Passing card fees on to customers works differently in every contractor app, and the rules change by card network and by state. We compared 10 tools on caps, debit handling, state controls and real pricing, so you can pick one before your next invoice goes out.
By Mike Vidan, Co-Founder of QuoteIQ · Updated October 2026
The best credit card surcharge software for contractors in 2026 is QuoteIQ if you want quotes, invoices and card payments in one app from $29.99/mo, with a convenience fee that follows the invoice. If you need a network-style surcharge with published caps, debit exclusions and state controls, Housecall Pro and Zuper document those details most fully. Square Invoices and Helcim suit contractors who only need payments. Whatever you pick, check your state first: Connecticut, Maine and Massachusetts are the states vendors most often list as off-limits.
| Rank | Platform | Starting Price | Best For | How It Passes the Fee |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | QuoteIQ | $29.99/mo | Quote-to-paid in one app | Convenience fee on invoices |
| #2 | Housecall Pro | $59/mo billed annually ($79 monthly) | Residential service teams | Credit card surcharge, 3% cap |
| #3 | Zuper | Custom — contact sales | Teams that want automatic rate checks | Zuper Pay surcharge, lower of 3% or cost of acceptance |
| #4 | JobNimbus | Custom — contact sales | Roofing and exterior contractors | Surcharge by card brand, no debit |
| #5 | PaintScout | $99/mo billed annually ($119 monthly) | Painting contractors | Surcharge set per estimate or invoice |
| #6 | ServiceBridge | $24.95/user/mo | Teams with card readers in the field | Surcharge automation, up to 3% |
| #7 | Square Invoices | Free; Plus $49/mo; Premium $149/mo | Payments-only contractors | Surcharge up to 3% (open beta) |
| #8 | Helcim | $0 monthly fee, interchange-plus | Owners who want low processing markup | Fee Saver (convenience fee online) |
| #9 | FieldPulse | Custom — contact sales | Teams comfortable with dual pricing | Card fee recovery (dual pricing) |
| #10 | Workiz | Custom — contact sales | Phone-heavy service shops | Service fee on card payments |
Prices come from each vendor’s own pricing or help pages, read in October 2026. Vendors change prices often, so confirm on their sites before you buy.
We’re QuoteIQ. We made this list. We also picked our own platform as #1 — here’s exactly why, with the trade-offs each tool brings to the table. We did not hands-on test any of these tools. Every claim below comes from the vendor’s own help center, pricing page or documentation, read in October 2026, plus the card network and state sources linked in the text.
Five criteria drove the ranking:
On documented surcharge controls alone, Housecall Pro and Zuper publish more than QuoteIQ does. QuoteIQ is #1 because most contractors need the fee setting to sit inside a working quote-to-paid flow that starts at $29.99/mo, and because we say plainly where our own documentation is thin. Card fees are exactly where revenue and profit drift apart, which is why we weigh them at all:
“They confuse revenue with profit, and they confuse their draw with their salary.”
— Justin Rogers, Co-Founder of QuoteIQ
Rules sources: Visa’s Merchant Surcharging Considerations and Requirements, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection’s surcharge page, and the Federal Reserve’s July 2026 payments study release.
QuoteIQ is not a surcharge-only product, and we won’t pretend it is. It is a contractor CRM where the estimate, the schedule, the invoice and the payment live in one place, and its convenience fee sits on the invoice itself. For a small crew, that matters more than any single fee setting, because the fee only helps if the invoice actually gets sent and paid.
Here is the honest part. QuoteIQ calls this a convenience fee, and the documentation we reviewed does not publish a percentage, a cap, debit or prepaid handling, or a state list. Housecall Pro and Zuper publish more on those controls. If your state restricts surcharges, or your processor requires specific network-style rules, treat QuoteIQ’s fee as a setting you configure and check yourself, and ask QuoteIQ support to confirm the details before you turn it on.
Best for: Solo operators and small crews (1–20 users) who want one app from quote to paid, and who will confirm their own state and processor rules.
Pros
Cons
“You cannot discount your way to scale.”
— Mike Vidan, Co-Founder of QuoteIQ
Every card fee you absorb is a small discount you did not choose. Whether you recover it with a surcharge, a convenience fee, dual pricing or a higher base price, decide on purpose.
Verdict: Pick QuoteIQ if you want the fee to live inside a complete quote-to-paid workflow and you are comfortable setting your own rules. If you need automatic state caps and debit exclusion built into the fee itself, start with Housecall Pro or Zuper below.
Housecall Pro has the most detailed public documentation of any contractor tool we reviewed. Its credit card surcharging FAQ states the fee, the cap, the excluded states, the debit rule and the disclosure steps. Every plan lists card processing rates as low as 2.59%.
The catch is availability. A September 14, 2026 CardRates report said the feature was rolling out to a limited group of users through a partnership with Yeeld, a surcharge-compliance service. The help article gives no launch date and does not say which plans qualify, so confirm with Housecall Pro that your account has it.
Best for: Residential service teams outside the excluded states that want caps and debit rules handled for them.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: The strongest choice on documentation if your state is not excluded and your account has the feature. Do not add a manual surcharge line item once it is on, or the customer is charged twice.
Zuper is a field service platform whose payments product, Zuper Pay, includes a surcharge setting with the tightest automated guardrails we found. The Zuper Pay surcharge docs say the surcharge cannot exceed the lower of 3% or your total average cost of credit card acceptance. Zuper also asks Yeeld for the maximum permitted rate on each transaction and applies the lower of that figure and your configured tier.
Zuper Pay is available only in the United States, your account has to be enabled for it, and only Admins can open surcharge settings. The docs do not name the processor or list rates.
Best for: Multi-state U.S. teams that want the software, not the office manager, to catch restricted locations.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: A strong second option if you run jobs in several states and want automation over spreadsheets. Budget for a sales conversation, and ask what Zuper Pay charges before you commit.
JobNimbus Payments can pass card fees to customers, and since December 4, 2024 the JobNimbus help article treats that option as a surcharge. The article is undated apart from that change, so confirm it still matches the app.
The page is useful because it states limits plainly: debit transactions can no longer carry the fee, and the maximum differs by card brand.
Best for: Roofing, siding and exterior contractors already running jobs in JobNimbus.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: Worth a demo if you are a roofer who wants the fee in the same tool as your estimates and production workflow. Verify the 4% figure with your processor.
PaintScout’s credit card surcharging article describes a simple model: the surcharge adds the processing fee to the total when a customer pays by credit card, and after payment it appears in the subtotal box on the invoice. It works with Stripe and PaintScout Payments.
The rate is yours to choose, which gives flexibility and puts the compliance work on you. The article gives Colorado as an example of a region with a 2% cap but states no general default or platform maximum, and it does not address debit cards.
Best for: Painting contractors who already quote in PaintScout and want the fee on the same estimate.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: The right pick for painters who quote in PaintScout. Everyone else will get more from a tool built around their own trade.
ServiceBridge’s March 5, 2025 release notes say the feature lets merchants pass credit card service fees, up to 3%, on to customers. The app adds the surcharge automatically, so a $1,000 bill becomes $1,030 for the customer. The same page also describes a surcharge of 1–3%, and it does not explain how the rate within that range is chosen.
Payments are powered by CardConnect, with tap, swipe and dip readers for technicians, text-to-pay links and Apple Pay and Google Pay. Processing rates are not published.
Best for: Service teams that take card payments on-site and want a per-user price they can see up front.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: A reasonable fit for crews with card readers and a per-seat budget. Ask which states it blocks and whether debit is excluded before you rely on it.
Square is a payments company, not a field service app, so you will quote and schedule elsewhere. But Square’s surcharging help article is one of the clearest in this list, and the free plan makes it the cheapest way to test the idea.
Square describes U.S. surcharging as in open beta. Terms and availability can change, so read the current article before you enable it.
Best for: Contractors who already take payments through Square, or who only need invoices and a fee setting.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: Best when your workflow is payments and invoices only. If you need deposits, progress payments or payments from the field on invoices, the missing mobile and partial-payment support is a real limit.
Helcim is a processor with invoicing tools, not a contractor CRM. Its Fee Saver passes processing costs to the customer. Online, Helcim calls it a convenience fee. In person, it describes a surcharge on Smart Terminal payments.
The page does not say how the fee is calculated or capped, and it does not address debit cards. The page shows an update date of October 2, 2026, so treat the details as current but re-check them.
Best for: Owners who want published low markup, no monthly fee, and a per-invoice fee toggle.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: A good match if you want low markup and already quote elsewhere. If recurring invoices or QuickBooks Online sync matter, those exclusions will bite.
FieldPulse does not add a surcharge. Its Card Fee Recovery is dual pricing, which the docs describe as a cash discount. Each invoice shows a Total Card Price and a Total ACH or Cash Price, and the customer chooses which to pay.
That distinction matters. The Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection says a surcharge is banned there but a cash discount or dual pricing is allowed. Connecticut’s own page also says a charge labeled a transaction fee, processing fee or non-cash adjustment on a receipt would be a surcharge, so the label does not decide the method.
Best for: Teams in surcharge-restricted states, or owners who prefer showing a card price and a cash price.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: Interesting if you operate in a surcharge-ban state. Understand that you are changing how you price, not adding a line item, and make sure your signage and invoices show both prices.
Workiz calls it a service fee, not a surcharge. Its help article says the fee is a percentage of the total after taxes and discounts, appears in the invoice summary on the client portal, and does not apply to Interac transactions. It also says you still owe Workiz Pay processing fees, and the service fee only offsets part of them.
The article was last updated April 7, 2025, so check the app for changes before you rely on it.
Best for: Phone-heavy service shops that already run on Workiz and want a one-toggle fee.
Pros
Cons
Verdict: Fine for owners who know their state rules and want a simple switch. Pick Housecall Pro or Zuper if you want the software to enforce limits.
A tool needs a documented way to pass card fees to customers to make this list. These did not qualify, or we could not verify them:
The tools in this list use four different methods. The method decides which rules apply, so know which one your software is using.
What each vendor’s own documentation says about the controls that matter. “Not documented” means we did not find it on the pages we read, not that the feature does not exist.
| Platform | Cap | Debit and prepaid | States | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| QuoteIQ | Not documented | Not documented | Not documented | Invoices, duplicated invoices, recurring subscriptions, QuickBooks Online sync (Pro and above) |
| Housecall Pro | 3%; Oklahoma 2%; lower state caps applied automatically | Never surcharged | Excludes CT, ME, MA, NY and Canada | Invoices, estimates, mobile, card on file, service plans, booking deposits |
| Zuper | Lower of 3% or cost of acceptance, checked per transaction | Not eligible; surcharge removed | CT, ME, MA prohibited; CA, MS, NY may restrict; ZIP detection | Zuper Pay online and on-site payments |
| JobNimbus | 3% Visa; 4% other brands (per JobNimbus) | Debit fees cannot be passed on | Not listed; check local rules | Make a payment and Review pages |
| PaintScout | Not stated; Colorado 2% given as an example | Not addressed | Lists CT, MA, CA, KS, PR (“including”) | Estimates and invoices; deposits optional |
| ServiceBridge | Up to 3% (page also says 1–3%) | Not addressed | Permitted states only; no list | Mobile apps and Pay Now portal; phone prompt |
| Square Invoices | 3%, and never above cost of acceptance | Debit and ACH excluded | CT, ME, MA, PR prohibited; CA, CO, FL, KS, NY, OK, TX restricted | POS and web Invoices only |
| Helcim | Not stated | Not addressed | Excludes CT, CO, ME, MA, OK, Quebec | Pay Now invoices, payment requests and pages; not recurring or QuickBooks Online |
| FieldPulse | Typically 3%; cap not stated | Not addressed | Vendor says dual pricing is compliant in all 50 states | Invoices, estimates, flat deposits; manual adjustment by phone |
| Workiz | Not stated | Not addressed | Warns; you tick a compliance box | Card payments through Workiz Pay |
This is an illustration with an assumed rate, not a quote. Say your processor charges 2.9% + 30¢ per card payment, the rate Square lists for invoice payments on its Plus and Premium plans, and you send a $1,000 invoice.
In both cases the added amount is itself processed, so the fee on it comes out of what you collected. Neither method hands back the full $29.30 on this invoice. The gap is small here and grows with larger invoices and higher card rates. Whether the cap is measured on the invoice or on the total, and how your processor defines cost of acceptance, are questions for your processor. Do not assume a flat 3% is the safe setting: where cost of acceptance is below 3%, Visa’s cap sits below 3%.
This is general information, not legal advice. Talk to your processor and an adviser before you enable any fee. Four points come up repeatedly in the sources we read.
A proposed Visa and Mastercard merchant settlement received preliminary court approval on June 9, 2026. Payments Dive reported it would give merchants new rights to add surcharges and steer customers away from higher-cost cards, but it stated no caps or effective dates, and final approval was still pending in the coverage we read. Do not build a pricing plan on it yet.
The Federal Reserve’s release says card payments are the most-used noncash method, that debit cards still account for most card payments, and that credit card payments grew faster than debit for the first time in almost a decade. That matters here because debit and prepaid cards cannot be surcharged, so a share of your card volume may never carry the fee. The BLS figures cover all specialty trade contractors, NAICS 238, not just the trades these tools serve.
Pick QuoteIQ Essentials at $29.99/mo. You get quotes, scheduling, invoices and the convenience fee on one user seat, and the 14-day trial lets you test a real invoice first. If you only need to send invoices and have nothing else to schedule, Square Invoices is free, though it is still in open beta for surcharges.
QuoteIQ Beginner ($99.99/mo, 2 users) or Pro ($199.99/mo, 4 users). Pro is the one to look at if you use QuickBooks Online, because convenience fees sync only on Pro and above. Extra users cost $25/mo.
QuoteIQ Pro with extra seats or Elite ($299.99/mo, 10 users), or Housecall Pro Essentials ($149/mo billed annually, 5 users) if you want its published caps and debit rules and your account has the feature. Ask Housecall Pro for written confirmation of plan eligibility first.
QuoteIQ Elite or Max ($699.99/mo, 20 users) if one app for the whole workflow matters most. If your growth means more states, Zuper’s automatic ZIP-code checks or Housecall Pro’s state caps will save you from maintaining your own rules.
Start with Zuper and Housecall Pro and ask each for its state list in writing. QuoteIQ Max covers 20 users with extra seats at $25/mo, but it does not document state handling, so multi-state operators should budget time to set their own rules.
Roofers and exterior contractors should demo JobNimbus, which states brand caps and a debit exclusion. Painters should look at PaintScout, which sets the surcharge per estimate. Contractors in surcharge-ban states, such as Connecticut, should look at FieldPulse’s dual-pricing approach.
QuoteIQ Essentials or Square Invoices. Both keep the fee as one setting inside a familiar invoice. QuoteIQ has more room to grow into, since quoting and scheduling live in the same app.
Listed every tool with a documented way to pass card fees to customers. We started with more than 20 contractor and payment tools, then removed any with no public documentation of a surcharge, convenience fee, service fee or dual-pricing feature for U.S. customers.
Read each vendor’s own help and pricing pages in October 2026. We used vendor help centers and pricing pages as the source for every fee, cap and price. Where a vendor publishes no price we say custom, and where its pages disagree with other sources we use the vendor’s page.
Checked the five controls that matter. For each tool we looked for a published cap, a debit and prepaid rule, a state list, a customer disclosure step, and the payment flows it covers, such as invoices, deposits and mobile.
Compared the findings with the rules. We read Visa’s U.S. surcharging requirements and the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection’s surcharge page to understand what the vendor documentation should be consistent with.
Added operator perspective from Mike Vidan and Justin Rogers. We included one quote from each QuoteIQ co-founder, taken from their published insights pages, because card fees are a margin question as much as a software one.
“It also lets us take Debit/Credit cards using stripe which I love!”
“This is an amazing CRM has everything I need to run my business to online quoting to measuring online to sending invoices within seconds and to accept credit cards.”
“As the proud owner of J&G Pressure Washing LLC, I rely on this remarkable app for seamless payments, efficient quoting, and professional invoicing.”
These reviews come from the QuoteIQ App Store and Google Play listings and were posted in 2023, before QuoteIQ’s 2026 fee updates. None of them mentions passing on card fees. They show how contractors describe taking payment in QuoteIQ, not how its convenience fee performs.
Mike co-founded QuoteIQ and runs the Mike Vidan YouTube channel (580,000+ subscribers), where he teaches contractors about pricing, estimating and growing a home service business.
Read Mike’s insights →Justin co-founded QuoteIQ and writes about profit, pricing and building a service business that does not depend on the owner for every decision.
Read Justin’s insights →QuoteIQ is our top pick for contractors who want quotes, invoices and card payments in one app, starting at $29.99/mo. Its convenience fee carries through duplicated invoices, recurring invoices and QuickBooks Online sync, but its rate, cap and state rules are not documented. For published caps, debit exclusion and state controls, Housecall Pro and Zuper document the most. Housecall Pro’s rollout was limited as of September 2026 and Zuper’s pricing is quote-only, so confirm availability before you commit.
Prices run from free to custom quotes. Square Invoices has a free plan, with Plus at $49/mo and Premium at $149/mo per location. QuoteIQ starts at $29.99/mo and tops out at $699.99/mo for 20 users. Housecall Pro starts at $59/mo billed annually and adds a 0.50% fee on surcharged payments. ServiceBridge is $24.95 to $34.95 per user per month. Zuper, JobNimbus, FieldPulse and Workiz do not publish prices. Processing fees come on top of all of these.
Square Invoices has a free plan with surcharges up to 3%, still in open beta and limited to web invoices. Helcim has no monthly fee, but you pay processing markup. QuoteIQ doesn’t have a free plan, but every plan includes a 14-day free trial. Plans start at $29.99/mo for solo operators and scale to $699.99/mo for 20 users. Free tools usually mean fewer features, so check what is missing before you rely on one.
QuoteIQ Essentials at $29.99/mo covers one user with quotes, scheduling, invoices and payments, and the convenience fee sits on the invoice. Square Invoices is the budget alternative at $0, but it has no quoting or scheduling. Either way, confirm your state’s rules first, because a solo operator carries all of the compliance risk personally.
QuoteIQ Beginner ($99.99/mo, 2 users) or Pro ($199.99/mo, 4 users) fits most crews of two to five, and Pro adds QuickBooks Online sync of convenience fees. Housecall Pro Essentials at $149/mo billed annually includes 5 users and the most detailed surcharge documentation, if your account has the feature and your state is not excluded. ServiceBridge charges per user, so cost scales with headcount.
Multi-state teams need state logic more than anything else. Zuper checks the permitted rate on each transaction and disables surcharges in restricted ZIP codes, and Housecall Pro applies lower state caps automatically. QuoteIQ Max ($699.99/mo) covers 20 users, with extra users at $25/mo, but it does not document state handling. Get demos of Zuper and Housecall Pro and ask for their state lists in writing.
Zuper supports Tap to Pay on iPhone and Android, and Housecall Pro lists mobile payments among its supported surcharge flows. QuoteIQ has iOS and Android apps with a 4.7 average rating across 4,103 reviews. Square is the exception: surcharges on Invoices work on the web only, and mobile payments on Invoices are not available yet. Test one real payment on a phone before you roll a fee out to a crew.
Housecall Pro lists online-booking deposits among its supported surcharge flows. PaintScout skips deposits unless you tick the deposit option. FieldPulse builds the fee into flat deposit requests. Helcim’s Fee Saver works with Payment Requests and Payment Pages. QuoteIQ’s recurring invoice subscriptions support deposits alongside convenience fees. Check each tool’s deposit behavior, because several treat deposits differently from final payments.
QuoteIQ, PaintScout, JobNimbus and Housecall Pro all combine estimates with payments. QuoteIQ puts quotes, scheduling and invoices in one app from $29.99/mo. PaintScout sets the surcharge per estimate, which suits painters. JobNimbus is built around roofing and exterior estimates. Square Invoices and Helcim handle payments but not full estimating, so pair them with a quoting tool.
Housecall Pro, Zuper, ServiceBridge, FieldPulse, Workiz and QuoteIQ combine scheduling with a card fee option. Housecall Pro and Zuper document the guardrails best. QuoteIQ has the lowest published entry price at $29.99/mo. FieldPulse and Workiz are quote-only. Square and Helcim do not schedule jobs. Pick on how the fee works first, then check the scheduler against your crew size.
QuoteIQ invoices accept cards, ACH, Apple Pay and Google Pay, with no monthly payment fee and no setup fee, plus a convenience fee option. Housecall Pro lists card processing from 2.59% on every plan. Square Invoices charges 2.9% + 30¢ on Plus and Premium and 3.3% + 30¢ on Free. Helcim uses interchange-plus markup. Compare your effective rate on a real statement before you decide, because a surcharge only offsets cost.
It depends on the tool. Housecall Pro syncs surcharge data to QuickBooks Online but does not support QuickBooks Desktop. QuoteIQ syncs convenience fees to QuickBooks Online on Pro, Elite and Max. Helcim’s Fee Saver is not available through its QuickBooks Online integration. An Intuit moderator said in 2021 that QuickBooks Payments did not support surcharging, so confirm the current status with Intuit.
Jobber users in its community forum report adding a manual line item for card fees, because there is no automated setting. When you switch, recreate your fee rules in the new tool’s settings and drop the manual line item, or customers could be charged twice. Housecall Pro warns specifically against adding a manual surcharge line once its surcharge is on. Run a few test invoices before you cut over.
If Housecall Pro’s surcharge is not on your account or your state is excluded (New York businesses are), look at Zuper for automatic rate checks, Square Invoices for a free option, or PaintScout if you paint. QuoteIQ is the alternative when you want the quote-to-paid flow from $29.99/mo and will set your own fee rules.
ServiceTitan’s help center says there is no option to charge card fees automatically and describes a default service that reminds you to add the fee. Tools such as QuoteIQ (from $29.99/mo), Housecall Pro (from $59/mo billed annually) and Square Invoices (free) have built-in fee settings. We did not compare ServiceTitan’s own pricing for this list.
It depends on your state, your card network agreements and how you charge. Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection says state law prohibits surcharges but allows a cash discount. Visa’s U.S. document caps a surcharge at your cost of acceptance, never above 3%, and says debit and prepaid cards cannot be surcharged. Other states add restrictions. This is general information, not legal advice, so check with your processor and an adviser.
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Passing card fees on to customers is not one feature. It is four different methods, a network cap, a debit exclusion and a patchwork of state rules, and the 10 tools here handle those pieces very differently. The best-documented fee engines are Housecall Pro and Zuper. The cheapest way to try the idea is Square Invoices, with its beta limits. Painters, roofers and teams in dual-pricing states each have a specialist pick.
QuoteIQ is our #1 because most contractors need the fee to sit inside a working quote-to-paid flow, from $29.99/mo, with a 14-day trial on every plan, and because the fee follows the invoice through duplicates, recurring billing and QuickBooks Online sync. We have also been plain that its fee rate, cap, debit and state rules are not documented. Ask support to confirm them, and set your own rules, before you switch the fee on.
Whichever tool you choose, read the vendor’s current help article, check your state, disclose the fee before payment, and do not surcharge debit or prepaid cards. The rules are moving, with a proposed Visa and Mastercard settlement pending, so revisit this list in a few months.
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