7 best software for painting contractors [2026 Comparison]

The UK painting industry is entering a tough phase.

Revenue fell to around £3.5 billion in 2025, after several years of decline driven by inflation, weaker household spending, and fewer property transactions. Many homeowners are choosing the do-it-yourself route, while contractors are facing rising wage costs and tighter competition, especially in general painting work.

But even in these challenging conditions, it’s still possible to gain a competitive edge.

Contractors who focus on well-controlled pricing, consistent quality, and efficient day-to-day operations are better positioned to protect margins and win work.

Painting software can help achieve these goals by streamlining key tasks like estimating, scheduling, and job tracking.

If you’re considering investing in this valuable tool—or reassessing what you already use—this article breaks down the seven best software for painting contractors, covering platforms that range from simple invoicing solutions to full job management systems.

Key takeaways

• There is no single ‘best’ tool for everyone

The right software depends on what part of your business you want to improve. Some tools focus on pricing and billing, others on scheduling or automation, and a few aim to cover operations end to end. Defining your priorities first is the fastest way to narrow the field.

• Specialist tools shine when the scope is narrow

Software like InvoiceOwl and PaintScout performs very well when contractors need help with one specific area, such as estimating or invoicing. Their ease of use and pricing flexibility make them great as add-ons rather than full operational systems.

• Larger teams benefit most from broad automation

Platforms like ServiceTitan stand out for their depth and ability to coordinate multiple crews, roles, and workflows. This level of automation is best suited to larger painting businesses that can justify the setup effort and cost.

• Ease of use and flexibility matter more than feature count

Across all tools, those that score well tend to balance usability, customisation, and pricing that adapts to fluctuating workloads. Software that looks powerful on paper but is hard to use on site often delivers less real value.

• Onetrace offers the strongest all-round fit for painting contractors

With the highest overall score, Onetrace stands out by combining site-ready usability, flexible pricing, and strong customisation in a single platform. For painting contractors who want clearer control over jobs, crews, and records without unnecessary complexity, it provides a practical, balanced solution worth exploring through a guided demo.

Quick comparison of the 7 best software for painting contractors

1. Onetrace: Best for unified field operations

Onetrace is a construction operations platform built specifically for subcontractors working on live sites.

It’s used across a wide range of trades, supporting structured data capture, site reporting, and day-to-day operational control.

Painting contractors and subcontractors will find Onetrace particularly strong for unified field operations, thanks to its ability to replace fragmented site tools with a single, structured system. Designed by people with direct construction experience, it focuses on the essentials required to run work on site smoothly, rather than adding features that only get in the way.

Onetrace best features

Onetrace is built around two core products—Workforce and Traceability—that support painting teams through practical tools, such as:

• Job-specific digital forms: Capture survey details, prep notes, and inspections in a consistent format so nothing is missed before work starts.

• Reusable templates: Standardise how painting jobs are recorded across sites, helping crews follow the same process every time.

• Reliable billing data: Maintain accurate records of work completed and material usage, rates, and charges to support clearer invoicing.

• Visual scheduling: Plan work across days and sites, making it easier to move painters when priorities change.

• Crew coordination: See who’s on site and assigned to each job, helping supervisors balance workloads.

• Custom job statuses: Reflect real painting workflows by setting clear stages such as prep, first coat, snagging, and sign-off, making progress easy to track at a glance.

• Mobile access: Let painting operatives record work, time, and updates directly from the site, even offline.

• Photo records: Log before, during, and after images to prove quality and reduce disputes.

• Structured reporting: Generate professional reports for clients or main contractors, supporting faster sign-off.

• Client visibility: Give clients read-only access to project progress and documentation, reducing update calls and keeping expectations aligned.

Onetrace benefits

By focusing on bringing site activity and workforce management into a single system, Onetrace delivers practical benefits for painting contractors, such as:

• Clearer control across sites: Painting teams gain a single, reliable view of projects and people, making it easier to keep work organised as jobs scale or spread across locations.

• Stronger proof of work: Consistent records help demonstrate what’s been done, supporting smoother handovers, audits, and sign-offs.

• Improved profitability: Better visibility over progress and resources helps keep jobs on budget, protect margins, and support healthier cash flow.

• Faster adoption on site: A straightforward, intuitive approach means crews can get up and running quickly, without long training or resistance to new tools.

• Less wasted time and admin: With less duplication and manual work, teams spend less time managing information and more time delivering work.

Onetrace pricing

You can choose between Onetrace’s Traceability and Workforce products, or combine both for full site and team oversight. Pricing follows a flexible per-user monthly model, designed to adapt as painting workloads change.

 2. PaintScout: Best for painting-specific estimating and proposals

PaintScout is a specialised software platform built specifically to help painting contractors price work and present it clearly to customers.

It works particularly well for painting-specific estimating and proposals because it’s designed around how painting jobs are measured, scoped, and sold.

PaintScout features

PaintScout focuses on the front end of painting work, with tools like:

• Painting-focused estimating: Build estimates around surfaces, rooms, and finishes, helping price work consistently without manual calculations.

• Professional proposals: Present clear, structured proposals that explain scope and pricing in plain terms, reducing confusion at sign-off.

• Reusable job templates: Save common job types and pricing structures to speed up quoting and reduce errors on repeat work.

PaintScout pricing

PaintScout is offered on a monthly subscription basis, with core estimating functionality and an optional add-on available depending on how much business management support you need.

3. Jobber: Best for job lifecycle management

Jobber is a field service management platform designed to help contractors organise work from the first customer enquiry to the final payment. This makes it well-suited for the entire job lifecycle management: You get quoting, scheduling, job tracking, and invoicing in a single, continuous workflow.

Jobber features

Jobber ties together the main stages of a job, offering features like:

• Centralised customer records: Keep job history, notes, and communications in one place, so teams have the right context at every stage.

• Quote-to-job conversion: Turn approved quotes into scheduled jobs quickly, helping work move forward without re-entering details.

• Integrated invoicing and payments: Send invoices as soon as work is complete, and track payments clearly, supporting steadier cash flow.

Jobber pricing

Jobber uses a tiered subscription model, with plans that scale in functionality as you add more advanced scheduling, communication, and reporting tools.

4. ServiceTitan: Best for multi-team workflow automation

ServiceTitan is an enterprise-level service management platform used by high-volume contracting businesses with complex operational needs.

It connects dispatch, job execution, financials, and reporting into coordinated processes that scale across crews and locations, which makes it effective for automating workflows across multiple teams and sites.

ServiceTitan features

ServiceTitan centres on automating how work moves between teams, giving painting contractors structure and consistency through features like:

• Automated work order flows: Trigger next steps as jobs progress, helping teams move from scheduling to completion without manual handovers.

• Advanced dispatch and capacity planning: Coordinate multiple crews across sites while balancing workloads and response times.

• Operational reporting dashboards: Surface performance data across teams to spot delays, bottlenecks, and margin issues early.

ServiceTitan pricing

ServiceTitan uses a bespoke pricing model, with packages tailored to the size and complexity of the business and quoted directly based on operational needs.

5. Buildxact: Best for detailed material and labour cost estimation

Buildxact is a construction estimating and project management platform used by trade contractors to price work accurately and track costs as jobs progress.

It’s a strong fit for painting contractors who want detailed material and labour cost estimation, as it divides work into clear cost components, helping them understand where money is spent before a job starts.

Buildxact features

Buildxact gives painting contractors tools to plan work in detail and reduce pricing uncertainty. Some of its main features include:

• Itemised cost breakdowns: Build estimates that separate labour, materials, and overheads, helping protect margins on complex jobs.

• Takeoff-linked estimates: Connect quantities directly to pricing, so changes to scope are reflected quickly and accurately.

• Cost tracking over time: Monitor estimated versus actual costs to spot overruns early and adjust future pricing.

Buildxact pricing

Buildxact offers tiered monthly plans, with higher tiers unlocking more advanced estimating, tracking, and project controls.

6. Housecall Pro: Best for automated scheduling and customer notifications

Housecall Pro is a home service management platform designed to help contractors organise jobs and communicate with customers. It fits painting contractors who want customer communication to stay in sync with the schedule, even when jobs move or timings change.

Housecall Pro features

Housecall Pro focuses on the customer-facing side of job management, with tools that make booking, scheduling, and communication easier to manage day to day. These include:

• Automated appointment updates: Send confirmations, reminders, and arrival notifications to keep customers aligned without extra admin.

• Calendar-based scheduling: Organise painting jobs visually so changes to timing or crews are reflected instantly.

• Customer communication hub: Keep messages, job details, and updates in one place to avoid missed or duplicated communication.

Housecall Pro pricing

Housecall Pro is sold through tiered subscription plans, with pricing structured around the number of users and the level of scheduling, communication, and automation tools included.

7. InvoiceOwl: Best for estimate-to-invoice workflow automation

InvoiceOwl is a lightweight business tool built to help contractors create estimates, send invoices, and collect payments without running a full job management system.

It’s suitable for painting contractors who want to automate the step between pricing and getting paid, especially when they’re looking to supplement existing tools with faster, more reliable billing.

InvoiceOwl features

InvoiceOwl concentrates on the commercial side of painting work through tools like:

• Estimate-to-invoice handover: Carry approved pricing straight to invoicing, reducing manual input and billing delays.

• Online payment support: Make it easier for customers to pay promptly, improving cash flow with less manual work.

• Customer and job records: Keep pricing, invoices, and payment history organised in one place for quick reference.

InvoiceOwl pricing

InvoiceOwl is offered through low-cost subscription plans, making it an accessible option for painting contractors who want focused billing automation without committing to a broader operations platform.

How to choose the best software for painting contractors

When choosing software for your painting business, the first step is to define the scope of what you actually need.

Are you looking for an end-to-end system that manages work from site to office, or do you want to supplement your existing setup with a focused tool for estimating, scheduling, or invoicing?

Clarifying this upfront will save you time and stop you from paying for features you won’t use.

Once that’s defined, you can narrow your options by paying attention to a few important factors:

• Ease of use on site: Painters need to record progress, time, or issues quickly, often on a phone and under time pressure, so the software must be simple and intuitive.

• The level of customisation: Painting work varies widely by job type, surface, and site conditions, and your chosen tool should allow you to set up workflows that reflect real site conditions.

• Pricing that matches workload: Painting demand can fluctuate, so pricing should scale sensibly as teams and projects change, without locking you into unused licences.

What is the best software for painting contractors?

The table below compares the seven best software for painting contractors reviewed in this article to help you decide which platform fits your business needs and workflow priorities.

All ratings are relative to the scope of this analysis, meaning they measure how well each product performs in the specific context being evaluated, not in general.

Each score combines feature analysis, aggregated user feedback from major review platforms, and comparative AI-assisted evaluation to ensure internal consistency and eliminate outliers.

Ratings are synthesised from recurring performance patterns rather than raw averages, and minor decimal differences indicate subtle variations in relative strength within the same performance tier.

InvoiceOwl doesn’t score the highest overall, but its standout ease of use and pricing flexibility make it a strong option for painting contractors who only want to streamline estimating, invoicing, and payments.

At the other end of the spectrum, ServiceTitan stands out for its breadth of features, making it well-suited for larger painting businesses that need structured automation across dispatch, job execution, and reporting.

For contractors looking for a strong middle ground, Onetrace delivers the most balanced profile, with near-top scores across all key categories.

Getting started with Onetrace

Onetrace helps painting teams stay organised across jobs, keep everyone working from the same information, and reduce the day-to-day friction that slows work down on the site and in the office.

Request a guided tour of Onetrace to see how the platform can simplify the way you run your painting business.