The job's done.
Getting paid shouldn't be the fight.

No. Those are built for bigger shops with dispatch boards, per-tech seats, and week-long onboarding. TradesBackbone is for a 1-5 person crew: customers, scheduling, estimates, invoicing, and automated follow-ups in one place, set up in about 15 minutes. It sits between a paper notebook and a $300/mo enterprise platform — not something you have to grow into.

No. The AI Brain comes with Pro and Elite — Starter doesn't include it, so nothing about jobs, estimates, or invoices depends on the AI at all. If you're on Pro or Elite, Settings → AI controls has one master switch that pauses every AI feature at once. Pausing doesn't change your bill: the Brain is part of the plan, metered by AI actions rather than billed separately.

Yes, when you use an AI feature — and here's exactly what. Our AI provider is Anthropic (the Claude models). When you ask the Brain a question, your question and the records it needs to answer — customers, jobs, estimates, invoices, your price book — are sent to Anthropic to produce the answer. If you switch the AI Front Desk on, a text one of your customers sends to your business number goes to Anthropic too, along with the recent thread and your hours, service area, and price book, so a reply can be drafted. Anthropic processes it to give you the result and does not use it to train its models. Nothing is sent while the AI is paused — Settings → AI controls has one switch that stops every AI feature at once. Full detail is in Section 15 of our Privacy Policy.

Only if you tell it to, and it ships switched off. The AI Front Desk is the one feature that can send a text on its own, it is off until you enable it, and its default setting holds every reply for your approval. You can move it up to auto-send if you want that — at which point it does reply to your customers without you seeing each message first, which is the point of an after-hours receptionist, but it's your choice and you can move it back any time. Everything else stays with you: the AI drafts follow-ups and estimate wording, you send them; automated follow-ups go out on the schedule you configure; estimate and invoice totals come from the line items you enter, never from the AI. Anything the AI would create or change — a job, a customer, a draft estimate or invoice, a booking — waits in your approvals queue until a person approves it. Every text carries a STOP opt-out.

It's the back office for a 1-5 person trades business: customer contacts, job scheduling, estimates, invoicing with card payments, automated customer follow-ups by text and email, and photo documentation. It sits between a paper notebook and an expensive enterprise field-service platform.

Yes — on your behalf and at your direction. You configure follow-ups (thank-you and review-request texts after a job, estimate follow-ups, overdue-invoice reminders) and TradesBackbone sends them by SMS via Twilio and email via Brevo. You are the sender, so you're responsible for having permission to contact each customer.

Because you're the sender, you must have the consent the law requires before texting a customer — including TCPA prior express consent where it applies. Every outbound text includes "Reply STOP to opt out," and once a customer opts out we automatically suppress further automated texts to them. Keeping your own consent records is part of using the tool responsibly.

Yes, review requests are a built-in follow-up. You're responsible for following each review platform's policies (Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc.) and FTC rules on reviews — no fake, incentivized, gated, or deceptive review tactics. The tool sends the ask; honest reviews are on you.

Card payments — both your monthly subscription and any invoices you collect from your own customers — are processed by Stripe. We never store full card numbers. Money your customers pay flows through Stripe under its terms; we're not a party to those transactions.

Photos you upload attach to the relevant job and are stored with our file-storage provider (Supabase Storage when configured, otherwise on the app's own server). They may show property and sometimes people, so make sure you have the right to capture and store them. We don't sell your photos or use them for advertising.

No. Estimates, invoices, totals, and tax-rate fields are calculations based on what you enter, provided for convenience. TradesBackbone is a software tool, not an accountant, attorney, or insurer. Verify your own figures, pricing, taxes, licensing, and compliance, and consult a qualified professional when it matters.

You do. You're the controller of your customers' information and we process it on your behalf to run the Service. We don't sell your data or your customers' data. If one of your customers asks us about their data, we route them back to you.

Start with a free trial; if you don't cancel before it ends, your plan converts to a recurring monthly subscription and your card is charged the plan fee. You can cancel anytime from settings — cancellation stops future charges at the end of the period you've paid for. Fees for the current period aren't refunded.

Yes, on plans that include multiple users. You invite team members and are responsible for their activity under your account. Role-based access keeps the right people on the right views.

We use encryption in transit, hashed passwords, access controls, and reputable infrastructure and payment providers. No system is perfectly secure, so keep your login confidential and be careful who you invite. Billing runs through Stripe, so card details never touch our servers.

You keep access through the end of your paid period. Export anything you want to keep before you leave. After your account closes we delete or anonymize your business data within a reasonable period, except records we're required to retain by law.