Every tradie I've spoken to says the same thing: the software is supposed to save time, but it ends up eating it.
It starts innocently. You sign up for a quoting app. Then you need something for job tracking. Then your accountant tells you to get Xero. Then someone mentions HazardCo for H&S. Before you know it, you're paying for four or five different subscriptions, spending your Sunday evenings copying data between systems, and still losing invoices somewhere in the gap between them.
That's the problem Fastcrew exists to solve.
The Real Cost of Running a Tradie Business in NZ
Here's what a typical 3-person tradie team might be spending on software every month:
| Tool | What it does | Monthly cost |
|---|---|---|
| Tradify or Fergus | Job management, quoting | $89–$159 |
| Xero | Accounting | $55 |
| HazardCo | Health & Safety | $49 |
| CERTIFi | Compliance certificates | $30 |
| Stripe or payment gateway | Taking card payments | 1.7% + fees |
That's easily $230–$300 a month — before the hours you spend re-entering data between systems that don't talk to each other.
For a sole trader or two-person team, that's a real chunk of margin gone before you've turned a spanner.
Why the Existing Tools Fall Short
The established players — NextMinute, Fergus, Tradify — built their products for a market that was largely desktop-based, run by office staff, and happy to spend hundreds of dollars a month for features most small teams never use.
Their pricing models penalise growth. Add another person to the team and your bill jumps. Want the reporting features? Upgrade to the next tier. Need the API integration? That's the enterprise plan.
The interfaces reflect the same philosophy: dense, feature-heavy, designed to demonstrate value rather than to be used from the front seat of a van.
When you're a sparky who just finished a job and needs to fire off an invoice before driving to the next one, you don't want to navigate five screens and three menus. You want to tap, confirm, send.
What We're Building Instead
Fastcrew is built around a single idea: one platform that does the whole job, for a flat fee that doesn't punish you for growing.
The core workflow is simple: Quote → Job → Invoice → Payment. That's it. No optional modules. No feature tiers. No double entry.
Under the hood, it integrates directly with Xero so your invoices sync automatically — no copy-paste, no end-of-month reconciliation nightmare. It takes Stripe payments on-site, so you can get paid the moment the job's finished. And it has Health & Safety built in — not bolted on as a separate subscription.
The pricing is $20 per seat per month. One price. No surprises.
Built for Kiwi Tradies Specifically
This isn't a generic global product with "NZ mode" switched on. Fastcrew is built from the ground up for NZ requirements:
- GST is native — every quote and invoice handles it correctly by default
- ACC levies are understood and accounted for in financial reporting
- H&S obligations under the Health & Safety at Work Act 2015 are built into the workflow, not an afterthought
- Electrical and trade compliance certificates are stored and managed natively
The NZ tradie market is small enough that most software vendors don't bother building for it properly. We think that's exactly why there's an opportunity.
Where We're At
Fastcrew is currently in development. We're building it on the Frappe Framework with MariaDB at the core — proven, enterprise-grade technology that won't lose your data or crash when you're mid-invoice.
We're talking to tradies across Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch to make sure we build the right things in the right order. If you want early access, join the waitlist at fastcrew.nz — we'll be onboarding the first beta users soon.
The tools you use every day shouldn't cost the earth. We're building something that proves it doesn't have to.