State of Field Service Software 2026
What the U.S. field service market looks like in official data — and what running it on software actually costs. Built from U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP) (2023) and the published pricing of 11 leading platforms.
Key findings
Every number below is reproducible from the cited public sources.
The U.S. field service trades analyzed comprise 325,443 businesses employing 3,150,647 people with $214.7B in combined annual payroll (Census CBP 2023, 2,664 counties).
Field service remains a small-business industry: the average firm employs 6.8 people in landscaping, 8.7 in pest control, 11 in plumbing/HVAC, and 12.2 in electrical.
Labor is the dominant cost: payroll per employee runs $73,771 in plumbing/HVAC and $76,558 in electrical — versus $53,769 in pest control and $51,319 in landscaping.
Counting solo owner-operators, the market is far bigger than employer data suggests: 871,065 nonemployer businesses (Census NES 2023) operate alongside the 325,443 employer firms — 72.8% of the 1,196,508 field service businesses in America have no employees at all.
Field service wages are rising fast (BLS QCEW 2024): average weekly wages reached $1,598 in electrical (+6.5% YoY) and $1,506 in plumbing/HVAC (+5.4% YoY).
5 of 11 leading field service software platforms (45%) do not publish pricing at all.
Where pricing is published, per-user plans start at $49–$65 per user per month (median $49).
A median software seat ($588/year) costs 0.8% of one plumbing/HVAC employee's average payroll and 0.77% of an electrical employee's — software is under 1% of the cost of the person using it.
HVAC has no off-season in NV, OK, MS, AL, SC and five other states, where NOAA degree-day data (2021–2025) shows even the weaker season exceeds 1,599 degree days a year.
1. The market: big, fragmented, and local
Across the four categories analyzed, U.S. Census County Business Patterns counts 325,443 establishments. None of these categories is consolidated: the largest average firm size is 12.2 employees (electrical), and landscaping averages just 6.8. This is the structural reason field service software is sold per technician seat — and why a pricing decision that looks small per user compounds quickly for a 10-person shop.
| Category (NAICS) | Businesses | Employees | Annual payroll | Avg firm size | Payroll / employee | Avg weekly wage (QCEW 2024) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing / HVAC (mechanical) (238220) | 110,542 | 1,210,941 | $89.3B | 11 | $73,771 | $1,506 (+5.4%) |
| Electrical (238210) | 82,499 | 1,008,581 | $77.2B | 12.2 | $76,558 | $1,598 (+6.5%) |
| Pest control (561710) | 15,217 | 132,090 | $7.1B | 8.7 | $53,769 | $1,101 (+4.8%) |
| Landscaping (561730) | 117,185 | 799,035 | $41.0B | 6.8 | $51,319 | $969 (+4.4%) |
State-level rankings for every category are published in the Field Service Market Index, with the full dataset available as CSV.
2. The hidden half: most field service businesses have no employees
Employer surveys miss the largest group of field service operators. Census Nonemployer Statistics (2023) counts 871,065 solo businesses across these four categories — 72.8% of all field service businesses — generating $42.7B in annual receipts.
| Category | Employer firms (CBP) | Solo businesses (NES) | Share with no employees | Avg solo receipts / year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Plumbing / HVAC (mechanical) | 110,542 | 178,663 | 61.8% | $78,389 |
| Electrical | 82,499 | 159,693 | 65.9% | $57,485 |
| Pest control | 15,217 | 16,137 | 51.5% | $53,739 |
| Landscaping | 117,185 | 516,572 | 81.5% | $36,041 |
The software implication: the majority of the addressable market is a one-person business with $36,041–$78,389 in annual receipts. Entry pricing — and whether a price is published at all — decides whether these operators adopt software or stay on paper and group chats.
3. The pricing problem: nearly half the market won't tell you the price
We reviewed the publicly listed pricing of 11 leading field service platforms. 5 (45%) publish no pricing at all — a buyer must book a sales call to learn what the product costs. Platforms that do publish pricing cluster between $49 and $65 per user per month at entry level, with flat-rate plans from $29 to $165 per month.
The vendor-by-vendor breakdown lives in the Pricing Transparency Index, updated with each edition of this report.
4. The ROI math: software costs less than 1% of the person using it
Combining the datasets produces the single most useful number for a contractor weighing a software decision. Census payroll per employee is $73,771 in plumbing/HVAC and $76,558 in electrical — and BLS QCEW shows wages still climbing 5.4% to 6.5% a year. A median published software seat is $49/user/month — $588 a year.
That puts the cost of a software seat at 0.8% of an average plumbing/HVAC employee's payroll and 0.77% of an electrical employee's. If dispatch and scheduling software recovers even 15 minutes of billable time per technician per week, it pays for itself several times over.
5. Climate workload: where HVAC never gets an off-season
Pairing NOAA statewide degree-day averages (2021–2025) with the contractor base reveals which markets run year-round. The ranking below uses the weaker season's degree days: a state where even the lighter season tops 1,500 degree days keeps mechanical crews — and their dispatch boards — busy all twelve months.
| # | State | Cooling degree days | Heating degree days | Weaker season | Plumbing/HVAC firms | Avg weekly wage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | NV | 2,384 | 3,334 | 2,384 | 906 | $1,518 |
| 2 | OK | 2,129 | 3,247 | 2,129 | 1,571 | $1,213 |
| 3 | MS | 2,435 | 2,086 | 2,086 | 684 | $1,192 |
| 4 | AL | 2,070 | 2,384 | 2,070 | 1,636 | $1,311 |
| 5 | SC | 1,959 | 2,351 | 1,959 | 1,681 | $1,296 |
| 6 | AR | 1,931 | 3,091 | 1,931 | 1,118 | $1,166 |
| 7 | AZ | 3,263 | 1,864 | 1,864 | 2,566 | $1,556 |
| 8 | GA | 1,809 | 2,496 | 1,809 | 3,068 | $1,424 |
| 9 | KS | 1,601 | 4,535 | 1,601 | 985 | $1,495 |
| 10 | TX | 3,200 | 1,599 | 1,599 | 8,909 | $1,443 |
The pure-cooling extremes remain FL, AZ, TX, LA, MS; the heating extremes are ND, MT, MN, WY, VT. For software buyers the year-round list matters most: continuous demand is where scheduling, dispatch, and membership-agreement features earn their keep every month of the year.
Methodology, sources, and limitations
Sources
Market data: U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns (CBP), vintage 2023, aggregated from county × NAICS extracts covering 2,664 counties in 51 states and DC.
Wage data: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), annual averages, private ownership, 2023 and 2024. QCEW reports on the current NAICS vintage: 23822 (plumbing/HVAC) and 23821 (electrical) correspond to CBP 2017-vintage 238220/238210. Wages cover all employees of private establishments.
Solo-operator data: U.S. Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics (NES), 2023. Nonemployer businesses have no paid employees and are excluded from County Business Patterns. Receipts are reported in $1,000s. All legal forms of organization.
Climate data: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, nClimDiv statewide degree days (population-unweighted, area-averaged). Annual averages over 2021-2025. Cooling and heating degree days (base 65F) approximate seasonal HVAC workload; both high together indicates year-round demand.
Pricing data: Vendor pricing reflects publicly listed entry prices as published on vendor sites and shown on AmpleExpress vendor pages at snapshot time. 'Quote' means no public price list.
Limitations
Totals are sums over the covered counties; counties suppressed or absent in the source extract are not included. NAICS 238220 combines plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors into a single category. Pest control (NAICS 561710) coverage is partial relative to the other categories.
Totals are therefore conservative relative to full national figures. Payroll per employee includes all employees of contractor establishments (field and office), not only technicians.
How to cite
Ample Express, State of Field Service Software 2026, https://ampleexpress.com/reports/state-of-field-service-software-2026. Data: U.S. Census Bureau County Business Patterns (2023) and Nonemployer Statistics (2023); BLS QCEW (2023, 2024); NOAA nClimDiv degree days (2021–2025); published vendor pricing. Licensed CC BY 4.0 — free to republish charts, tables, and figures with attribution and a link.
Questions, corrections, or data requests: contact the Ample Express team.