Work management apps for small civil crews: six compared

Most "best software" lists in this category are written by affiliates. This one is written by a vendor — we make the SitesAI App, which is on the list — so read it accordingly. What we offer instead of neutrality is accuracy: every figure comes from the vendor's own public page or its Australian directory listing, checked on 16 September 2026, with links at the bottom.

Tools we could not source properly today are left out. An absence is not a judgement.

The short version

Assignar

The direct competitor for civil subcontractors, Australian in origin and now global, with 800-plus customers. Its core is dispatch: dragging qualified, available crews and equipment into a calendar, with compliance built into who can be allocated. It also does timesheets, digital forms, job costing and syncs to accounting and ERP systems.

Watch out for: no published price, and its Capterra Australia listing shows no free version and no free trial. Expect a sales call and a quote. At the small end that is usually the deciding factor. Full comparison: Assignar vs the SitesAI App.

Record TIME

Australian, and the closest thing on this list to a like-for-like alternative for a plant-hire or earthmoving business. Digital dockets and timesheets, employee and plant scheduling, invoicing with Xero, plant servicing reminders, and geofenced job sites with attendance and inductions.

Its distinguishing move is modular pricing: each module has its own monthly base plus a per-seat rate, so a business wanting only dockets pays only for dockets.

Watch out for: the modules add up. Dockets, scheduling, plant and job sites together is A$175 a month in base fees before per-seat costs. There is no free tier, only a 30-day trial. Full comparison: Record TIME vs the SitesAI App.

Dashpivot

By Sitemate in Sydney, founded 2015, used in over 100 countries, and rated 4.7 out of 5 across 76 reviews on its Australian listings. It turns any paper form into a digital one — site diaries, permits, prestarts, JSAs — completed on a phone and analysed across projects. Its public template library is the best in this market.

Watch out for: it is a forms platform, not a job model. Quotes, scope, variations and progress claims are not what it does. Its own pricing page would not load for us on the day we checked, so the A$32 per user figure comes from its GetApp Australia listing. Full comparison: Dashpivot vs the SitesAI App.

SafetyCulture

The largest company here by an enormous margin, and free for teams of up to ten. Templates completed on a phone, findings raising actions, results rolled up across sites and teams, plus an AI assistant and an AI form builder. If your problem is "we do not have written safety checks", nothing else gets you running as fast.

Watch out for: compliance here means inspections, not a credentials register. It is not where you track whose white card expires next month, and it does not do quotes, dockets, plant or claims. Full comparison: SafetyCulture vs the SitesAI App.

ServiceM8

The one a lot of small earthmoving businesses are already running. Job cards, scheduling with push notifications, quotes and invoices created on site, card payment in the app, SMS to clients, and an accounting sync. Priced by jobs per month rather than users, with unlimited users on paid plans — which is unusually good value for a labour-heavy business.

Watch out for: it is built for many short jobs, not for a worksite with crews, plant, inductions and progressive claims. No plant maintenance, no site compliance register, no scope-and-variation model. Full comparison: ServiceM8 vs the SitesAI App.

SitesAI App

Ours, so treat this as a spec sheet. Leads and quotes accepted by a typed name on a link; the won lead becomes the job, with a scope of work, client-approved variations and progress claims that freeze what they reported. Sites with geofences, inductions and per-site document requirements. Shifts offered to people with accept, reject, reassign and no-show detection. Clock-in with photos, tags and two signatures, queued offline and replayed with the server refereeing every event. One docket per truck, signed by the customer on their own phone. Plant with service intervals and prestarts. A document wallet with expiry and a who-is-non-compliant report. Guided SOP flows. Clients can have their own portal login. And a 142-tool AI connector plus a REST API.

Free up to ten licences, where a licence is a person, a site, or a client — then US$5 per licence per month.

Watch out for: no invoicing, no payments, no accounting ledger and no Xero or MYOB integration. No dispatch board. No form builder or template library. No plan or drawing management.

Also worth knowing about

Three we did not compare in depth. Fieldwire (free for 5 users, 3 projects; Pro US$39 per user per month) is excellent for plans, tasks pinned to drawings and punch lists — see Fieldwire vs the SitesAI App. Procore is the enterprise answer, priced on your annual construction volume with unlimited users and no published figure. Docketbook and Core Docket are Australian docket specialists worth a look if dockets are your only problem.

How do you actually choose?

1. Find which cap you hit first. Free tiers cap on different things — users, jobs, projects, licences. A five-person crew with two sites and 80 jobs a month hits three very different walls.
2. Run one real job end to end. Quote it, staff it, record the work, produce whatever you send the client. Demo data hides everything that matters.
3. Check the handover to accounting. Most of these either invoice or they do not. Decide which side of that line you need to be on before you compare features.
4. Test it in a black spot. If your sites have no signal, an app that needs one is not a candidate, whatever its feature list says.
5. Ask what happens when a subcontractor joins. Whether other companies can work on your site, under your requirements, is the thing small businesses discover last and regret most.

Then pick the cheapest one that survived.

Sources, checked 16 September 2026

• Assignar and its Capterra Australia listing
• Record TIME pricing
• Dashpivot on GetApp Australia
• SafetyCulture pricing and free versus Premium
• ServiceM8 pricing
• Fieldwire pricing · Procore pricing
• SitesAI pricing

Prices and features change. Check each vendor's current page before you decide, and if we have something wrong here, email admin@sitesai.net and we will correct it.