9 Best Sera Alternatives for Field Service Businesses

Sera is a relatively new field service management software (FSM) primarily serving HVAC, plumbing, and electrical businesses in the residential service and repair sector. 

Its platform — built around a smart scheduling and dispatching system — has grown to include a wide range of features for service businesses, including a customer portal, quote builder, membership tools, and more. 

Yet it’s possible that Sera is not the best software solution for your business. For example, if you serve commercial customers or want to grow a commercial business division, Sera may not be well suited to support you as it is a residential-focused software. 

Furthermore, outside of its smart scheduling and dispatching system, certain important workflows and features may be less robust compared to other platforms, and therefore may not provide the business-wide efficiency gains you’re looking for in an FSM.

To review some alternatives, we’ve compiled a list of Sera competitors, starting with our platform, ServiceTitan, so you can find the software that’s best for your business needs.

Top Sera Alternatives & Competitors

1. ServiceTitan

2. Jobber

3. Service Fusion

4. FieldEdge

5. Kickserv

6. Housecall Pro

7. ServiceTrade

8. Successware®

9. Smart Service

1. ServiceTitan

Both Sera and ServiceTitan offer a wide set of features for trade service companies to run their businesses. This includes essential SaaS features such as: 

• Scheduling

• Dispatching and technician routing

• Customer experience and relationship management (CRM with customer notifications, customer payment portal, etc.)

• Technician mobile app

• QuickBooks integration

• Time tracking and workforce management

• Flat rate pricing

• And more

However, there are two high-level differences between ServiceTitan and Sera that you should keep in mind:

1. ServiceTitan has robust features to support both residential and commercial service work (in addition to construction).

For example, in 2022 alone, our platform introduced 105 new commercial-focused features and improvements, including client-specific rate sheets, office estimates, project tracking, job costing reports, purchase orders, service agreements, inventory management, and more. If you have a commercial service division or intend to grow one, ServiceTitan would be a better fit for your business than Sera. 

2. With ServiceTitan, customers get a partner, not just a product.

We provide significant tools and resources for you to successfully run your business, including:

• Titan Exchange: A cloud-based ecosystem for sharing assets such as contracts, templates, checklists, and other valuable information.

• ServiceTitan Community: A users-only message board where ideas for our software and business in general are shared. 

• Free Peer-Group Training: A program run by ServiceTitan employees through Ember and Spark sessions, designed to share best practices.

• Certified Admin Program: Our Certified Administrator program provides a structured approach to increasing knowledge of ServiceTitan, as well as constant and continuing education on the software.

Many ServiceTitan users find these resources invaluable for getting the most out of our platform (as they have remarked), as well as staying up to date with best practices and strategies that are working for other companies. This is another area where ServiceTitan can deliver far more value to service businesses than Sera.

In the rest of this section, we’ll highlight a few of the more nuanced ways that ServiceTitan competes with or differs from Sera at the feature level.

Adjustable Capacity Planning for Maximizing Profitability

Scheduling is a feature that’s offered by nearly every FSM on the market. However, ServiceTitan has a unique functionality called Adjustable Capacity Planning that allows service contractors to define, automate, and implement a capacity planning strategy, which optimizes their schedules for profitability.

For example, they may increase the capacity for maintenance agreement visits during slow seasons, or decrease the capacity for maintenance visits during busy seasons, reserving more tech availability for emergency service and repair, system replacements, etc.

This can have an immense impact on profitability, and this feature isn’t currently available with Sera. 

Map Routing Optimization for Maximum Dispatching Efficiency

ServiceTitan’s Map 2.0 gives you the geographical context you need to optimize technician routes, decrease drive time, and increase profitability. It allows you to view multi-day route maps and pinpoint where you can be more effective in dispatching technicians.

You can choose your view of the map by filtering for specific zones or business units. You can also filter by Priority Level, Technicians, Technician Skill Level, and Tag.

With Map 2.0 open in one tab or screen, and the ServiceTitan dispatch board open in another, dispatchers are empowered to organize technician routes for optimal efficiency.

Currently, this feature is not available in Sera.

Built-In Pricebook System with Direct Connection to Industry Supplier Catalogs

To ensure that contractors are pricing their work for profitability, ServiceTitan’s flat-rate pricing app enables contractors and their employees to easily edit prices and specs on multiple pricebook items simultaneously. 

Specifically, our built-in pricebook features include:

• Individual and bulk item editing: The ability to edit any pricebook item or service as needed, any time, with just a few clicks. Or, make edits and markups to groups of services, packages, equipment, and/or materials. With a few clicks, changes can even be applied across an entire pricebook. 

• Dynamic pricing automation: The ability to set up rules to auto-update pricing according to customized parameters, such as when certain overhead costs change (e.g. labor rates, materials, etc.).

• Integration with industry supplier catalogs: With Pricebook Connect, you’ll have direct, cloud-based access to equipment and material costs from top industry-supplier catalogs, with automated updates of item descriptions, product images, and pricing as manufacturers make changes.

• Pricebook Pro: Our add-on option to further streamline pricebook management with ServiceTitan’s done-for-you flat rate pricebook.

Combined, this suite of features makes pricebook management seamless, reduces the time your team needs to spend on manual spreadsheet updates, and ensures that your prices reflect evolving costs — all while protecting your profit margins.

Furthermore, as soon as any updates in your pricebook are made, they’re reflected in real-time on any new quotes that are created in ServiceTitan, whether from the office or the field. 

Estimate & Proposal Tools Designed to Increase Average Ticket Prices

Leveraging our field service mobile app, techs can build estimates and proposals from scratch by selecting items from your pricebook, or leverage and customize estimate templates for common recurring services. 

The ability to provide extensive product details and high-quality images supplies techs with everything they need to explain services, packages, and products to customers — whether they’re selling a system replacement or performing a simple repair job.    

After a customer has made their selection, techs can then create work orders, offer financing, generate invoices, collect payments, and more.

On average, shops that use ServiceTitan for field management see a significant boost in sales numbers that fuel business growth. For example:

• +15% increase in revenue

• +7% increase in closing rate

• +10% increase in call booking

• +18% increase in leads

Streamlined Membership & Maintenance Agreement Management

We offer a deep suite of features that help to sell, coordinate, and maintain memberships and maintenance agreements. This includes:

• Easily creating memberships: A three-step membership wizard allows you to create new maintenance memberships and equipment-based contracts with just a few taps via our mobile app.

• Tailoring membership agreements: The ability to customize memberships with additional monthly charges, opt-ins for extra maintenance tasks, membership upgrades for additional services, and more.

• Tracking membership performance: An easy-to-read performance summary of each agreement, showing revenue, costs, the number of completed visits planned and unplanned, and more.

• Prioritizing memberships for profitability: The ability to see (and prioritize) visits that involve older equipment and possible replacements and lets technicians review open estimates, equipment service histories, and notes to find new sales opportunities at a location.

Inventory Management: Workflows for Inventory Tracking, Replenishment, Purchase Orders, and More

ServiceTitan is one of the only FSM platforms that has true purchasing and inventory management capabilities. We help contractors employ automation that helps them track warehouse counts, ensure trucks are always stocked, and generate purchase orders automatically when materials are running low. 

Appointed staff can use a suite of tools to optimize inventory and purchase order management, including:

• Inventory Overview: See big-picture numbers, such as total inventory valuation and total number of items, or drill down into individual inventory items for further detail.

• Replenishment: Easily track equipment and materials in your trucks and warehouse with automatic updates that reflect the number of items needed for replenishment in a given location.

• Purchase Orders: Users can initiate the requisition of equipment and materials for jobs right from within the estimate screen. They can then create and send purchase orders to the appropriate vendors, and track those orders through fulfillment. Inventory data automatically updates to reflect all POs.

• And more: This feature set also includes workflows for managing adjustments, returns, warranty parts tracking, and more. 

In addition, with the introduction of our Inventory App, customers can leverage barcode scanning to automate these processes even more. 

Management and Insights: Customizable Dashboards and Automated Report Delivery

Without a comprehensive and up-to-date picture of their company’s KPIs — including metrics such as call booking rates, revenue, conversion rates, and membership sales — it’s very difficult for business owners and managers to keep their shop running efficiently and profitably.

With ServiceTitan’s dashboards and reports, contractors get a real-time view of their most important KPIs. Each module draws from real-time data as jobs are completed in the field, so contractors can always see their most up-to-date numbers. 

Users can leverage our pre-built dashboard templates, or format customized dashboards, to track the metrics that are most important to them. For example, if you want to figure out which marketing platforms have been most cost-effective, you can create a dashboard to track that. 

Users can also drill down into the underlying reports for more granular detail, such as viewing job costing data at the job level. To stay on top of their numbers, business owners can schedule reports to be automatically sent to their inbox at a set frequency. 

ServiceTitan: Greater Capabilities While Maintaining Ease of Use

The features we’ve discussed throughout this section are just some of the examples of areas where ServiceTitan offers deeper capabilities for service businesses than Sera. There are more examples that we’ve discussed in other posts, such as our head-to-head comparison with Sera. 

To see why our software is trusted by 100,000+ service professionals, schedule a call to get a free, live, one-on-one walk-through of how our user-friendly platform can help you grow revenue, work smarter, and keep your business operations on track.

2. Jobber

Jobber is a field service scheduling software that also offers a wide range of other features for field service business management. It offers functionality for estimating, quotes, scheduling, invoicing, and more.

However, when compared to Jobber, ServiceTitan offers:

• More robust, native pricebook functionality

• In-app access to top industry supplier equipment catalogs

• Extensive marketing functionality that reduces the need for third-party marketing hires

• More flexibility and customizability for membership plans and recurring services

• Offline functionality for our mobile app that allows techs to work seamlessly (even when they’re out of cell service zones)

• Deeper reporting capabilities that allow business owners to drill down into the sources of their data

3. Service Fusion

Service Fusion describes itself as an “All-In-One Field Service Management Software.” It offers a wide range of features, including estimates, customer management, scheduling and dispatching, and more. 

However, when compared to Service Fusion, ServiceTitan offers the following as a part of our base product (while Service Fusion charges extra for many of these features):

• Robust membership billing capabilities (bulk membership billing, and automated monthly or annual billing options)

• Scheduled report automation

• Call booking automation for easier job booking and better customer experiences

• Property data to spot sales opportunities and drive revenue

4. FieldEdge

FieldEdge offers a wide range of features, including functionality for quotes and invoicing, scheduling and dispatching, service agreements, and more. 

However, when compared to FieldEdge, ServiceTitan offers:

• For residential service businesses:

  • Integration with Google Local Services Ads

  • Seamless access to membership information during call booking

  • Adjustable capacity planning to optimize schedules for maximum profitability

  • Real-time technician tracking

  • Greater customizability and drill down capabilities for reports

• For commercial service businesses:

  • Ability to create customer-specific pricing

  • Built-in customer portal with base subscription

  • A suite of project management and project tracking tools for longer-term projects

  • Dynamic form capabilities that ensure staff follow best practices and improve data quality

  • Native equipment tracking and inventory management

5. Kickserv

Kickserv is another field service management software offering a variety of tools for large and small businesses. Like other FSM software, it provides a mobile app as well as desktop features for job management, scheduling, managing your workforce, and more. 

However, when compared to Kickserv, ServiceTitan offers:

• Mobile app with customer convenience features with stable offline functionality

• Customizable forms and pricing tools in the field

• Two-way SMS texting for customer inquiries and scheduling changes

• Pre-appointment GPS Tech Tracking for accurate arrival times

• End-to-End presentation mode: A visual pricing tool and estimate builder with good, better, best options

• And more

6. Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro is a mobile field service management software solution for home service businesses. Similar to ServiceTitan, it offers a wide range of features outside of invoicing, such as scheduling and dispatching, estimates, QuickBooks integration, and more. 

However, when compared to Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan offers:

• Greater native pricebook functionality

• Ability to drill down further into reporting metrics (and trust your numbers)

• Automated tagging features that help increase revenue

• Gated work sequences and customizable forms to facilitate accountability across the organization

• Offline functionality that allows techs to use our mobile app when out of cell service zones

7. ServiceTrade

ServiceTrade is a field service software specializing in supporting commercial service businesses. Like other FSM software, it offers tools for scheduling and dispatching, a mobile app for field technicians, analytics for business management, and a variety of other tools for running operations. 

However, when compared to ServiceTrade, ServiceTitan offers:

• Robust features for residential service businesses whereas ServiceTrade is primarily commercial-focused (i.e. we’re more suitable for hybrid shops)

• Greater capabilities to drill down into reporting data

• A more streamlined call booking process with additional features such as access to property data

• Deeper pricebook functionality that’s natively built into our software

8. Successware®

Successware® is a business management solution for the trade industry, serving HVAC, electrical, plumbing, and other trade businesses. Its platform offers features such as call booking and CRM, dispatching and scheduling, a mobile app, and other tools for running a service business. 

However, when compared to Successware®, ServiceTitan offers:

• Integrations with top accounting software used by service businesses such as QuickBooks and Intacct

• Clean, reliable, easily accessible data through practical and customizable reports (e.g. employee performance scorecards, service agreement reports, call conversion reports, etc.)

• Robust customer experience features such as technician GPS tracking, technician bios, and SMS text updates that can be automated or managed through the dispatch board

• Marketing ROI reports that show which campaigns, geographic areas, and incoming calls are generating the most revenues

• A customer support team focused on building businesses — not just answering software questions

9. Smart Service

Smart Service describes itself as a field service scheduling software for QuickBooks. Like other FSMs, its functions include scheduling and dispatch, electronic work orders, invoicing, and time tracking, while also integrating with QuickBooks.