Short answer: If your revenue is mostly recurring maintenance, buy Jobber or LMN. If you are past $10M with a controller running operations, buy Aspire. If you are a landscape design-build firm doing $500K to $5M where every job is a weeks-long project with a designer, three vendors and change orders, the honest choice is between SingleOps, SynkedUP, LMN’s estimating, a spreadsheet and Ledge. The rest of this guide is how to tell them apart.
What makes design-build different
Maintenance software is built around a route. The same 60 lawns every Thursday, priced per visit, billed monthly. Design-build is built around a project. One backyard that takes eleven weeks, gets quoted by the cubic yard, priced by two vendors, bought by the bag, and changes scope three times before the warranty visit. Much of the landscape design-build software on the market started as maintenance software, designed for the first shape, with the second bolted on afterward.
Five things to test in any demo:
- Mixed units on one line. Can one line item be quoted in cubic yards, priced per vendor, and purchased in bags without creating three line items?
- Five cost parts per line. Materials, labor, equipment, overhead, profit. If overhead is a single percentage on the total, your margin on a stone-heavy job will be wrong.
- Change orders tied to margin. When the client adds a fire pit mid-build, does the project margin update, or does it live in an email?
- Outside participants. Your designer is a freelancer. Your books are with an accountant. Can they work in the project without a paid seat and without seeing everything?
- QuickBooks direction. Does the tool push invoices to QuickBooks only, or do bills entered in QuickBooks flow back to the job so you see cost during the build?
The options
Prices are list prices as published on each vendor’s site in October 2026 and change often. Confirm before you buy. Where a site does not describe something, this guide says so rather than guessing.
LMN
What it is: The longest-running landscape-specific platform. Started as an estimating and budgeting system and added CRM, time tracking, scheduling and payments over the years. Now sold by Granum.
Fits: Maintenance and snow companies, and design-build firms that want a disciplined budgeting system and are willing to be taught it.
Watch for: The budgeting method is the product. If you do not adopt it, the estimates do not make sense. Licenses are counted, so crews add up.
Pricing: Starter from $297 a month and Professional from $648 a month, each after a one-time onboarding fee. Enterprise by quote. No free trial listed.
Aspire
What it is: Enterprise landscape business management. Deep job costing, purchasing, equipment and reporting.
Fits: Companies past $10M with a controller or CFO and dedicated admin staff. Also strong for commercial maintenance.
Watch for: Its site says it is designed for enterprise-level landscape businesses. The system assumes someone is paid to keep it fed.
Pricing: Quote-based. One license fee billed monthly with no limit on users, implementation and training included. Payments, payroll and GPS fleet tracking are quoted separately.
Jobber
What it is: General field service software for lawn, cleaning, HVAC and similar trades. Quoting, scheduling, invoicing, a client hub and payments.
Fits: Route-based maintenance businesses and small installs. Fast to set up, a good mobile app, and a client-facing experience customers like.
Watch for: Quoting is flat. Its quotes page describes optional line items and markups, not production rates or per-vendor pricing. Job costing starts on the Grow plan. Multi-week project work is not described.
Pricing: Core from $29 a month, Connect from $99, Grow from $149, Plus from $399 on annual billing; extra users $29 a month. Cards 2.9% + 30 cents, ACH 1%. A 14-day free trial.
Service Autopilot
What it is: Maintenance-heavy field service software built around automations, routing and recurring billing.
Fits: High-volume maintenance and snow operations that want workflows to run by themselves.
Watch for: Multi-day jobs and job costing start on the Pro plan. Design-build work and change orders are not described on its site.
Pricing: Startup $49, Pro $199 and Pro Plus $499 a month on annual rates, each plus a sign-up fee. Elite by quote. QuickBooks sync on Elite or as an add-on.
SingleOps
What it is: Granum’s tree care and landscape software. Estimates, a client portal, scheduling, job costing, payments and a two-way QuickBooks Online sync.
Fits: Mixed tree care, maintenance and install companies from one crew up. Crew users are free on every plan.
Watch for: Positioned for tree care first. Route optimization is on the top plan. Design-build project tracking and change orders are not described.
Pricing: Essential $220, Plus $385 and Premier $550 a month, less on annual billing. Extra office users $55 to $150 a month.
SynkedUP
What it is: Built around landscape budgeting, overhead recovery and real-time job costing, with e-signature proposals, scheduling and time tracking.
Fits: Owners who want a budgeting system like LMN’s with a simpler interface.
Watch for: Job costing starts on the Standard plan. No free trial, and the pricing page says no refunds.
Pricing: Starter $199, Standard $399 and PRO $599 a month, 10% less on annual billing. An activation fee is shown inconsistently on the page, so ask.
Arborgold
What it is: Long-running tree, lawn and landscape management software with estimating, e-signature approval, scheduling, routing and CRM.
Fits: Tree care and mixed service companies that want iOS and Android apps and QuickBooks Desktop support.
Watch for: A twelve-month minimum commitment with 60 days notice to cancel. Project scheduling is on the top plan; installation tracking is not described.
Pricing: Starter from $129, Professional from $299 and Enterprise from $499 a month on an annual contract.
Spreadsheets
What it is: Excel or Google Sheets, QuickBooks and a calendar.
Fits: Under $500K, one crew, the owner doing all the estimating.
Watch for: Nothing links. Change orders get lost. Margin is known at tax time.
Pricing: Free, plus your evenings.
Ledge
What it is: Landscape design-build software. One project thread from walkthrough through design, estimate, build, change orders, invoicing and the warranty visit.
Fits: Landscape design-build firms doing $500K to $5M with 2 to 15 crews, freelance designers, several vendors, subs and an outside accountant.
Watch for: Does not fit route-heavy maintenance (no route optimization), operations run by a controller, or owners who want to be taught a budgeting system. Runs in the browser; no native app.
Pricing: The first ten landscape design-build firms run it free with no subscription and no per-seat fees. Ledge earns only on payments: 2.90% + $0.30 per card transaction, 0.85% on ACH.
Full disclosure, I build it.
Comparison at a glance
| Mixed units per line | Five-part line costing | Change orders move margin | Outside participants | QuickBooks bills to the job | Route optimization | Pricing model | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LMN | Not listed | Yes (budget-driven) | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | From $297/mo + onboarding fee |
| Aspire | Not listed | Yes | Not listed | Customer portal | Not listed | Not listed | Quote, one fee, unlimited users |
| Jobber | No | Partial (markups) | Not listed | No | No | Yes | Monthly tiers, $29 to $399+ |
| Service Autopilot | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Monthly tiers, $49 to $499 + fee |
| SingleOps | Not listed | Partial (job costing) | Not listed | Client portal | Two-way sync | Yes (Premier) | Monthly tiers, $220 to $550 |
| SynkedUP | Not listed | Yes (budget-driven) | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Monthly tiers, $199 to $599 |
| Arborgold | Not listed | Partial (job costing) | Not listed | Not listed | Not listed | Yes | Annual contract, $129 to $499/mo |
| Ledge | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Free for the first ten firms, payments only |
“Not listed” means the vendor’s own site did not describe it when checked in October 2026. It is not a claim that the product lacks it. “Partial” is my read of what the site does describe. If a vendor tells you otherwise, ask them to show it in the demo with your own job.
How to run the evaluation
- Pick your ugliest job from the last year. The one with the mulch quoted two ways, the sub who invoiced late, and the client who added a pergola in week six.
- Ask each vendor to build that estimate live in the demo, not their sample.
- Enter one real vendor bill and see where it lands.
- Add the pergola as a change order and ask what the margin is now.
- Give your accountant a login and ask what they can see.
Whichever tool survives all five is the one.
Questions owners ask
Do I need design software too?
Ledge, LMN and the rest manage the business, not the drawing. For renderings you will still use something like SketchUp, Vectorworks Landmark, PRO Landscape or VizTerra, and present from there.
Can I run maintenance and design-build in one tool?
SingleOps and Aspire do both reasonably. LMN and Jobber do maintenance well and design-build adequately. Ledge does design-build only.
What about free options?
Yardbook is free. It runs on sponsored ads, with optional paid features for larger companies, and is built for lawn and landscape maintenance. Ledge is free for its first ten landscape design-build firms. Everything else charges monthly or by quote.
How long does switching take?
Jobber takes days. LMN and SynkedUP take weeks, mostly learning the budgeting method. SingleOps and Ledge take a few weeks to load your price book and open jobs. Aspire includes implementation in the fee, so ask how long their program runs.
Questions or corrections: hello@ledge.build. If I have described your product wrong, tell me and I will fix it and note the change. If you run a landscape design-build firm and want to see your ugliest job rebuilt in Ledge, book thirty minutes with me.