FieldEdge vs ServiceTitan

No public pricing — all three tiers (Select / Premier / Elite) say "Request Pricing." Community estimates put FieldEdge at roughly half of ServiceTitan's cost (~$175/tech/mo vs ST's ~$350/user cited in r/HVAC, 2023). Annual contract mandatory; downgrades not permitted mid-term. One documented case where promised 2.7% CC processing rate was charged at 3.4% from day one, and a promised $100/mo discount was quietly removed at month 10 (Software Advice, 2024). Pricing opacity is the single top community complaint.

No public pricing — all three tiers (Starter / Essentials / The Works) say "Request Pricing." Community evidence places the entry floor above $1,000/mo; an Oct 2025 solo electrician ($185k/year revenue) was quoted >$1k/mo by ST sales and told the product is "designed for companies with crews." Add-on products (Market Pro, Schedule Pro) carry separate multi-year contracts with undisclosed pricing changes — one G2 reviewer (May 2026) documented a bait-and-switch where the "first six months free" period was followed by a doubling of cost for the remainder. Two-year contracts not clearly disclosed during sales (G2, May 2026).

Consistently the most-cited failure point. Google Play Store: 1.8/5 from 279 reviews as of 2026-06-20. Recurring field complaints include: keyboard locking requiring app relaunch, work summary not attaching to invoices, sync failures between field and office, pricebook randomly disappearing for techs, app crashes requiring delete/reinstall, quotes lost without full signal, signatures not held offline. One Play Store reviewer (Oct 2024, 6 upvotes) switched to ServiceTitan specifically because of FE mobile unreliability. A 2025 Reddit HVAC tech confirmed techs must "regularly clear their cache and force a price book download."

Community opinion is mixed and version-dependent. An Oct 2025 Reddit thread (143 upvotes, 49 comments) documented widespread rejection of ST's "Field" app redesign — users described it as "functionally UNUSABLE," running at "33% speed compared to the normal app," and causing GPS/status sync bugs that blocked invoice completion. ST eventually rolled back the update under customer pressure. Older app version is described more positively by long-tenure users: one tech praised history-of-call visibility, masked caller ID, and field payment processing. The app's quality is perceived as office-optimized, not tech-optimized.

No free trial offered — multiple reviewers document being refused a trial demo. Mandatory paid onboarding required. Reported incidents: phone number porting failure lasting six months with $10/mo compensation offered (Software Advice, 2024); pricebook migration from ServiceTitan described as "super messed up" and still unresolved months later (r/HVAC, 2025); data held hostage on exit unless paid for (Software Advice, 2023); features promised by sales reps that did not exist at signing (Software Advice, 2024). Multiple Reddit users describe abandoning FieldEdge mid-onboarding and stopping payments.

Onboarding consistently painful at scale. One G2 reviewer (May 2026, 0/5) signed a 2-year contract without a demo, onboarding was never completed due to ST-side delays, and when they requested cancellation before going live, ST refused and threatened collections — complaints filed with Nevada AG, California AG, FTC, CFPB, and BBB. A separate G2 reviewer (May 2026) had thousands of customers lost and the entire database duplicated during import — ST acknowledged it was "the worst import in the company's history." One HVAC company (r/HVAC, Oct 2025) was still not live after 2+ months when their onboarding rep quit mid-process. Full pricebook upload took 6 months with manual customer transfer in one documented case.

Annual contract standard across all tiers; no downgrades permitted until contract end. Data export requires payment on exit — multiple reviewers describe this as undisclosed at signing. Clearent (same parent company as FieldEdge/Xplor) is the mandatory payments processor; switching processors requires leaving the platform. One Software Advice reviewer (2023, 11-50 employees) wrote: "when you leave the program, you lose all of YOUR information, unless you are willing to pay for it… Things that should be disclosed at the beginning."

Multi-year contracts (1–3 years) documented across community and G2 reviews; 2-year contract not disclosed during sales in at least one documented G2 case (May 2026). Add-on products carry separate contracts. G2 reviewer (May 2026, plumbing) confirms "sometimes it can be difficult to get out of a Pro product because of contracts." Companies describe staying due to sunk cost rather than satisfaction: one inventory manager (r/HVAC, June 2026) called it "years of training required to use properly… sunk cost fallacy is a powerful psychological motivator."

Covers core dispatching, flat-rate pricebook, service agreements, and QuickBooks sync adequately for HVAC/plumbing shops up to ~15 techs. Gaps documented at scale: no POS in the field, no field equipment ordering, no inventory tracking (Warehouse Inventory Management add-on requires QuickBooks Desktop Enterprise — a legacy dependency), limited KPI reporting. Software Advice reviewer (3-4 man shop) moved to a different platform specifically for "more KPI tracking." A 5-tech HVAC company active on Reddit in early 2025 described ongoing unresolved issues with pricebook sync and cloud reliability.

Full FSM stack confirmed at 5–40+ tech scale: scheduling, pricebook, estimates, job costing, time tracking, payroll integration, inventory, QuickBooks integration, online booking, call recording, and marketing attribution all present. One long-tenure user (since 2016, r/HVAC, 2023) confirms using ST for phones, inventory, scheduling, estimates, financing, and website online scheduling in a single platform. The depth is recognized industry-wide as the category standard — the community shorthand is "ST is the gold standard." Trade-offs: steep learning curve, features often require dedicated admin staff, and the platform's complexity is a recruitment liability (one HVAC job listing used "No ServiceTitan" as a hiring incentive).

Community evidence consistently places the FE ceiling at 10–15 techs. Below that, it handles core HVAC/plumbing workflows with acceptable friction. Above it, the mobile reliability issues, sync failures, and limited reporting create operational drag that the cost savings do not offset. One Software Advice reviewer who chose FieldEdge over ServiceTitan "strictly for cost" called it a "Big mistake." Multiple Reddit threads end with the same conclusion: "going ServiceTitan now."

ST's floor is effectively 5+ techs with dedicated office staff; its ceiling is 40–80+ techs (80-tech HVAC companies confirmed in community threads). Below 5 techs, ST's cost structure, onboarding complexity, and feature surface area are universally described as overkill. ST sales reps have directly confirmed the product is "designed for companies with crews," not solo or small operators. Above 5 techs with volume, it is the most-recommended FSM in the community despite cost and onboarding friction.