ServiceTrade is commercial field service software and names refrigeration and kitchen exhaust cleaning among its trades, which makes this the closest comparison in the set. Roopairs is built for the equipment inside the kitchen: fryers, combis, ice machines and walk-ins, with the business organized around the equipment record. Roopairs has a plan called ROO Parts that is free to use, covering purchase orders, pricebook and inventory. The deciding question is which part of the kitchen your technicians actually work on.
The short version
| Roopairs | ServiceTrade | |
|---|---|---|
| Built for | Commercial kitchen, refrigeration and HVACR equipment service | Commercial service contractors. Their pages name mechanical service, fire protection and life safety, commercial HVAC, electrical, refrigeration and kitchen exhaust cleaning |
| Equipment records | The equipment is the record. Manufacturer, model, serial, service history, location history and warranty agreements sit on the unit itself | Equipment history tracking on every tier, held against the customer’s service location |
| Purchase orders | A full module for purchasing parts from your suppliers, created against the job and the equipment | Parts purchasing tied to jobs. Their documentation routes purchase order authority through QuickBooks Desktop, so the job has to exist in QuickBooks before it is invoiced |
| Parts inventory | Parts inventory across the warehouse and every van, with minimum and maximum threshold alerts | Parts purchasing and inventory across trucks and warehouses, connected to jobs so billing stays accurate |
| Manufacturer warranty jobs | Manufacturer warranty and non-warranty billing paths built in, running through one dispatch board | Compliance and inspection records are the strength. Manufacturer warranty claims run outside the product |
| Facilities management portals | Built to work with third-party facilities management software, so portal jobs arrive as work rather than as re-keying | A customer-facing portal where building owners see their own service history and quotes |
| Accounts payable, paying bills | A Bills module. Create and track the bill in Roopairs, and it syncs to QuickBooks where it is paid | Parts and labor sync to QuickBooks for job costing. Bill paying happens in the accounting system |
| Planned maintenance contracts | Recurring job series held against the equipment record rather than the customer | Service agreements with recurring inspection and maintenance schedules, held against the site |
| QuickBooks | An integration sync with QuickBooks Online or Desktop covering thirteen record types, including bills, credit notes, journal entries and customer merges | QuickBooks Desktop and Online for customers, jobs and invoices. Their own documentation is explicit that this is not a full ongoing two-way sync: bulk imports are human-initiated, usually once at setup |
| Integrations | Built for the commercial kitchen channel: manufacturers, parts distributors and facilities portals working from the same equipment record | An accounting-led integration set built around commercial contracting |
| Free trial | Free ROO Parts plan | None published. All three tiers say “Request pricing” |
| Pricing | Free ROO Parts plan covering purchase orders, pricebook and inventory, then per user pricing for the full suite of modules | Not published. Select, Premium and Enterprise, priced mainly on the number of technicians you support |
* The ServiceTrade column is drawn from their own pricing, feature and support documentation, read in August and September 2026.
Roopairs starts at the 1 piece of equipment, ServiceTrade starts at the commercial service contract
This is the closest comparison in the category and it deserves a straight answer. ServiceTrade names refrigeration and kitchen exhaust cleaning among the trades it serves, alongside mechanical service, fire protection, commercial HVAC and electrical.
Both products are built for commercial service companies rather than residential ones, and both treat recurring agreements as central. The real split is somewhere a feature list does not show it.
It is this: ServiceTrade organizes commercial service delivery across trades, and Roopairs organizes one trade around the individual piece of equipment.
In Roopairs the unit is the record. Manufacturer, model, serial, service history, location history and warranty agreements all live on the equipment in Roopairs, and the maintenance contract attaches to named units rather than to a site.
For a company whose revenue comes from fryers, combis, ice machines and walk-ins that come back, that is the axis the decision turns on.
Roopairs is built for the visit where a manufacturer pays part of the bill
Kitchen exhaust cleaning and refrigeration service are both on their list, and both are usually billed to the customer who ordered them.
Foodservice equipment repair adds a second payer. A unit under a factory agreement produces a claim on the manufacturer's form, approved on their schedule, while the next unit in the same kitchen is billed to the operator.
Roopairs runs those as two native billing paths on one dispatch board, with coverage held on the equipment record so it is known before assignment rather than after an invoice is questioned.
The inbound side is the other half. National account work arrives through ServiceChannel, Corrigo, Ecotrak or OpenWrench, and Roopairs is built to work with third-party facilities management software so those tickets become jobs without being retyped.
What service companies in the trade say
“This software is built for commercial HVAC/R and kitchen equipment companies. Their software actually works for and with us, rather than us constantly fighting against it because it is not built for the way we operate.” — Korey Austin
Where ServiceTrade fits
ServiceTrade is the closest product in this comparison set to the ground Roopairs stands on, and it deserves to be described accurately rather than dismissed. Their trades list names mechanical service, fire protection and life safety, commercial HVAC, electrical, refrigeration and kitchen exhaust cleaning. Two of those six touch a commercial kitchen.
Where they are strongest is compliance work. Inspection schedules, deficiency tracking and the record that proves a system was tested on a date are the core of the product, and a fire protection contractor would be foolish to buy anything else on that basis. Their pricing follows the same logic, scaling mainly with the number of technicians you support.
Kitchen exhaust cleaning is kitchen work, and it is also a different job from equipment repair. A hood cleaning crew works to a schedule against a building. An equipment service company works to a failure against a serial number, with a manufacturer sometimes paying the bill and a part that has to be ordered, received and fitted before the job closes.
The pain starts around your third or fourth tech, and it is cheaper to switch before it does. If your third van is carrying parts rather than cleaning equipment, that is where the two products separate. ROO Parts is free, so the purchasing and inventory side can be tested on your own jobs first.
Choose Roopairs if
Foodservice equipment is the trade, not one line in it. Cooking, refrigeration and warewashing equipment where the manufacturer, the parts channel and the claim process come with every job.
Agreements are written against named units. A contract covering this fryer at this store at this interval, rather than a service agreement held at site level.
Factory paperwork is part of the week. Authorized servicer status and claims running natively beside billable work.
Choose ServiceTrade if
Compliance and inspection work is the core of your business. Fire protection, life safety and inspection-driven contracts are what ServiceTrade is built around, and the deficiency and certification records are the reason to buy it.
Your customers want their own portal. Giving a building owner visibility of their service history and quotes is a real advantage in commercial contracting, and it is a strength of their product.
Roopairs moves the accounts, and the agreements move down to the unit
Clients, locations, contacts and the parts list come across during setup, with a full migration available as a quoted service for larger data sets.
A move between two commercial platforms is the easiest in this set, because the shape of the data already fits. Two things change level.
- Equipment comes out from under the site. Units that were attributes of a location become records with their own history and coverage, which is a mapping decision rather than a rebuild.
- Agreements are rewritten against named equipment. This is the part worth doing carefully, because it is also where most service companies discover what they have been covering for free.
- Open claims finish where they started so the paperwork trail stays intact.
Run both products through one month end before anything is switched off, with the accounting connection rebuilt first rather than last.
What each one costs
Neither publishes a figure above the free plan. ServiceTrade shows “Request pricing” on Select, Premium and Enterprise, and describes pricing as driven mainly by the number of technicians you support plus the suite that fits your operation.
Roopairs’ ROO Parts plan is free and covers purchase orders, your pricebook and your inventory. The full suite of modules is priced per user per month.
Because both scale with headcount, the comparison that actually decides it is scope: how much of what you are paying for is compliance machinery you will not use, and how much of the parts chain you would otherwise be running in a spreadsheet.
Also worth reading
- How Roopairs and Jobber compare for kitchen equipment work
- One Dispatch Board, Five Customer Portals: Keeping Them in Sync
- Roopairs, the future of restaurant equipment software and parts distribution
FAQ
Does ServiceTrade cover commercial kitchen work?
Their pricing page names refrigeration and kitchen exhaust cleaning among the trades served, so the honest answer is that they are in the kitchen. Foodservice equipment repair itself is not named, and that is the distinction worth testing rather than assuming.
What is the actual difference between the two?
Where each one starts. One organizes commercial service delivery across several trades. Roopairs organizes one trade around the individual piece of equipment, with coverage, history and contracts attached to the unit in Roopairs.
What does ServiceTrade cost?
No figure is published. Their three tiers, Select, Premium and Enterprise, all say request pricing, and they describe pricing as driven mainly by the number of technicians supported plus the suite that fits the operation. Roopairs quotes per user above its free plan.
Which one suits a multi-trade commercial contractor?
ServiceTrade, on its own terms. A company running mechanical service, fire protection and commercial HVAC alongside refrigeration is the operation it was built for.
Can a maintenance contract be held against equipment rather than a site?
In Roopairs that is the default. Recurring job series attach to the equipment record, so a contract reads as named units at named locations at agreed intervals and follows the equipment if it moves.
How are factory warranty claims handled?
Warranty and non-warranty jobs are both core workflows on one dispatch board in Roopairs, and the agreement with the manufacturer sits on the equipment record so coverage is visible before dispatch.
The 1 agreement that tells Roopairs and ServiceTrade apart
Take a maintenance agreement you already sell and ask each vendor to express it as named equipment at named sites at agreed intervals, then show you which of those units are also under a factory warranty.
Then ask which of those units are coming to the end of their coverage in the next 90 days. Bring both to a product tour.
See how Roopairs can help your service business scale
The all-in-one platform built for commercial kitchen service companies. Dispatch, invoicing, parts ordering — all in one place.
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