in eight months. That's a real cost. If Powered Now is doing the job and the bill isn't the thing that brought you here, the honest advice is to close the tab.
Before you switch anything
The order you do it in matters more than which one you pick, and getting it wrong costs more than any subscription you are leaving.
How to switch invoicing software without losing your records
Questions people ask
- What is the best Powered Now alternative for a sole trader?
- It depends why you're leaving. If it's the price for one person, a flat-priced one-person tool like SoloDesks (£12/month, free plan below it) is the direct answer. If it's a missing feature, one of the other products listed above is likelier to have it than we are. And if you have people on the tools, Powered Now is probably still the right call.
- Is there a free Powered Now alternative?
- Several, with different catches. Zoho Invoice is free for up to 500 invoices a year, though your documents carry a Powered by Zoho Invoice line. FreeAgent is free, and is full accounting software, if you bank with NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland, Ulster Bank or Mettle. ServiceM8's free tier covers 30 jobs a month. Our own free plan needs no card and never expires, covering 10 quotes, 10 invoices and 10 emailed PDFs a month with unlimited clients and jobs. Pick on whichever limit you'd hit first, and check your bank before you pay anyone: FreeAgent being free is worth more than any discount on this page.
- Who shouldn't switch away from Powered Now?
- Anyone who wants Making Tax Digital handled inside the same app. Powered Now is HMRC-recognised for it and carries MTD for Income Tax on all three plans including the £28 one, and we do not do MTD at all. The same goes for compliant certificates, VAT returns filed to HMRC, and supplier invoices and purchase orders: those are on Powered Now and not here. And if you are about to take somebody on, the per-user tiers stop being a penalty and start being the reason to stay.
- How much is Powered Now for one person?
- £28 a month on Business, before VAT, which is the only single-user plan they sell. Add VAT at the standard rate and a trader who cannot reclaim it is paying £33.60, or £280 for the year on annual billing. What the headline does not say is where the features sit. Automatic invoice chasing and automatic quote chasing are both on Premium at £40 per user a month, and unlimited text messages and compliant certificates are on Professional at £32 per user. So for a sole trader who came for the chasing, the real number is £40 before VAT rather than £28. Figures from Powered Now's pricing page, read September 2026.
Want the whole field rather than one swap? We keep a comparison of eight invoicing apps for UK tradespeople, with every price read off the vendor's own page and dated.
If the price for one person is the problem
That's the one we were built to solve. Start on the free plan, no card, and see whether a month of your own work fits.
Pricing shown for Powered Now and other named products is as of September 2026, taken from each company's own published pricing page, linked above. Plans and prices change. Verify before you buy. All product names are trademarks of their owners; SoloDesks isn't affiliated with or endorsed by any of them, this comparison is our own, and we make one of the products listed.