Who owns your data in field service software: Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan terms, quoted

Do I own my data in Jobber, Housecall Pro or ServiceTitan?

Ownership in field service software is set by the terms of service, and the three best-known vendors word it very differently. We read each vendor's terms, privacy policy and help center on October 19, 2026, and quote them below. Terms change, so the date matters: check the current version before you rely on any of this, and treat it as general information about published documents, not legal advice about your contract.

Two questions get mixed together. The first is legal ownership: who holds the rights to the customer list, job history and invoices you typed in. The second is practical control: whether you can get a complete, usable copy out, in a format another system can read, before your login stops working. A vendor can say the data is yours and still leave you with a CSV of names and a pile of PDFs. A vendor can say nothing about ownership and still offer a decent export. Owners need both answers.

What do the terms actually say, vendor by vendor?

The GorillaDesk row is there for a reason that applies to every vendor. Its pricing page says its team will import your data from another system at no charge, and also that full past service and billing history cannot come in. That is an honest statement of a common limit: even a clean export may not fit the next system's import. Plan for history to live in an archive you keep, separate from whatever software you run next.

What happens to my data if I cancel Jobber?

Jobber's terms of service (last updated September 22, 2026) do not contain a clause that says you own the data you enter. What they do say, in plain terms:

• Backups are your job. Section 5.6: "You are responsible for ensuring that you maintain backups of your data at all times." The same section lets Jobber set limits on how long data is retained by the service.
• Jobber gets a wide license. Section 6.1 grants Jobber "a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, fully paid license" to user content, used to run the service, improve it with de-identified content, and build aggregated benchmarks. Section 7.1 calls the site and app Jobber's property except for user content, so the terms do separate your content from theirs.
• The account itself belongs to Jobber. Section 2.2 says being the Account Owner conveys no ownership rights in the account. That clause is about the account, not your records, but it is worth knowing when you read the rest.
• Deletion follows the privacy policy. Section 18 lets you request deletion of certain materials on termination, subject to the retention policy in the privacy policy.

The privacy policy (also dated September 22, 2026) gives no number of days. It says data is kept as long as necessary for the purpose or as the law requires, and that retention may extend past the end of your relationship with Jobber. For your own customers' personal information, Jobber describes itself as a service provider, or data processor, acting on the account owner's behalf, and says it will send those customers' privacy requests back to you. So your clients' privacy questions land on you either way.

The practical answer comes from the help center. Jobber's cancellation article says that once the billing period ends, you lose access to your clients, jobs, invoices and everything else in the account. Its close-account article goes further: closing is final, and nothing in a closed account can be recovered. Read together with section 5.6, the message is clear: the copy you keep is the copy you have. Our guide to cancelling Jobber lists what to download first.

Who owns my customer data in Housecall Pro?

Housecall Pro's terms of service (last modified July 1, 2026) are the most direct of the three. Under the heading Customer Data, they say individual customer data entered or imported by pros "shall remain the property of the Pro." Service pricing data gets the same treatment, with a reservation that Housecall Pro may anonymize and aggregate pricing data for its own business purposes.

Ownership comes with a license running the other way. You grant Housecall Pro and its affiliates and service providers the right to use, reproduce, modify, display and disclose that customer data as needed to provide the service or any third-party service, including connected apps. That is normal for software that sends texts and payment links on your behalf, but read it so you know where your list can travel.

The part that matters most when you leave is near the end of the terms: on termination, Housecall Pro "may retain your information, including Service Data, but we have no obligation to do so." Access is shut off inside two weeks of the request to cancel. The privacy policy (modified March 4, 2025) lists reasons it may keep personal information after an account is deactivated, including backup and archival, and states no period. Its data FAQ covers hosting and backups on Amazon Web Services and does not address export or retention.

So you own the data, and you have about two weeks after asking to cancel before the account is disabled. Export first. Our Housecall Pro cancellation guide covers the steps, including the phone number question.

Does ServiceTitan let you export your data?

ServiceTitan publishes an Open Data Pledge. It commits to "enable the seamless export of customer data to a CSV format" if or when a customer chooses to go elsewhere, and to recognize and respect customers' data rights. The page carries a Data Ownership heading but does not define those rights, say what the export includes beyond customer data, or say whether it costs anything. Its help center documents exporting customer lists to Excel or CSV from search results.

ServiceTitan's contracts are signed order forms rather than click-through plans, and its pricing page publishes no terms. The pledge is a useful public commitment to hold a vendor to. Put the export scope in your order form too: which record types, which format, how fast, and for how long after the term ends.

Can I export all my data from field service software?

Usually not in one click, and that is the gap the terms do not cover. Based on what each vendor documents, read October 2026:

• Client lists export everywhere we looked. Jobber's client export includes tags, property addresses, contact details and custom fields, splits files at 1,500 rows, is limited to admins, and is "available on select plans" without naming them.
• Jobs and invoices vary. Housecall Pro exports a jobs list as CSV. Jobber documents report exports as CSV and individual quotes, jobs and invoices as PDF downloads, one at a time.
• Photos, notes and attachments are not covered by any export article we read for Jobber or Housecall Pro, so we list them as not published.
• Saved cards never come out in a spreadsheet. Card data moves processor to processor under PCI rules, if at all; our switching guide explains how.
• APIs can pull more than the export screens, but access is gated. Housecall Pro's API is available only on the MAX plan.

Dedicated export guides for Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceTitan go screen by screen.

What should I ask before I sign?

1. Does the contract say I own the customer data? Ask for the clause, not a sales answer.
2. What can I export, per record type, on my plan? Clients, jobs, visits, quotes, invoices, payments, notes, photos, files and recurring schedules are separate answers.
3. In what format? CSV can be imported elsewhere. One PDF per invoice is an archive, not a migration.
4. How long do I have after cancelling? If the answer is not in writing, assume none.
5. What is kept after I leave, and can I ask for deletion? Your customers may ask you that question one day.

Then test it. Run every export in the first week of a trial and open the files. A five-minute test tells you more than any terms page.

What does owning the system look like?

The other model is software that runs in accounts you hold. We build custom CRMs where the database, hosting and code are set up in the client's name, as stated on our facts page, with no per-user fees from us. If you leave us, the database stays where it is and nothing needs exporting. That suits some companies and not others: a packaged product like Jobber or Housecall Pro is faster to start and gets updates you never pay to build. If you want to weigh it, our custom CRM page explains how it works, and we publish no price list because every quote is written for the scope.

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