Orbit vs a spreadsheet and a notebook.
A spreadsheet is free, flexible and completely dependent on somebody sitting down to fill it in; Orbit is being built so the record is made by the message you send when the job ends. If your spreadsheet is up to date this week, it is doing its job — most are not, and the gap is where unbilled work lives. 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 spreadsheet or notebook | Orbit | |
|---|---|---|
| Where the data comes from | You, later, from memory. | The message you send when the job finishes. |
| How up to date it is | As up to date as your last quiet evening. | As up to date as your last message. |
| Small jobs | Usually missing, because a row is more effort than the job feels worth. | One line, so they get recorded. |
| Making an invoice | A separate document, retyped from the sheet. | Drafted from the job you already recorded. |
| Finding what you charged before | Scrolling, or a filter, if the sheet has the job in it at all. | Ask in the chat. |
| Working on a phone | Possible, unpleasant, rarely done. | The only way it works. |
| What it costs | Nothing, plus the evenings and the work that never got billed. | R99 per tradesperson per month. |
The difference is when the record gets made.
Spreadsheets are underrated. They cost nothing, they do exactly what you tell them, and a tradesperson who genuinely keeps one current has a better view of their business than most people with software. The trouble is the word "current": a sheet is a record of the discipline you had last week, not of the work you did.
The failure is predictable and it is always the same shape. The big jobs go in, because they are memorable and worth the effort. The small ones do not, because a R450 callout does not feel like it justifies opening a laptop. Over a month, the sheet describes a business that does five large jobs, when the real one did five large jobs and nineteen small ones, eleven of which were never invoiced.
Orbit is being built to move the moment of recording from the evening to the job. Not because typing a message is more accurate than typing a row, but because you will actually do it. A record that exists is worth more than a better record that does not.
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 spreadsheet is still the right tool
If you are pricing a job, modelling what a rate change does to a year, or building a quote with thirty line items, use a spreadsheet — it is better at all three than any chat interface will be. Orbit is being built for capture, not for calculation.
The other comparison
Orbit vs job management apps. →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.