What those products do well
Polished onboarding, payments, and generic job flows help new shops move fast. If your process is still forming, rent can be rational for a season.
Where rent starts to hurt
Per-tech seats scale with headcount, not margin. Your close-out checklist, quoting quirks, and route batching never quite fit — so staff run side systems anyway while you still pay.
Owned alternative pattern
A field twin + phone job cards on foundations you control. Keep commodity payments if needed. Own the dispatch method as IP. No forever tax on every tech for your craft.
How to switch without a big-bang
Mirror one crew on the new twin. Prove schedule accuracy and close-out quality. Then migrate. Simple first beats a cutover weekend that strands the shop.
Compare on the field twin — then talk about an owned alternative for your crews.