This calculator vs. Jobber
Two different shapes: Jobber is account-based field-service software for running a home-service business across clients, scheduling, and crews. This page is a free, private worksheet for one question — what should this French drain cost, given its depth, pipe, soil, and outlet, before you quote it.
What each tool is for
Jobber is field-service management software founded in 2011 and headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, used by home-service businesses across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, lawn care, and cleaning trades. It combines client management, quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and payment collection into one subscription system meant to run a whole business across every job and every crew, and it says it serves over 200,000 users. It is sold as an ongoing subscription account. Jobber's own pricing page is not reachable from this session to confirm today's exact plan names or dollar figures, so no price for it is invented here: only its well-documented identity and category — home-service field-service management software, sold as a subscription account — are stated, and no dollar amount for Jobber appears on this page.
This calculator does none of what Jobber does. It does not manage clients, schedule crews, send invoices, or collect payments, and it stores no customer or job record on a server. It takes trench depth, pipe size, soil type, daylight versus drywell versus storm tie-in, catch basins, downspout ties, a driveway crossing, and extra solid pipe, plus loaded wage, material rates, and target margin, and turns that into the walk-away price below which the job loses money, a breakdown of where the hours and cost actually go — including how much a deep clay run costs over a shallow dirt trench — and a copyable customer-facing bid summary, plus a printable customer proposal with scope lines and a signature block. It runs free in any browser, keeps no account, and uploads nothing you type.
| Question | Where to answer it |
|---|---|
| I run a drainage or excavation business and need client management, quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and payments in one system across every crew and every job. | Jobber, or a comparable field-service platform — running a whole business is not something this calculator does. |
| What should I charge for this French drain, given its depth, pipe, soil, and outlet? | This calculator — free, instant, private, no account. |
| How much does a deep clay trench, a drywell tie-in, or a driveway crossing actually add over a published per-foot special? | This calculator's depth, soil, outlet, and driveway line items, not a blended flat rate. |
| Is the price I'm about to quote still above my walk-away cost for this job? | This calculator's walk-away price check. |
| I need one shared account so my whole crew is scheduling, invoicing, and collecting payment the same way. | Jobber, or a comparable field-service platform. |
| How does the math behind a French-drain bid actually work? | This calculator's own pricing walkthrough. |
| Do I need to create an account or sign up to use the tool? | This calculator: no. Jobber is used through a subscription account. |
Most drainage and excavation shops get different value from each: Jobber (or a comparable field-service platform) for running client management, scheduling, invoicing, and payments across a whole business as an ongoing subscription, and a private calculator like this one for an instant, no-login answer to what one French drain should cost from its depth, soil, and outlet before a business system is involved. This page's own figures are a pricing model, not a scheduled job, an invoice, or a signed proposal, and neither this calculator nor Jobber is a hydrological study or a guarantee that a property will not take water in an extreme event.
This tool needs no account and no sign-in: it is a static page, the arithmetic runs in your browser, and once it has loaded it keeps working with the connection off.
Common questions
Should I use this calculator or Jobber?
They do different jobs, and a drainage or excavation shop of any size will likely end up touching both eventually. Jobber is field-service management software founded in 2011 and headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, used by home-service businesses across HVAC, plumbing, electrical, lawn care, and cleaning trades. It combines client management, quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and payment collection into one subscription system, and it says it serves over 200,000 users. It is sold as an ongoing subscription account. Jobber's own pricing page is not reachable from this session to confirm today's exact plan names or dollar figures, so no price for it is invented here: only its well-documented identity and category — home-service field-service management software, sold as a subscription account — are stated, and no dollar amount for Jobber appears on this page. This calculator does one narrower thing: starting from trench depth, pipe size, soil type, daylight versus drywell versus storm tie-in, catch basins, downspout ties, a driveway crossing, and extra solid pipe, plus loaded wage, material rates, and target margin, it turns that into the walk-away price and where the bid's hours are actually going, plus a printable customer proposal — before any of it touches a business-management system. It runs free in any browser, keeps no account, and uploads nothing you type. A drainage shop that already manages clients, scheduling, invoicing, and payments across every job and every crew is better served by Jobber or a comparable field-service platform; a shop that wants an instant, private answer to what one French drain should cost from its depth, soil, and outlet before opening a business system is in the right place here.
Is this page affiliated with Jobber?
No. This site is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Jobber. Jobber is a trademark of its owner, named here only to describe what this calculator is and is not.
Open the French Drain Bid Calculator to price your own job.