Payaca alternative for UK trades: EstiMate vs Payaca (2026)

Payaca is UK software for renewables installers: CRM, quoting, proposals, job workflow and invoicing for solar, heat-pump, battery and EV-charger firms (Payaca). It puts MCS and DNO paperwork into the job workflow, and its interactive proposals are genuinely good. If you're a growing solar or heat-pump installer, it's built for you.

If you're a builder or general trade doing extensions, refurbs, kitchens, bathrooms or fit-outs, Payaca isn't aimed at you, and on the latest pricing we saw, its main plans include 25 users or more. EstiMate is built for UK construction, priced per business from free, with contracts, variations, CIS and VAT figures from £15.99 a month.

Payaca charges by bands of users. EstiMate charges per business.

What Payaca costs

Payaca's UK pricing page has changed between snapshots, so check the live page. The latest version we saw showed:

Prices checked October 2026 on Payaca's UK pricing page and EstiMate pricing. Enterprise is a custom price.

The small print, as listed:

• Accelerator is for new install businesses that qualify, with 8 or fewer users, and includes "everything in Growth".
• Extra seats are £30 each up to 50 users on Growth, and £24 each up to 100 on Scale.
• Text messages cost 4p each.
• Onboarding: one Payaca comparison page mentions a one-off £1,500 (Payaca vs Autarc), while another snapshot says it's included at no extra cost. Ask them which applies.
• An older snapshot showed a Core plan at £249 a month billed annually or £299 billed monthly, which Capterra still lists. It wasn't on the latest page we saw.
• It's demo-led. We saw no free trial and no free plan.

Illustrative year on the latest listed prices. We couldn't confirm whether Payaca's prices include VAT; EstiMate's are what you pay, with a VAT receipt:

• Accelerator: £299 × 12 = £3,588 for the first 12 months, if you qualify.
• Growth on annual billing: £999 × 12 = £11,988.
• EstiMate Pro: £39.99 × 12 = £479.88.
• EstiMate: £15.99 × 12 = £191.88.

That isn't a like-for-like feature comparison, and we're not pretending it is: Growth includes 25 users and a renewables workflow. It's the comparison that matters if you're a five-person building firm deciding what to pay for. One more thing to be straight about: EstiMate's figures are for one business login. On Pro your site team can log time, photos and diary entries through the Site Crew app from a job link, with no per-worker charge, but if several of you need office logins with roles, that's EstiMate Corp, from £249 a month (£249 × 12 = £2,988 a year).

Where Payaca is strong

• Interactive quotes. Clients compare packages side by side, pick extras, see the total update live and sign from a link (Payaca quoting, interactive quotes).
• If the customer adds optional items after accepting, the payment schedule updates.
• Renewables paperwork: MCS and DNO steps sit in the job workflow.
• Designs come in from OpenSolar, and an AI assistant, "Agent Dave", builds proposals from a text description (Payaca AI).
• Xero and QuickBooks integrations.
• 4.9 on Capterra, from 19 reviews.

Who it suits: solar, heat-pump, battery and EV-charger installers, especially growing ones with a sales team, who want MCS and DNO paperwork in the same flow as the sale. If that's you, book the demo.

Where a builder's needs are different

"Not found" means we searched Payaca's published material in October 2026 and didn't find it. Ask Payaca if any of these matter to you.

Both do optional extras on a client link, so that isn't where the difference is. The difference is what happens after the yes.

A building job changes once it starts. The client wants the bifolds moved. The steel goes up. You open the floor and the joists are rotten. Payaca's variation support, as described, is about the customer adding optional items after acceptance, with the payment schedule updating. A builder needs to price additional works from site, get the client's approval with one tap, and have the contract total, invoices and reports update with an audit trail. That's what EstiMate's variations do, and signed variations become addenda to the contract.

Then there's tax. If you work for a main contractor, or take on CIS subbies yourself, you need invoices that handle the domestic reverse charge and a CIS register that keeps up. We found neither in Payaca's material. EstiMate puts the required reverse-charge wording on invoices and keeps the CIS register in the Accounts tab. If the reverse charge still confuses you, read our domestic reverse charge explainer.

Where EstiMate fits better

EstiMate is built for UK builders and trades who quote, contract, run and account for projects:

• Per business pricing, on one business login: Free (3 jobs a month), £15.99, or £39.99 for Pro. No contract, cancel any time.
• Builder quoting with a client link to accept, decline, pick optional extras or ask for amendments.
• Payment milestones and stage invoices, with deposits taken online on acceptance on Pro. Our guide to stage payments and deposits covers how to set them up on domestic work.
• A contract generated from the accepted quote, signed online.
• Accounts: P&L for any period, a VAT return helper (it works out the figures; it doesn't file to HMRC), the CIS register and aged debtors.

EstiMate is construction software, so MCS and DNO paperwork isn't what it's built around. If you're a builder who fits the odd heat pump as part of a bigger job, that probably doesn't matter. If renewables are your whole business, it does.

If you're comparing quoting tools more widely, our roundup of the best quoting software for builders covers the field.

What to do next

1. If you're a renewables installer, book Payaca's demo and ask about onboarding costs and which plan your team size lands in.
2. If you're a builder, write down the last three jobs that changed after the price was agreed, and check how each tool would have handled the change.
3. Open a free EstiMate account, price a real job, and send the quote link to yourself to see exactly what the client sees.

It costs nothing to start free and send yourself a quote.