Compare

Redline vs mHelpDesk: the same jobs, run by message.

mHelpDesk and Redline go after the same kind of business: small service shops like painters, lawn crews and carpet cleaners. mHelpDesk gives you the classic screens plus a customer portal and QuickBooks sync. Redline gives you a chat that does the clicking, and its Free plan covers contacts, the pipeline, the calendar and quotes for $0.

Get started free App Store

The short version

With Redline you tell it what happened ("they said yes", "move it to next Tuesday", "quote the hallway too") and it updates the job and the calendar or drafts the quote, asking you to confirm anything customer-facing. Free covers one person with no end date. Solo at $29 a month adds invoices and card pay links. Team ($129, 3 seats) adds the crew board and tech app.

mHelpDesk is field service software for small service businesses, with pages for painting, lawn care, carpet cleaning and IT services. It schedules and assigns jobs with notifications to the crew, creates and emails estimates from the mobile app, turns time and materials from the field into invoices, syncs with QuickBooks, and gives customers a portal to request service and see their billing history.

mHelpDesk lists its plans in a help center article rather than on a marketing pricing page, and we couldn't confirm the prices there are current, so we don't list them. Its plans are sold as bundles of users, and it offers a free trial. See mHelpDesk's plans and pricing article.

Interior paint job, from walk-through to booked

Estimate for the Abernathys: living room, dining room and hall, walls and trim, 2 coats. About 1,100 sq ft of wall at $2.10 a foot, trim $650.

Drafted for Joan Abernathy: walls, 1,100 sq ft at $2.10, $2,310. Trim, $650. Two coats. $2,960. Save it?

Save it. She just called and said yes. Move it to Accepted and find me two days in a row next week.

Moving Abernathy to Accepted needs your OK: tap confirm. Monday and Tuesday next week are both open. Book Monday 8am and Tuesday 8am?

Customers say yes by phone or email; there's no online approval. Quotes and scheduling work on Free.

Redline and mHelpDesk, side by side

	Redline	mHelpDesk
How you use it	Chat first. You message it ("invoice Sullivan for the roof job") and it updates contacts, jobs, the calendar and invoices, asking you to confirm before it changes customer records. Web and iPhone.	Office screens for scheduling, dispatch, estimates and invoices, with a mobile app for the field.
Free plan	Yes. $0 with no end date: AI chat, contacts, pipeline, calendar, scheduling assistant, Quick-Sort and a Pro Page. 1 seat and 4,000 AI credits that don't refill.	No free plan. Free trial available.
Starting price	Solo at $29 a month, or $23 a month billed yearly. 7-day free trial on the web.	See mHelpDesk's plans and pricing article.
Seats	Free and Solo: 1. Team ($129 a month): 3. Team+ ($299 a month): 10, plus extra seats at $29 each.	Plans are sold as bundles of users. See their site.
Quotes	Itemized quotes by chat, including from a site photo, with an optional deposit %. Good, better and best options and tax are in the Quote composer (Solo and up). Saved as drafts; you email the customer from your own Gmail. No quote link, online approval or e-sign today.	Estimates created and emailed from the mobile app.
Invoicing and payments	Solo and up. Branded card pay links on your own Stripe account, no Redline fee on top. Card only, US dollars. Overdue flags at day 3, 7 and 14.	Time and materials from the field turned into invoices. QuickBooks sync.
Scheduling	Every plan. Suggests up to 3 open slots, groups visits in the same town, sets up repeating visits with one save. No calendar sync, no online booking.	Schedule and assign jobs.
Dispatch	Team and up. Dispatch board, tech app, assign jobs by chat, crew chat. Techs tap their status; there's no GPS.	Crews get notified of their assignments.
What mHelpDesk has that Redline doesn't	Not in Redline today.	A customer portal for service requests and billing history. QuickBooks sync. Time and materials billing from the field.
What Redline has that mHelpDesk doesn't	A Free plan.	No free plan. Free trial.

mHelpDesk details come from mHelpDesk's own website, checked October 2026. Plans and prices change, so confirm on their site before you decide.

Who should pick which

Pick mHelpDesk if

Customers should request service and check what they owe in a portal
Your bookkeeper wants invoices synced to QuickBooks
Techs bill time and materials from the field
Someone in the office runs the schedule from a desk
You already have a few people who all need logins

Pick Redline if

You're one person now and want to start at $0
You'd rather say "they said yes, book it" than click through three screens
You want a free Pro Page where homeowners send quote requests
You want overdue invoices flagged with who to call (Solo)
You'll add a tech app and crew board when you hire (Team)

Questions contractors ask

Does Redline have a customer portal?

No. Each invoice gets a branded pay link (Solo and up), and homeowners can send you a quote request from your free Pro Page. There's no login for customers.

Can Redline bill time and materials?

You can bill the total by chat ("invoice Abernathy $570: 6 hours at $65 plus $180 in paint"), and it goes on the invoice as one amount with a one-line description. Redline doesn't track time itself; there are no timesheets or clock-in.

Does Redline sync with QuickBooks?

No. mHelpDesk syncs with QuickBooks; Redline doesn't. On Solo and up, Reports exports a QuickBooks-format CSV file you can hand to your bookkeeper each month.

Which trades does Redline cover?

Any service trade. See how it works for painting estimates and carpet cleaning, or compare mHelpDesk alternatives.

Tell it what happened. It does the paperwork.

Start Redline Free and run your next estimate from walk-through to booked by message.