What's the actual monthly cost for a 5-person shop?

$86/month. The math: $29 base covers the first two seats, then three more seats at $19 each is $57. Total: $86. Every feature is included — dispatch, calendar, AMC, invoicing, reports, offline sync, everything.

Do I really need a real dispatch board with only 5 techs?

You need it the day you can't hold everyone's schedule in your head. That happens around 3–4 techs for most shops. The drag-and-drop board is the difference between a smooth Monday and a Monday you're on the phone with three techs at once. Push notifications fire to the tech's phone the moment their assignment changes — no phone tag.

How does the PM contract wave scale to 5 techs?

The AMC module auto-generates visits at the right time of year. Come March, spring AC tunes populate the calendar as unassigned visits. The office assigns them onto techs in one pass — drag, drop, done. You nudge individual customers if they prefer Tuesday afternoons. You don't spend two evenings hand-creating 200 tune-ups from scratch.

What happens when I hire my first office manager?

Add them as an 'office' role. Owner-level access covers the shop's finances and settings; office covers day-to-day dispatch, customer records, and invoicing; tech is the phone-side field view. Each role sees what makes sense for their job. The office view is shaped like the job — dispatch board, calendar, customer list — so a new office hire picks it up without a training program.

Can we grow into more techs on the same account?

Yes. Add a seat at $19/month when you hire, subtract when someone leaves. The feature tree is the same at 5, 10, or 25 techs. You do not migrate off TradeVan because you grew.

5-technician shops

HVAC software for the shop with five techs.

Team coordination is no longer casual at five techs. TradeVan gives you drag-and-drop dispatch with live push to every phone, an AMC wave that schedules itself, and roles for owner / office / tech — for $86/month total.

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Where the five-tech shop starts to hurt

At three techs you can hold the day in your head. At five, you can't. Somebody's on a warranty callback that overran. Somebody else is on a call that turned out to be a bigger install than expected. The 2 PM tune-up for Mrs. Jenkins needs to move to another tech and none of them are picking up their phone.

TradeVan collapses that into a dispatch board. Drop the job onto a different tech's row and their phone notifies. The old tech's phone updates so they don't drive to a job they no longer have. Multi-dispatcher — you and the office manager can both work the board and see each other's moves.

Dispatch

Every tech, every slot, every fire drill on one screen

Drag onto a tech's row and they get a push before you close the tab. Conflicts (overlapping bookings, day off, closed shop day) flag as warnings before you commit.

How dispatch works →

Roles: owner, office, tech

The five-tech shop is usually the moment you make your first office hire. TradeVan has three roles baked in — owner, office, technician — each with sensible defaults. Owner sees the shop's finances, settings, and reports; office runs day-to-day dispatch, customer records, and invoicing; tech is the phone-side field view (their own jobs only, offline-first).

The office view is shaped like their job — dispatch board, calendar, customer list, invoicing on one nav. Send them an invite, they pick a password, they open the dispatch board and start working. No training program.

Team management

Add seats, set roles, done

Invite by email. Pick owner, office, or technician. Access is scoped to the role — the tech-side app doesn't show the office's customer list; the office doesn't see the tech's payroll rates. A first-office hire onboards without a training program because the view is shaped like the job.

Team management screen showing owner, office, and technician roles across a 5-person shop

Maintenance plan (AMC) contracts view with active customers and upcoming visits for the shop

PM contracts

The seasonal wave scheduled itself

Maintenance plan (AMC) templates auto-generate the spring AC and fall furnace visits at the right time of year. 200 tunes across 5 techs in 6 weeks stops being two lost evenings and becomes a calendar you nudge.

Frequently asked questions

Try TradeVan free for 21 days.

Set up your team of 5 in under an hour. Run tomorrow's schedule off the board. No card required.

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