Fergus Alternative for Sole Traders (Australia)

Choosing a Fergus alternative comes down to how your week runs. Pick Fergus if a status board and self-matching supplier bills run it. Pick Yamate for the job, the money, the crew's pay and the safety paperwork on one flat price, solo or with a crew, and far less to learn.

Got an apprentice or a couple of hands? You're not too big for it, pay runs, payslips, super and licence dates are in here too, on the same flat price. Grown past that? The same app runs a crew, with a login each and what they see set by you.

Yamate vs Fergus at a glance

We're biased and we'll say so: we make Yamate. Every Fergus figure below is dated and linked to their own pricing page, and the table says where they beat us.

	Yamate	Fergus
Price	Yamate$19/mo flat	Fergus~A$53–$77/month, plus from $26/month per timesheet user, as at September 2026 (see pricing)
Pricing model	YamateFlat — one business	FergusTiered plans, plus a per-user timesheet add-on
Built for	YamateSolo tradies first — and crews, one price per business	FergusTrade businesses with staff & jobs to manage
Job workflow	YamateCalendar booking, crew logins, suppliers & purchase orders, stage billing. No status board	FergusFull job-management (Status Board, scheduling)
Texts to customers	YamateUnlimited, included (fair use)	FergusSMS charged ($15 for 100 texts), as at September 2026
Compliance / certs	YamateNSW CCEW sent to eCert from the job, on the phone on site; SWMS drafting, licence & insurance reminders, all included	FergusSends to eCert too, through its Certificates add-on at $30 for 1–9 staff, $80 for 10+/month, as at 19 October 2026 (see pricing), and only from Fergus web, not the Fergus Go phone app (Fergus help, 13 August 2026)
AU-native	YamateGST, ABN, PayID & bank details baked in	FergusAU/NZ made, GST-ready

When Fergus is the better choice

Two things it does that Yamate does not, and both matter once you run people:

The Status Board, and supplier bills that handle themselves. Fergus tracks every job on a board from enquiry to invoice, and it reads an incoming supplier bill and matches it to the job it belongs to. In Yamate you book jobs on a calendar and enter supplier bills as purchase orders yourself. Run a lot of supplier paper and that difference is hours a month.
Depth for a growing trade business. Plumbing, electrical and building outfits with staff or subbies get workflow depth and support to match. For a growing operation, that structure pays off, and it is worth the learning curve.

It also has a report that lists every certificate across your jobs in one place, handy when one person in the office owns compliance for a crew (Fergus's own guide to it). If a board and self-matching supplier bills are not how your week runs, that same depth is more platform than you'll use. That is the whole difference between the two apps.

Where Yamate wins for a sole trader

One price per business. $19/mo covers you and up to three people, so the cost does not climb just because the software is capable. A bigger crew moves to the 8-person plan at $59/mo for eight people, and bigger crews move up a size, from $99/mo for 12 people to $399/mo for 200 people.
Far less to learn. Yamate is quote → invoice → get paid → chase. No job board to set up, no workflow to configure, you're sending real quotes the same day.
Texts included. Auto-chasing and reminders are built in with no per-message charge, and your PayID or bank details sit on every invoice.
The NSW CCEW, sent from the job. Connected to Building Commission NSW's eCert API and included on every paid plan: tick the work and the tests, check it, send. No portal, no certificates add-on. Watch the real app do it.
Built solo-first. Simple enough to run alone, and the same app runs the crew with a login each when you grow.
Works with no signal. Quote in a basement, invoice in the driveway, core records are stored locally on the device, not fetched from a website you have to reach. Exactly what works offline.
$19/mo while you stay subscribed if you sign up before 30 November 2026 — the price rises after that. No lock-in, cancel anytime.

Simple to run does not mean shallow

The reason Yamate suits a solo tradie is the driving, not a short feature list. The screens stay simple. Underneath, the one flat price carries more of the business than you would guess,

The whole job. Quotes with deposits and validity dates, the customer accepts online, booking on a calendar, repeating jobs, and big jobs billed in stages with billed and to-go tracked on the job.
The money. Expenses with receipt photos, profit per job, GST and end-of-year summaries, and tax put aside as estimates while money lands. Old invoices photograph straight in, so your books do not start from zero.
The crew. A login each with what they see set by you, and pay runs with PAYG and super worked out, payslips included. Estimates, Yamate prepares and you lodge.
The safety paperwork. SWMS drafted from the job's own words for you to review and sign, licence and insurance expiry reminders, and your certificate of currency sent in a tap.
The phone. Missed-call text-back with your booking link, customer replies landing in the app, and AI that drafts the quote when you say the job out loud.

Every line above is on the feature list with its honest limits beside it. The depth we do not have is named in the Fergus section above, on purpose.

The honest summary: Fergus if the Status Board and self-matching supplier bills run your week; Yamate if you want the job, the money, the crew's pay and the safety paperwork handled on one flat price, from a phone.

Try Yamate free — $19/mo per business, three people included →

30 days free to try it properly — Fergus’s trial is 14 days. No card, cancel anytime.

Want the job before it is advertised? Homeowners post their problems in Who Do I Call? Australia, our free Facebook group. Answer one well and you are the tradie they ring. Join, help out, and put your business in front of the people asking.
Join the free group →

We ran both, same job, September 2026

Not off the brochure. Same made up business, same week of work in each, measured 22 to 24 September 2026. Fergus scored 50 on the standard ease of use scale against Yamate’s 77.5, where 68 is average. It had the deepest tradie features of any competitor we tested, supplier bills that match themselves to the job. The cost is learning it, sign up starts a 5 step course of about 30 minutes, booking is drag only on a calendar, its default deposit is 50% where the NSW cap is 10%, and its practice entries sit in amongst your real records. Every snag we hit in it is published on the scorecard page, with ours beside it.

FAQ

Is there a cheaper alternative to Fergus?

For a solo tradie, Yamate is $19/mo for the business — three people included, no per-seat fee at that size — covering quoting, invoicing, getting paid and auto-chasing. Fergus starts at around A$53–$77/month (as at September 2026), so for a one-person business Yamate is usually the cheaper option. Timesheet users are extra, from $26/month as at September 2026.

Does Yamate do job management like Fergus?

Mostly yes, these days. Yamate books jobs on a calendar, runs a crew with a login each, takes deposits, bills big jobs in stages and records suppliers and purchase orders. What it does not have is Fergus's Status Board view, or supplier bills that arrive and match themselves to the job. If those two run your week, Fergus is the better fit.

Does Yamate send NSW CCEWs to eCert?

Yes, from the job, on every paid plan. Your licence, the customer and the site are already in, you tick the work and the tests, check it, send. Building Commission NSW checks the licence and issues the certificate. Fergus sends to eCert too, inside its Certificates add-on and only from its web app, so the sparky on site waits for a laptop; in Yamate it is the phone in their hand. Rectification CCEWs go through the portal from either app, the regulator takes those nowhere else. How the send works.

What does Fergus charge for eCert?

The Fergus eCert cost is its Certificates add-on, $30 for 1–9 staff, $80 for 10+ a month on top of your plan, GST basis not stated, as at 19 October 2026 at fergus.com/au/pricing. The Fergus CCEW is sent from Fergus web only, not the Fergus Go phone app, and for new electrical work only (Fergus help, 13 August 2026). In Yamate the CCEW send is in every paid plan, no add-on, from the phone on site (the plans).

Can I switch from Fergus to Yamate?

Yes, and the export is three files from Fergus, checked against its own help pages:

In Fergus open Customers, the dropdown at the top right, export. Your customers as a CSV.
Reports, Customer Invoice Report, download. Invoice numbers, paid or owed, totals with tax.
Reports, WIP Report, download. Your open jobs.
In Yamate, Settings → Your data → Import data. Drop all the files in at once, check the tick-list, tap Add. Owed invoices stay owed and nothing you already have is changed.

Job notes, photos and attachments don't come across, Fergus doesn't export them in a form Yamate can use, and CCEWs already issued stay in your eCert portal account either way. Run both on a few real jobs for a week before you switch Fergus off. The Fergus export, step by step · Moving to Yamate.

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Sources and the fine print

Competitor details as of September 2026 — check fergus.com for current pricing and features, sourced from fergus.com/au/pricing. Fergus's page does not say whether its prices include GST. The Certificates add-on price is as at 19 October 2026, read there; that NSW eCert sits inside that add-on and runs on Fergus web only is from Fergus's help centre, Getting started with NSW eCert (13 August 2026) and What's changing with your NSW CCEW add-on (17 July 2026), both read 19 October 2026. General information only. Fergus is a trademark of its owner; Yamate is independent and not affiliated with or endorsed by Fergus. Pricing and features change — verify on their site.

A simpler, cheaper Fergus alternative