Card processing fees in field service software: Jobber, Housecall Pro and bringing your own processor

We read every rate on this page on the vendor's own site on October 19, 2026. Card fees are per transaction, so they grow with your revenue, not your headcount. For a busy company they are often the largest software-related cost of the year, and they are the line that rarely makes it into "best software" comparisons.

What are Jobber Payments fees?

Jobber's pricing page lists these rates for Jobber Payments:

Jobber publishes a complete, simple rate card, which makes budgeting easy. Housecall Pro publishes a floor ("as low as") rather than a full schedule, so the rate you actually pay may depend on your volume or card mix. Ask for the full schedule in writing during the trial.

What are Housecall Pro credit card fees?

The Housecall Pro pricing page says "Card processing rates as low as 2.59%" and "A 1% fee is applied to bank payments." Its own article on payment processing, posted October 9, 2026, says the standard ACH rate is 1% and that Instapay, its faster deposit option, adds a 1% fee, with deposits typically arriving "in under 30 minutes."

Housecall Pro's terms of service, dated July 1, 2026, add three details worth knowing before you turn payments on:

• "We currently use Stripe as our payment processor," and using Housecall Pro Payments means agreeing to Stripe's services agreement.
• "There is a non-refundable $25 fee for each Chargeback regardless of the outcome of the dispute."
• "We reserve the right to change our Payment Processing Fees at any time in our sole discretion."

Do I have to use Jobber Payments?

No. Jobber's help article on payment integrations says Jobber can be set up with Square, Authorize.net, PayPal Express or Stripe instead. Two limits apply: "Only one payment integration can be connected to Jobber at a time," and "Payment integrations are supported on select plans" (for accounts in the United States, Canada and Australia).

The trade-off is features. The same article lists what Jobber Payments offers that the outside integrations do not, including:

• Saving cards on file for you and your clients, and charging them as needed or on a recurring schedule.
• Paying quote deposits with a saved card.
• Refunds processed inside Jobber, plus transaction reports and payouts.
• A card reader for on-site payments at a lower card-present rate, and a tipping option.

So you can bring your own processor, but recurring service companies that autopay weekly or monthly customers will find the built-in option hard to avoid. For a lawn, pool or cleaning route that bills dozens of saved cards every week, that is the decision that matters most. Our guide to card on file and autopay covers the customer-consent side.

Do I have to use Housecall Pro's payment processing?

Housecall Pro's terms describe its payments as an option: "You may have the option, at our discretion, of taking advantage of our payment processing offering," subject to its approval of your eligibility. The part of the terms we read did not say whether, or how, you can connect a different processor for invoices inside Housecall Pro, and the pricing page does not list outside processor integrations. If keeping your existing processor matters to you, ask Housecall Pro directly during the trial and get the answer in writing.

Which processors do other field service tools use?

From pricing pages read October 19, 2026:

• GorillaDesk integrates with Stripe and Square. Its page says Stripe supports subscription billing and Square works with its hardware for card swipes in the field. The page does not list processing rates.
• Service Fusion names "Service Fusion Payments powered by PaySimple." The page did not list rates.
• Kickserv offers "Kickback", a 5% discount on monthly fees for customers who process at least $1,000 (Start), $2,000 (Run) or $3,000 (Scale) a month in online payments. Its processing rates were not listed on the page.

When the software lets you connect Stripe or Square, those companies publish their own rates. Stripe lists 2.9% + 30¢ for domestic cards online, 2.7% + 5¢ in person on its Terminal readers, 0.8% for ACH Direct Debit with a $5.00 cap, and 1.5% for Instant Payouts (50¢ minimum). Square's Free plan lists 2.6% + 15¢ in person, 3.3% + 30¢ for online payments and invoices, 3.5% + 15¢ for keyed and card-on-file payments, and 1% (with a $1 minimum) for ACH bank transfers on invoices.

What do card fees cost a field service business in a year?

Here is our arithmetic for a company that takes $150,000 a year in payments, as 600 payments averaging $250. These are the published rates applied as listed, with no negotiated discounts.

Derived from the Jobber, Housecall Pro, Stripe and Square pages cited above, read October 2026. Compare that with the subscription: five users on Jobber Connect run $1,788 a year ($149 a month) at the regular annual rate. Card fees on this example are two to three times the software bill. Our cost by crew size guide has the subscription side for 1 to 15 users.

The biggest lever is the payment method, not the vendor. If half of that $150,000 moved to ACH on Jobber, fees would fall from $4,530 to about $3,015. Larger invoices, such as installs and commercial work, are where asking for a bank payment saves the most. Our guide to online payments for contractors covers how to offer it without slowing collections, and taking card payments in the field covers readers and tap to pay.

Why does it matter whose processor holds the saved cards?

Saved cards are stored by the payment processor, not by the software, as tokens that only work inside that processor's account. If you use a built-in processor and later leave the software, your customers' saved cards generally stay behind with the account that collected them. Whether those tokens can move to a new processor is up to the processor that holds them, and we found no published process for it on the Jobber or Housecall Pro pages we read. Ask before you sign, and plan on re-collecting cards from autopay customers if the answer is no.

This is the part of payments that decides how locked in you are. A customer list can be exported in an afternoon; 300 autopay customers re-entering their card numbers takes weeks of follow-up. It is worth reading our data ownership guide alongside this page.

When we build a custom CRM, payments run through the client's own Stripe account, so the saved cards sit in an account the client controls whatever happens to the software around it. There are no per-user fees from us. That is one of several reasons owners with heavy autopay volume look at a CRM they own. For a small company taking occasional card payments, the built-in processor in Jobber or Housecall Pro is simpler, and the convenience is real.

What to ask any vendor about payments

1. What is the full rate schedule for keyed, online, card-present, card-on-file and ACH payments?
2. Is there a per-transaction fee on top of the percentage, and a chargeback fee?
3. Can I connect my own processor, and which features stop working if I do?
4. If I leave, can my saved card tokens be migrated to another processor?
5. How much notice do you give before changing processing fees?

Card networks and some states restrict surcharging, so if you plan to pass fees to customers, check the network rules and your state's law first. This page is general information, not legal or financial advice.

Frequently asked questions