Orbit vs job management apps.
Job management apps ask a tradesperson to adopt a new app, log in, and keep it up to date alongside the work; Orbit is being built to work inside WhatsApp, where the work is already being discussed. Both end up with jobs and invoices — the difference is what has to change about your day to get there. Orbit is in development at R99 per tradesperson per month.
Orbit is in development. Join the waitlist and we WhatsApp you when it opens.
Side by side
| A job management app | Orbit | |
|---|---|---|
| What you install | An app, on every phone that needs it, kept updated. | Nothing. Orbit is being built as a WhatsApp conversation. |
| What you learn | A dashboard, a job list, a settings screen and a workflow. | How to type a sentence, which you already know. |
| When the record gets made | When someone opens the app — often that evening, often not at all. | When the job finishes, in the message you were half-writing anyway. |
| Who it is designed for | Usually a team with an office, a scheduler and a manager. | One or two people, no office, phone in a pocket. |
| Scheduling and dispatch | Usually the core feature, and often the reason for the price. | Not the point, and not in the first release. |
| Invoices | Generated in the app; you send from the app. | Drafted in the chat; you check and send. Orbit drafts, you send. |
| What it costs | Varies widely by product and seat count — check the vendor. | R99 per tradesperson per month, one plan. |
The difference is when the record gets made.
The category is not wrong. Job management software is genuinely good at what it is for: a business with several teams, a person in an office moving them around, and enough volume that a scheduler earns its keep. If that is your business, a proper job-management product will beat a chat thread, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
The problem it does not solve is adoption by a person who is not at a desk. The reason so many small trade businesses buy one of these products and stop using it inside a month is not the software — it is that using it requires a second habit, formed after a nine-hour day, in an app nobody opens for any other reason. WhatsApp does not have that problem, because it is already open.
So Orbit is being built for the narrow case: the record, the money and the invoice, made in one message, by the person who did the work, at the moment they finished it. Everything that requires an office is deliberately out of scope.
fixed tiling at job on 1st avenue. charged 3800.
Tracking that now ✅
invoice it
Invoice #0042 drafted — tap to send.
Being straight about it
When a job management app is the better answer
If you dispatch several teams a day, need a live schedule everyone can see, run stock across a warehouse, or have an office person whose job is coordination, a dedicated job-management product will do things Orbit is not being built to do. Orbit is aimed at one- and two-person operations, and it will not pretend to scale past them.
The other comparison
Orbit vs a spreadsheet and a notebook. →Join the waitlist.
Orbit is being built now. The list is free, it commits you to nothing, and founding pricing is locked for the people on it.