KARVEN/AU
Demo
Vs · 2026 receiptsA receipt, not a sales pitch

How Karven stacks
against what tradies use today.

Two thoughts up front. One:we don't do everything Tradify does. we're not trying to. Two: what we do, we do better than every competitor on the market. Read the table, decide what matters for your trade.

§01 / Side by side

Ten features. Four players.

Marks: means yes, means partial, means no. Specific values where it matters more than a tick.

● Us

Karven

Calculator that knows your trade

  • Calculator knows the maths
  • Tailored to your business
  • Multi-section quotes
  • Branded customer PDF
  • One-click customer accept
  • Setup time60 sec
  • Cost$0–$199/mo
  • Full job management (scheduling, invoicing)
  • Embed on your websiteSoon
  • Per-trade calc engine

Them

Tradify / ServiceM8

Generic line-item builder

  • Calculator knows the maths
  • Tailored to your business
  • Multi-section quotes
  • Branded customer PDF
  • One-click customer accept
  • Setup timeHours
  • Cost$39–$200+/mo
  • Full job management (scheduling, invoicing)
  • Embed on your website
  • Per-trade calc engine

Them

Free online calc

m² × rate, supplier-locked

  • Calculator knows the maths
  • Tailored to your business
  • Multi-section quotes
  • Branded customer PDF
  • One-click customer accept
  • Setup time10 sec
  • CostFree
  • Full job management (scheduling, invoicing)
  • Embed on your website
  • Per-trade calc engine

Them

Excel / notebook

What ~60% of tradies use

  • Calculator knows the maths
  • Tailored to your business
  • Multi-section quotes
  • Branded customer PDF
  • One-click customer accept
  • Setup timeDays
  • CostFree
  • Full job management (scheduling, invoicing)
  • Embed on your website
  • Per-trade calc engine

§02 / Honest takes

One paragraph each.

vs Tradify

A blank-canvas job manager

Karven · for the calculator

Tradify · for end-to-end ops

Tradify is a great job + invoice + scheduling + Xero-syncing tool. It is not a calculator. You set up your line items by hand and you do the maths in your head (or in Excel before you get to the Tradify quote screen). Karven bakes the maths in: 16 boards × $180 from a 4500×2400 sectional door appears automatically because the engine knows Castellated horizontal cladding cuts that way. If your problem is 'I lose 20 minutes per quote doing maths'. that's us. If your problem is 'I need to track jobs, invoice, and sync to Xero'. that's Tradify, plus us for the quote step.

vs ServiceM8

Mobile-first job ops, AU

Karven · for tailored pricing

ServiceM8 · for mobile ops + scheduling

ServiceM8 wins on mobile UX. it's the best app in the segment for sparkies and plumbers in the field. Their quoting is still generic line items though. We're built for the moment a tradie is looking at a customer's garage door and needs a price by the time they get back to the ute, not for tracking the four-hour job once it's booked.

vs free online calculators

One supplier, one trade, one screen

Karven · for keeping your customer

Free calcs · for instant ballpark

A Steel-Line garage door calculator on a vendor website is great for a customer to get a ballpark before they ring you. It's not a tool for a tradie to send a real quote. there's no save, no PDF, no customer accept link, and you're locked to that supplier's product range. Karven has Steel-Line, B&D, Merlin and Centurion in the same engine, plus your specific markups.

vs Excel

What ~60% of small tradies actually use

Karven · for everything except day-one cost

Excel · if you need full control + free

Excel is free and infinitely flexible. It also looks unprofessional on a customer's iPhone, breaks every time you mistype a row reference, and you spend Sunday rebuilding it because someone deleted a column. The Excel-to-PDF dance most tradies do. quote in sheets, copy-paste into a Word template, save as PDF, attach to email. takes 8-15 minutes per quote. Karven does the same path in 60 seconds with a one-click customer accept link at the end.

§03 / Where we're NOT the answer

Honesty > spin.

We don't do everything. Here's what we're bad at, on purpose. If any of these matter, run the alternative. or run Karven alongside.

Out of scope

Job scheduling

Booking jobs, dispatching crews, calendar view. Tradify and ServiceM8 do this; we don't.

Out of scope

Invoicing + payment collection

We send quotes. Once accepted, you invoice the customer through Xero / MYOB / Tradify. No double-entry. just point your accounting tool at the accepted quote.

Out of scope

Time tracking on the job site

Tradies who need 'clock in / clock out' per job want Tradify or AroFlo. We're a quoting tool, not a timesheet tool.

§04 / Where we crush it

Five things nobody else does.

Where we win

Calculator that knows your trade

Cut-optimisation board count, frame brackets by mount × width, jamb cost per length, top-hats + trims package. Auto-fills, you tweak.

Where we win

Onboarding answers move the price

Set crew=Solo and labour halves. Pick Brio pivot brand and the kit drops from $680 → $420. Cart-away policy adds an automatic line item. Six of eight onboarding answers are diagnostic.

Where we win

Multi-section quotes with auto-rollup

Garage door + front door + wall cladding in one quote. Each section has its own subtotal × margin × total. Grand total auto-sums. Tradify can't do this without a workflow extension.

Where we win

Branded customer-facing accept link

Customer opens /q/<token> on their phone, taps Accept. You get notified. No PDF email back-and-forth.

Where we win

Schema-driven trade expansion

Adding a new trade is a JSON file, not a code release. Garage doors, entry doors, decking. same engine, three templates. The roadmap to 10+ trades is real.

Where we win

Sub-$50 entry price

Free for 3 quotes lifetime. Solo plan $49/mo for unlimited quotes + branded PDF. Tradify starts at $39 but only really useful at $79+.

§05 / The pragmatic answer

Run us alongside, not instead.

Stack 01
Karven+Xero

For

Solo tradies, simple ops

Quote with Karven, invoice + book in Xero. Two cheap tools that each do one thing well. ~$80/mo total.

Stack 02Most common
Karven+Tradify

For

Tradies who want full back-office + sharp quoting

Karven for the customer-facing quote (the moment you win or lose the job). Tradify for everything that happens after the customer says yes.

Stack 03
Karven+ServiceM8

For

Mobile-heavy field service

ServiceM8 for the day-of dispatching and tracking. Karven for the price you give the customer at the door.

/ Decide

Try it for 60 seconds.
Then decide.

The live calculator is publicly available. No signup. Run a real quote, see if the maths matches yours, and judge from there.

Try the calcSee pricing