If you run an exterior cleaning outfit, you already know the awkward truth about software for window cleaning, gutter and pressure washing businesses: half your jobs are simple enough to price on the spot, and the other half need you to look at the house first. A 15-window colonial is a fixed number. A two-story stucco home with algae on the north wall, a 900 sq ft deck and gutters full of pine needles is not.
Most field-service tools assume every booking starts with a phone call and an estimate, so the easy jobs cost you the same admin time as the hard ones. This article compares Jobber, Housecall Pro and ProTyz on the things that actually matter for this trade, and ends with a plain recommendation of who should pick what.
What an exterior cleaning business needs from its software
Strip away the feature lists and the job comes down to five things.
Instant pricing for standard work. Interior and exterior window cleaning by pane count, house washing by square-foot tier, driveway and sidewalk pressure washing by area. These should be bookable online without you touching the phone.
A quote path for the rest. Full-exterior soft wash, roof cleaning, commercial storefronts, anything with a ladder above two stories. You want to see photos or visit before committing to a price.
Repeat-work reminders. Gutters fill up every fall. Windows get cleaned every spring and again before the holidays. Pressure washing is an annual or every-other-year job. Your best revenue is the client you already served twelve months ago, and someone has to remember to call them.
Crew scheduling and routes. Even a two-person operation wastes an hour a day crossing town if jobs are booked in the wrong order.
Proof of work. Before and after photos protect you from "you missed a window" disputes and double as your best marketing.
How ProTyz handles it
We built ProTyz as a free CRM plus booking website for local service businesses, and Window, Gutter & Pressure Washing is one of the ten launched service lines. Here is how the pieces map to the trade.
Instant-book for standard jobs
When you set up your services, they come pre-filled from a catalogue you edit. Window cleaning can be priced by quantity (number of windows or panes, with a separate rate for interior and exterior). House washing and driveway cleaning can use square-foot tiers, so a customer picks "1,500 to 2,500 sq ft" rather than typing an exact number. Extras such as screen cleaning, track detailing, hard-water spot treatment or gutter guard rinse are checkboxes with their own price.
The customer picks the service, answers the priced inputs, chooses a frequency (a quarterly window plan gets the discount you set on the frequency ladder), applies a coupon if they have one, and enters a ZIP code so the service-area check runs. They see a live itemised quote, then only the time slots that are genuinely free on your calendar. Confirmation goes out by email on the Free plan and by SMS on Pro. No phone call, no callback, no lost lead at 9 p.m.
Quote-first for big exteriors
Any service can be flagged quote-first instead. For a full soft wash or a roof treatment, the customer submits a quote request with details and photos. It lands in your Quote Requests tab, you build a line-item quote (base, add-ons, minimum price, tax, deposit if you take one), and the customer accepts it through a link. The accepted quote becomes a booking with the price snapshotted, so nobody argues about the number later.
Annual gutter clean: the classic Top Opportunity
Top Opportunities is the feature we would point to first for this trade. A rule engine watches your client list and flags people who are due: the homeowner whose gutter clean was about a year ago, the quarterly window client who skipped a quarter, the pressure washing customer who has gone quiet. Each one shows up as a card on your Overview and in the full Opportunities tab with an editable draft message. You press send (email on Free, SMS on Pro). Every Monday you get a digest of who is due that week.
It never messages anyone automatically. You know which clients want a nudge and which ones would rather you did not.
Routes, team and photos on jobs
Team members are unlimited on every plan, with qualifications per service line (so the new hire who is not ladder-certified does not get assigned to second-story gutter work). Routes builds a day route for each crew from the booked jobs. On the mobile PWA at /mobile, your crew sees their job list, checks in with GPS inside a geofence, attaches before and after photos to the job, and marks it complete. Time entries flow into Payroll.
What it costs
Free is $0 forever: booking site on yourbusiness.protyz.com, unlimited bookings, clients and team, quotes, invoicing, inbox, calendar, routes, payroll, analytics, email reminders and Top Opportunities with email reach-out. Invoices go out by email with a link to a read-only invoice page, and you can send reminders and record payments as they arrive. Pro is $10 a month flat and adds SMS (1-hour reminders, CONFIRM/CANCEL by text, SMS reach-out), one custom domain and QuickBooks Online sync. There are no per-user fees and no contracts.
What Jobber and Housecall Pro do well
We would be doing you a disservice if we pretended the incumbents are not strong products.
Jobber has years of polish in the field-service loop: estimate, schedule, invoice, get paid. Its invoicing and accounts-receivable features are mature, it syncs with QuickBooks, it takes card payments in the app, and it has phone support. Its mobile apps are native and well tested. If you invoice net-30 commercial accounts, Jobber's AR tooling matters. As of mid-2026, Jobber's Core plan is $39 a month for one user, Connect is $119 and Grow is $199; team plans run $169 for five users on Connect and $349 for ten on Grow, with extra users at $29 a month. Check the vendor's pricing page, as this changes.
Housecall Pro is similar in scope with a strong consumer-facing booking widget, built-in card payments, QuickBooks sync and phone support. Its online booking supports fixed-price services, which suits standard window counts. As of mid-2026, Basic is $79 a month for one user, Essentials is $189 for up to five users and MAX is $329, with extra users at $35 a month. Add-ons push the total higher. Again, check the vendor's pricing page.
Where both fall short for this trade is the same place: the price per seat. A four-person crew on Jobber Connect is $169 a month before add-ons; on Housecall Pro Essentials it is $189. That is $2,000 to $2,300 a year for software, which is real money for a business whose average ticket might be $250. Neither has a re-engagement rule engine that surfaces "gutter clean due" on its own; you build that with tags and manual follow-ups.
Comparison table
| Jobber | Housecall Pro | ProTyz | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (mid-2026, 1 user) | $39–$199/mo | $79–$329/mo | $0, or $10/mo Pro |
| Price for a 4-person crew | $169+/mo (Connect team) | $189/mo (Essentials) | $0, or $10/mo Pro |
| Per-user fees | Yes ($29/extra user) | Yes ($35/extra user) | Never |
| Instant online booking with priced inputs | Basic | Yes | Yes (quantity, sq-ft tiers, extras, frequency ladder) |
| Quote-first services with accept-by-link | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Seasonal re-engagement engine | Manual | Manual | Top Opportunities (built in) |
| Before/after photos on jobs | Yes (native app) | Yes (native app) | Yes (mobile PWA) |
| Route optimisation | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Invoicing and AR | Strong | Strong | Invoicing yes (free); lighter AR |
| Card payments to customers | Yes | Yes | Not yet (deposits recorded, card capture deferred) |
| QuickBooks sync | Yes | Yes | Yes (Pro) |
| Phone support | Yes | Yes | In-app tickets |
| Second service line under one login | Extra setup | Extra setup | Included, unlimited |
| Own your client list, no marketplace commission | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Who should pick what
Pick Jobber if commercial accounts are a big part of your book and you need net terms, AR aging, statements and phone support. It is the most complete back office of the three.
Pick Housecall Pro if you want the same back-office depth with a slightly more consumer-flavoured booking experience and are comfortable with the price per seat. Its card payment flow is a genuine convenience if you collect on site.
Pick ProTyz if you are an owner-operator or a crew of two to ten, most of your revenue is residential, you want standard jobs to book themselves online at a real price, and you want the annual gutter and window reminders handled without building a tagging system. The absence of per-user fees means adding a summer helper costs nothing, and if you also do holiday lights, soft washing or a second trade, it lives under the same login as another service line.
The honest caveat: invoicing is free and QuickBooks sync is on Pro, but we do not have card capture yet, and our accounts-receivable side is thinner than Jobber's, with no net terms or AR aging. If you bill commercial accounts and chase payments, that gap matters. If you take payment by whatever method you already use and mainly need bookings, reminders and a crew schedule, it does not.
FAQ
Can customers book window cleaning online at a fixed price without a site visit? Yes. You price by number of windows or panes, add extras like screens and tracks, and the customer sees an itemised quote and real availability before they confirm.
How do I handle jobs that need an in-person estimate? Mark those services as quote-first. The customer submits a request with photos, you send a line-item quote, and they accept through a link, which creates the booking.
Does ProTyz automatically email old clients about gutter cleaning? No. Top Opportunities flags clients who are due and drafts a message, but you press send every time. Nothing goes out without you.
Is there a per-user charge for adding crew members? No. Team members are unlimited on both the Free and Pro plans. Pro is a flat $10 a month for SMS and a custom domain.
Can I run pressure washing and another trade in the same account? Yes. Service lines are unlimited, with one client list and one team across all of them, and a conflict check so a crew member cannot be double-booked between lines.
---
Start free at protyz.com — no card, about 15 minutes to a live booking page. See the window, gutter and pressure washing lander or click around the sample site.