How should after-hours calls be priced?

A stated after-hours call-out fee plus a premium hourly rate, quoted on the phone before you drive. A restaurant with a failing walk-in at 11pm will agree to anything — the reason to quote up front is that they still feel fairly treated when the PM contract conversation happens next week.

Why do PM contracts matter so much in refrigeration?

Because they convert the least predictable revenue in the trade into a monthly line, and because a maintained system fails less at midnight. A tech with twenty PM accounts has a base income and a customer list that calls them first when something does break.

Should refrigerant be itemized?

Yes, by type and pounds, on every invoice. It's a real cost that moves with market prices, it matters for your own records, and a customer seeing 'R-448A, 6 lbs' understands the charge in a way that a lump labor number never allows.

How do I bill a restaurant versus a chain?

The independent restaurant pays by card on the spot, often gratefully, at 1am. The chain needs a work order number, a W-9, and net 30. Same repair, two completely different invoices — and trying to run both the same way is why techs chase money.

Commercial Refrigeration Service Invoicing App for a Solo Tech (2026)

How we picked

Entry-plan prices as published in 2026, taken from each vendor's own pricing page or a recent third-party summary. Judged on the one-truck contractor's real workflow — after-hours call billing, parts markup, refrigerant tracking on the invoice, and recurring PM contracts — not on multi-technician dispatch boards, warehouse inventory, or enterprise multi-site coordination.

Prices as published by each vendor, 2026. Entry-level plans shown.
Software	Starting price	Best for
ShowTheReceipts That's us	$15/mo	One-truck techs: after-hours rates, parts markup, PM contract billing, on-site invoicing
Invoice2go	$9.99/mo+	Basic mobile invoicing
Joist	Free / $8/mo	Cheapest estimate-and-invoice pair
Jobber	$29/mo (Core)	Small teams scheduling multiple techs
BuildOps	Enterprise pricing	Commercial contractors with dispatch, inventory, and multi-site accounts

The alley at 11pm is your best collection moment

An independent restaurant owner standing next to a walk-in you just brought back to life is about the most motivated payer you’ll find in any trade. Invoice from the truck, take the card, and drive home paid.

Email it tomorrow instead and you’ve turned a grateful customer into an accounts payable task.

1. ShowTheReceipts — $15/mo

Diagnostic, hourly, after-hours, and refrigerant lines saved; invoice built and paid on site; PM contracts billed monthly on repeat.

2. Invoice2go — $9.99/mo+

Basic mobile invoicing without recurring contracts.

3. Joist — Free / $8/mo

Cheap estimate-and-invoice pair.

4. Jobber — $29/mo (Core)

Scheduling for a small team with several techs.

5. BuildOps — enterprise pricing

Built for commercial contractors with dispatch, inventory, and multi-site accounts.

The lines a refrigeration invoice needs

Diagnostic — flat, credited against the repair
Labor — standard and after-hours rates, hours stated
Call-out fee — by time of day
Parts — at your price, with part numbers
Refrigerant — type and pounds, always
Equipment identified — make, model, serial, location in the building
PM contract — monthly, billed separately

PM contracts are the whole game

Emergency work is lucrative and completely unschedulable. Twenty PM accounts, on the other hand, is a base income, a route, and a list of people who call you first — which is worth more than the higher per-hour rate on emergencies you’d otherwise be competing for anyway.

Sell the contract while you’re still standing in the walk-in you just fixed.

Identify the unit on every invoice

Make, model, serial, and where it sits. A restaurant has six pieces of refrigeration and a manager who calls all of them “the cooler” — identifying the unit is what turns your invoices into a service history actually worth having.