← Back to Bead BoardJobber vs Bead Board
Welders sometimes end up on Jobber because it ranks for "small business job management" and the demo video looks pretty. Then they try to run a welding shop out of it for a week and realize it was built for a completely different kind of work.
Jobber isn't bad. It's just not for fab shops.
Jobber is good software. It runs tens of thousands of HVAC, plumbing, landscaping, and home services businesses. The whole thing assumes the same shape of work: a customer calls, you schedule a crew, the crew drives to the customer's house, does the job, marks it complete, and Jobber sends the invoice. The address is the job. Routes matter. The same customers come back every other week for another visit.
Welding shops don't work like that. Custom fab comes to the shop. It sits on the floor for days or weeks. It moves through stages like quote, approved, in progress, done, invoiced. The welder doesn't drive to the job. The job gets delivered to the shop. Route optimization is useless. Recurring weekly visits aren't a thing. Jobber's entire interface is built around an idea of work that doesn't match yours, and you'd be fighting it every day.
Side by side
Jobber pricing verified April 2026 at getjobber.com/pricing. Team plans shown because solo Core ($29) and Connect ($99) don't apply once you've got a crew.
The math nobody runs before they buy
Jobber prices by the user. Bead Board doesn't. This is where the sticker on the box stops matching the receipt at checkout.
A 5-person shop on Jobber Team is $149 a month. Add three more welders next spring and you're at $236. Hit ten people and you're at $299. Fifteen people is $529 a month, every month, forever.
Bead Board is $99 flat. Five welders, ten welders, fifteen welders, the boss, the estimator, the guy answering the phone, your wife at the kitchen table. Everybody's included. Growing doesn't cost extra. If your shop doubles in the next two years, Jobber's bill doubles too. Bead Board's stays put.
When Jobber actually is the right tool
One real exception: mobile welders. If your business is driving a rig out to ranches, farms, job sites, and highway pullouts to weld trailers, cattle gates, ag equipment, and pipe repairs on location, then your work actually is "schedule, drive, finish, invoice." Jobber fits that. Route optimization is real for you. Recurring visits to the same customers are a thing. The customer's address is the job.
If that's you, Jobber will work for you and Bead Board won't. Go buy it at getjobber.com. Bead Board is for the shop that sits still and builds things, not the one that drives out to the work.
Also worth reading: welding spreadsheet • QuickBooks for the shop floor • WeldTrace (code welding) • the whiteboard.