Electrical scheduling software is a calendar until the second truck, and then it is a board. With one truck the owner knows where the day is. With two, the question of which electrician goes where is asked several times a day, complicated by who holds which licence and who has the lift on the van, and a calendar that does not know those things is a calendar the office has to talk around all morning. The board is the point at which the office stops being a phone relay.
The board is per electrician, with the licence on it
A crew schedule has to know who is a licensed journeyman, who is an apprentice who cannot go alone, and who has the equipment for the job. Software that stores those against the person and warns when a job lands on the wrong board prevents the reshuffle and the failed inspection, and it is the feature that separates electrical scheduling software from a shared calendar.
Drive time and windows are the day's arithmetic
Jobs near each other on the same truck, time windows the customer was promised, and the drive between them are what the board optimises. Software that shows the day on a map beside the list makes the wasted hour visible before it is driven.
The change reaches the phone, not the office
Moving a job between two electricians should be a drag on the board that lands on both phones at once, with the customer told the new window from the same screen. That is what removes the mid-morning call every small shop knows.
What scheduling costs inside a plan
From the vendors' own pricing pages on the day they were read: Tradify's Lite plan is $47 USD per user per month, with Pro at $51 and Plus at $61; Jobber's Core plan is $49 a month including one user, with additional users at $29 a month each; Housecall Pro's Basic plan is $59 a month billed annually, or $79 billed monthly. Multiply the per-user line by everyone who needs a login, because that is what a plan actually costs a shop.
Questions people ask about electrical scheduling software
Is scheduling software the same as dispatch software?
Scheduling is the board; dispatch adds live truck positions and the emergency call. A two-truck shop needs the board; a service shop with several trucks needs dispatch.
Can the free tools schedule?
No. The free tools produce the documents; the schedule is a record shared between the office and the phones, which is the paid product.
When is a calendar enough?
With one truck. The second truck is when the questions start, and the board is worth its subscription from the first missed window it prevents.