Built for a Business of One
Estimate the job, track the hours and photos, send the invoice, get paid: one iPhone app, one person, one flat price. No crew tools to ignore, no seats to manage for a dispatcher who isn't there. Just the parts of running a job that a business of one deals with every day.
The Four Options
Everything Out There Answers the Wrong Question
Search "app for solo contractors" and the results fall into four buckets. None of them are built for one person running the whole job alone. The pattern repeats across every listicle, every FSM blog post, and every general invoicing tool wearing a solopreneur label.
A paper pad or a spreadsheet
Free and familiar, until it isn't. A spreadsheet tracks whatever you remember to type into it. It won't time a job, hold a photo, or turn itself into an invoice. Contractors trading spreadsheet templates on trade forums admit it only works well if you're willing to become your own software developer to maintain it, customizing formulas on a Sunday night instead of running the business.
A bloated field-service platform
Jobber Core starts at $49/mo month-to-month, then adds $29/mo for a second user you don't have, plus separate add-ons for an AI receptionist, a marketing suite, and a sales pipeline. You end up funding a dispatcher, a crew schedule, and seats that sit empty forever, built for the business you might have someday instead of the one you're running now.
A duct-taped stack of free tools
An invoice app for the paperwork, a separate timer app, a notes app for the job, a camera roll for the before-and-afters. Nothing shares a record, so you're the one stitching four apps together every time you sit down to bill someone. You end up retyping the same client name and job details into each one.
Werkly
One app, one job record holding the estimate, the hours, the photos, and the invoice, at one flat price built for exactly one person, with nothing extra to configure for a crew you don't have. It's less software, on purpose, because less is what a business of one needs.
A Day in the Life
What a Solo Operator Needs
Fewer apps between the moment the work happens and the moment you get paid: that's worth more than another feature list.
Nobody searching for this app has time to learn new software. They have four minutes between jobs, or they're standing on a client's porch with the truck idling at the curb. The app has to fit into those minutes, however short they are.
That's the argument no competitor page makes, because none of them look at a real day. A general invoicing tool doesn't know what a job site looks like at 10:30 in the morning. A field-service platform assumes someone else is watching the schedule while you work.
Werkly is built around the real shape of a solo operator's day: short, interrupted, spent with a phone in one hand and a tool in the other instead of a desk.
One Phone, One Day
- 7:00 AM: A glance at the jobs list from the truck before the first stop: what's today, what's already done, who's up next, and whether anything got added overnight.
- 10:30 AM: Two minutes between jobs: snap a photo, start the timer, jot a quick note about what the client wants changed. Back in the truck before the next stop even knows you were there.
- 2:15 PM: Job's done. Invoice it right there on the doorstep, before the truck pulls away and the moment to ask for payment passes. Three days later, working from memory, is too late.
- 9:00 PM: Kitchen-table admin, if there's any left. Most of it already happened during the day, inside the job, instead of in a separate app you'd have to remember to open later.
The Workflow
Estimate. Track. Invoice. Get Paid.
Four stages, one job record. The client info, the hours you tracked, and the photos you shot all stay attached to the same job the whole way through. Nothing lives in a separate app you have to dig through and cross-reference when it's time to bill someone.
- Estimate: build it from the job, send it as a PDF, and mark it accepted once the client says yes. Tax, discounts, and deposit notes all work the same way on Estimates & Invoices.
- Track: the job holds its own notes, hours, and photos while the work happens. The one-tap timer logs the hours on Time Tracking; before, during, and after shots stay attached to the job on Photo Documentation; the job itself (active, completed, or archived) lives on Job Tracking.
- Invoice: tracked hours become an editable Labor line item automatically, tax and any discount apply correctly, and the invoice numbers itself, so you never have to keep track. More on Estimates & Invoices.
- Get Paid: however the client pays you (cash, check, Zelle, Venmo), record it against the invoice and watch the real balance drop to zero. Werkly doesn't process the payment itself; it just tracks it accurately.
That's the whole loop, and it's the same loop whether the job is a two-hour repair or a three-week remodel that drags into a second month. Nothing about it changes as the job gets bigger. There's no module to unlock and no upgraded plan required just to keep using the parts you already rely on, and Werkly never nudges you toward a feature built for a crew instead of for you.
Getting Started
Start With Your Next Job
There's no setup weekend. Nothing to import and nothing to configure before the app is useful. Download it, and the next job you get called out for becomes the first job in Werkly.
Your old work can stay right where it is. The notebook in the truck is still your archive for everything before today. Werkly picks up at your next call.
The free plan is five jobs a month, no card, no countdown, so you're trying it on real work instead of racing a trial clock. Outgrow it and Pro is one flat price with every cap off. The pricing page has the full breakdown.
Weighing Werkly against something specific? Those comparisons are written the same way, gaps included: Werkly vs Joist, Werkly vs Jobber, and a wider look at Jobber alternatives for solo contractors.
Solo Contractor App FAQ
The honest answers, including what Werkly doesn't do yet.
What's the best app for a solo contractor?
One that treats the job (not the client, not a calendar) as the single record holding your hours, photos, estimate, and invoice, so nothing needs re-typing between four different apps. Werkly is built exactly that way: one app, one flat price, no team tools to configure. Online payments and e-signature aren't in it yet, so if collecting a card inside the app is the deciding factor, that's worth knowing up front.
Is Werkly built for solo contractors, or teams too?
Solo, by design, not as a starter tier you're meant to outgrow. One account for one person's business, with no crew view or dispatch board to configure. If you need to manage a crew, Werkly isn't trying to be that tool; a platform built around scheduling a team is the better fit.
How much does Werkly cost?
Free forever: 5 jobs a month, 5 photos per job, 1 invoice per job, no credit card required to start and none required to keep using it. Pro is $12.99/mo (or $129.99/yr, a bit under $11/mo) and removes those caps, adds more photos per job, and adds your own branding to invoices. One price, no per-user fee, and no separate add-ons to buy on top of it.
How is this different from Jobber?
Jobber Core starts at $49/mo month-to-month before you add a second user at $29/mo, an AI receptionist at $29/mo, a marketing suite at $79/mo, or the Pipeline add-on at $49/mo. All of it is pricing built around a crew with a dispatcher, whether you have one or not. Werkly is one flat price, $12.99/mo, for one person: no dispatch board to set up, because there's no crew to dispatch. Weighing Joist instead of Jobber? Same kind of gap: Joist is invoice-first with no time tracking behind it, while Werkly's estimate and invoice come from the same job record where your hours and photos already live.
Does Werkly work for my trade?
Any one-person service trade billed job by job (handyman, painting, small remodeling, cleaning, junk removal, and similar work) fits the model well, since each of those is naturally a discrete job with a start and an end. If your trade leans on recurring scheduled visits, like weekly lawn care or a standing cleaning contract, each job in Werkly today is a one-off you close out by hand. Recurring jobs and a calendar view are on the roadmap, just not live yet.
What doesn't Werkly do yet?
Werkly is built to nail the middle of the job loop: track the work, bill it, and get paid, all from one job record. A few things aren't live yet but are planned: online card payments, e-signature or a hosted client approval link, QuickBooks sync and exports, and scheduling or a calendar for recurring jobs. None of it has a date yet, so tell us if one of those would get you to download sooner. The one thing that's by design rather than a gap is crew accounts: Werkly is built for one login, one person, and a paid helper on a job doesn't change that.
Does Werkly work with no signal on the job site?
Your saved jobs, hours, notes, and photos are viewable with no signal, so you can still check what a job needs while you're standing in a basement with no bars. Starting or stopping the timer, adding a new time entry, or creating an invoice or estimate needs a live connection. You'll see a plain offline message and need to try again once you're back in range; nothing happens automatically in the background yet. Full offline support isn't built yet, but it's on the roadmap.
What if my business grows and I need to hire help?
Not automatically. A hand you pay for a day or a big job changes nothing: Werkly stays your login and your job record, and you account for what you paid them. The point you outgrow Werkly is when the help needs the app itself, their own hours, their own assignments, a schedule to run. That's crew territory, a tool like Jobber is built for it, and we'd rather say that now than have you find out after you've hired.
More of Werkly
Estimates & Invoices
Estimates and invoices built from the job, with tax, discounts, and a real balance tracked to paid.
Time Tracking
One-tap timer, editable entries, and hours that land on the invoice automatically.
Job Tracking
One record per job: client, notes, photos, hours, and billing, plus a badge showing where each job stands.
Werkly by trade
Handyman
Price the punch list fairly, invoice before you're back in the truck, and get paid, all from one job.
Painting
Quote by room or the gallon, track the hours and the color the client picked, and invoice with the finished room right on the bill.
Drywall
Price it by the foot, the board, or the sheet, hold hang, tape, coat, and sand on one job, and invoice with the before-the-mud photo.
