Switched from pen-and-paper to ServiceTitan — my honest review after 6 months

I resisted software for years. Ran my plumbing company on paper invoices, a whiteboard schedule, and QuickBooks Desktop. It worked fine until we hit 5 techs and I started losing track of jobs. Made the switch to ServiceTitan 6 months ago. Here's my honest take. The Good: - Dispatching is night and day. I can see where every tech is, what they're working on, and who's available. No more calling around. - Online booking through our website generates about 15 new leads per month that we weren't getting before. - Invoice → payment is seamless. Techs close the job, customer pays on the spot with a card. Cash flow improved immediately. - The reporting is incredible. I can see revenue per tech, average ticket, close rate, all without doing any math. The Bad: - Cost. We're paying about $2,400/month for 5 users. That's painful for a small company. If you're under $500K revenue, I'm not sure it pencils out. - The learning curve was brutal. Took about 6 weeks before the team was comfortable. Lots of grumbling. - Their "success manager" is a glorified upseller. Every call was about buying more features. - Customization is limited. The pricebook setup took forever and their support for it is mediocre. The Ugly: - You're locked in. Once your whole operation runs on it, switching is a nightmare. They know this and price accordingly. - Some features feel like they were designed for companies 10x our size. We don't need most of what we're paying for. Overall: glad we switched. The dispatching and reporting alone justify the cost. But I wish there were a "ServiceTitan Lite" for companies our size. We're paying for a Cadillac when a Camry would do.