Quick answer: there is no published Simpro price rise, because Simpro no longer publishes pricing at all. What has tradies talking is what customers report at renewal: multi-year lock-in contracts with compounding annual increases, described in reviews as CPI plus 5% or worse. Meanwhile Simpro Group has launched its new Lightning platform with an official “Price Lock Guarantee” of CPI plus 3%. Before you sign anything, check the term, the increase clause, the minimum users and the exit terms. All four are covered below.
What is actually happening with Simpro’s pricing?
Two things, and it pays to keep them separate.
First, Simpro’s pricing went dark. The company does not list prices on its website; you request a quote and negotiate privately. Independent reviews such as Field Service Guide’s 2026 Simpro review confirm the quote-only model and note that annual contracts are standard. When pricing is private, every renewal is a negotiation you enter blind, because you cannot compare your quote against a public rate card.
Second, customers have started describing their renewal offers in public reviews. On Capterra’s Simpro reviews, users report being offered lock-in contracts of 3 or 5 years at an expected 8% per annum increase, described as CPI plus 5%, tied to a minimum user quantity. The alternative, as those reviewers describe it, was a 12% “subject to change” annual increase without the lock-in. One reviewer made the obvious point: if they raised their own charge-out rates 8% to 12% every year for five years, they would have no customers left.
To be clear about what those numbers are: they are what tradies report in reviews, not official Simpro figures. Simpro has not published them, and your quote may differ. But the pattern across recent reviews is consistent enough that if you have a Simpro renewal coming up, you should walk in expecting a conversation about term length and annual escalation, not just a flat renewal.
There is also a bigger backdrop. In May 2026 Simpro Group announced Lightning, an AI platform spanning Simpro, AroFlo and BigChange, with a “Price Lock Guarantee” that, in Simpro’s words, caps annual increases at CPI plus 3% for the life of the agreement. Coverage of the follow-up RAIN release quotes the same cap, with Simpro’s CEO contrasting it against AI software vendors raising prices by up to 50% a year. The launch announcement positioned the upgrade as an uplift on existing contracts. Read together, the incentive structure is plain: the older platform’s renewals are getting harder to predict, and the new platform is being sold partly on price certainty. That is a migration push, and it means your renewal conversation is also a Lightning conversation whether you raise it or not.
What does a lock-in with compounding increases actually cost?
Here is an illustration, not a quote. It uses the 8% figure tradies report in reviews, applied to a made-up $2,000 per month Simpro bill over a 5-year lock-in, with the increase applied at each anniversary.
| Year | Monthly at 8% p.a. | Annual cost |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $2,000 | $24,000 |
| 2 | $2,160 | $25,920 |
| 3 | $2,333 | $27,994 |
| 4 | $2,519 | $30,233 |
| 5 | $2,721 | $32,652 |
Total over the term: about $140,800, versus $120,000 if the price stayed flat. That is roughly $20,800 in increases you agreed to on day one, and by year five you are paying 36% more per month than when you signed. Run the same table at the reported 12% and the five-year total is about $152,500, with the final year 57% above the starting price.
The point is not that these exact numbers will appear on your quote. The point is that a percentage clause inside a multi-year term compounds, and the headline monthly price you negotiate is the cheapest month you will ever have. Price the whole term, not month one.
What should you check before signing any renewal?
Whether it is Simpro, Lightning or anything else, get the contract in front of you and check four things.
Term length. A 3 or 5 year lock-in is a bet that the software, your team size and the vendor’s roadmap all still suit you in year five. If a longer term is the price of a lower increase, ask what leaving early actually costs.
The increase clause. Get the mechanism in writing: which inflation index, measured when, plus what percentage, and whether it is a cap or an “expected” figure. An expectation is not a ceiling. Simpro’s Lightning Price Lock is stated as a contractual cap; make sure any renewal you sign says the same.
Minimum users. Reviewers specifically call out minimum user quantities. If you commit to 15 licences and drop to 10 on the tools next winter, you pay for 15. Match the minimum to your realistic low season, not your best month.
Exit terms. What notice do you have to give, what does early termination cost, and how do you get your data out? Ask for the export format in writing before you sign, not when you are leaving.
What are the alternatives?
If the renewal terms do not suit you, the AU job management market still has options with published, contract-light pricing. We compared the two most common ones in detail in ServiceM8 vs Tradify.
| Pricing model | Published pricing | Contract | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ServiceM8 | Per job, unlimited users | Yes | Month to month | iPhone and iPad first; deep forms and automation |
| Tradify | Per user, unlimited jobs | Yes | Month to month | Full apps on iOS, Android and web; simpler setup |
| Fergus | Per user, tiered | Yes | Monthly, no lock-in | Popular with plumbers and sparkies in AU and NZ |
| AroFlo | Quoted | Partly | Varies | Owned by Simpro Group since November 2021, so not an exit from the same owner |
None of these matches Simpro’s depth on large project work, and if you run multiple crews on big commercial jobs, Simpro or Lightning may still be the right tool at the negotiated price. But if you are a service and maintenance business paying enterprise money for features you do not use, the maths above is worth an afternoon.
For transparency: Web Blend is a ServiceM8 partner. We build automations and integrations on top of it, including a ServiceM8 Google Drive integration that files every job’s photos and documents into folders you own. We have a commercial interest in that ecosystem, which is why the table above links every vendor’s own pricing page instead of asking you to take our word for it.
The bigger lesson: own what you can own
A renewal notice with a percentage clause in it is a reminder of who holds the leverage. You cannot own your job management software, and switching costs are real, so vendors price accordingly. What you can own is where the work comes from: your website, your Google presence, your reviews, your customer list. A tradie whose leads arrive through assets they control can change software, or absorb a price rise, without the business wobbling. A tradie renting both their leads and their software is negotiating everything from the weak side of the table. We break that down properly in buying leads versus generating your own.
Sign the renewal or switch tools on the merits. Either way, make this the year the leads themselves belong to you.