The best HVAC CRM for lead follow-up and booking estimates: 5 options compared

What is the best HVAC CRM for lead follow-up?

There is no single best HVAC CRM, because most HVAC software is built to run jobs, not to book them. For lead follow-up and booking estimates, judge a CRM on reply speed, texting, follow-up sequences and calendar booking. Field service platforms handle the job well. A marketing CRM handles the lead well.

I run onboarding and client operations at Scale Theory, which means I set up the CRM side of every account. So I should say up front where we stand: we use GoHighLevel for the lead layer, and we plug it into whatever field service software the contractor already runs. That is a bias, and you should read the rest of this post knowing it.

This comparison covers five tools: ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber, FieldEdge and GoHighLevel. It skips dispatch, pricebooks and payroll, which plenty of reviews already cover. It asks one question: when a homeowner fills in a form about a new central AC or heat pump, which tool gets them onto your calendar fastest, and keeps them warm after the estimate?

Every feature and price below comes from the vendor's own website, checked on October 1, 2026. Where a vendor does not publish a price, we say "pricing on request".

What should an HVAC CRM do for lead follow-up?

It should reply to every new lead by text and call within a minute, keep a two-way text thread on your business number, run follow-up sequences that stop when someone replies, let homeowners book an estimate slot, and show every lead's stage in a pipeline. Anything less leaves jobs to faster competitors.

Here are the eight jobs we test any CRM against:

1. First reply inside 60 seconds. An automatic text the moment the form lands, and a call straight after, at any hour.
2. Two-way texting. Replies land in one thread your team can see, from your business number, not a rep's cell.
3. Sequences that stop on reply. Day 1, 3 and 7 texts that end the moment the homeowner books, buys, says no or texts STOP.
4. Calendar booking. A homeowner can pick a real estimate slot, or your CSR can book one, without double entry.
5. A pipeline. Every lead has a stage: new, contacted, booked, estimate given, won, lost.
6. After-hours answering. Calls and texts at 9pm on a Saturday in July get a real response.
7. Lead source tracking. You can see which ad or channel produced each booked estimate, not just each form.
8. Texting compliance. Consent capture, STOP handling and A2P 10DLC registration for business texts sent from software.

A booked estimate is a qualified homeowner booked for an in-home estimate on your calendar, at a set time. Every item above exists to produce more of those.

How do the five HVAC CRMs compare?

The four field service platforms all include some lead tools, but the strongest follow-up features usually sit in higher tiers or add-ons. GoHighLevel puts follow-up at the center and leaves out the field service side entirely. Only Housecall Pro, Jobber and GoHighLevel publish prices on their own sites.

Prices are the vendors' own published list prices on October 1, 2026, before any promotions. Jobber was running a discount on annual plans when we checked, so the number you see may differ.

ServiceTitan

ServiceTitan's pricing page lists three plans, Starter, Essentials and The Works, each with a "Request Pricing" button and no dollar figures. Call booking appears on all three. For online booking, ServiceTitan sells Scheduling Pro, which it describes as letting customers book "based on real-time availability" from your website, Reserve with Google and text. Marketing Pro adds email and SMS campaigns, with templates to "Nurture leads" and "re-engage past customers".

The strength is one system your dispatchers already use. The catch is that the lead tools are separate products with pricing on request, and building a 60-second reply plus a day 1, 3 and 7 sequence takes someone who knows the platform well.

Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro publishes three plans: Basic at $79 a month billed monthly, Essentials at $189 and Max at $329, with lower prices billed annually. Online booking is on Basic: "book and pay online 24/7 directly from Google or your website." Its CSR AI "answers customer calls" and covers "nights, weekends, and holidays", and the company says it is "a paid feature" without listing a price on that page.

For follow-up beyond reminders and review requests, Housecall Pro points to Pipeline, which lets you "create custom automations with additional triggers, timing, and conditions." That is closer to a lead sequence, but check which plan includes it before you count on it.

Jobber

Jobber publishes the most detail. Core starts at $49 a month billed monthly and includes online booking. Automated follow-ups on pending estimates start on Connect at $139. Two-way SMS starts on Grow at $199. Plus, at $499, adds Pipeline, the Marketing Suite and an AI Receptionist, which is also sold as a $29 a month add-on. Jobber says its follow-ups catch estimates "that have gone quiet".

Jobber is built for smaller crews and does the basics cleanly. For an HVAC company spending real money on ads, the question is whether its follow-up timing is flexible enough, and Jobber's own pages do not spell that timing out.

FieldEdge

FieldEdge does not publish prices: "pricing can vary", and the page asks you to book a demo. Lead tracking, call booking and integrated SMS texting are listed on all three plans. Its marketing module, MarketingEdge with two-way texting, sits on the Elite plan and is described as letting you "engage prospects and customers with email, two-way texting, forms, and campaigns".

FieldEdge is built around HVAC and the other trades, so the job side fits well. For follow-up, you are likely looking at the top plan.

GoHighLevel

GoHighLevel publishes three plans: Starter at $97 a month, Unlimited at $297 and Agency Pro at $497, plus custom Enterprise pricing. CRM and pipelines, booking calendars and workflow automation are core features. SMS, Conversation AI and review tools are marked "Usage based charges apply", so texting and AI cost extra on top of the plan.

It has no dispatch board, no pricebook and no technician app for running installs. It is a marketing CRM. That is exactly why we use it at the lead stage: in our builds, workflows start on a form, a reply or a pipeline stage change, and we set the timing of every text ourselves.

Should you switch field service software to fix lead follow-up?

Almost never. Your dispatchers, techs and office already know your field service software, and migrating it takes months. Slow replies and missing follow-up are process problems you can fix in front of it. Add a lead layer that books estimates, then pass each booked estimate into the system you already run.

There are two sensible setups:

• Use your platform's own lead add-ons. If you are on ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber or FieldEdge and the add-ons cover all eight jobs above at a price you accept, keep it in one system. Ask for a demo of the exact sequence: form in, text out, call out, booked, follow-up on days 1, 3 and 7.
• Run a lead layer in front of it. A marketing CRM handles the lead from the first second to the booked estimate. Once the estimate is booked, the job goes into your field service software and your team works it as they do today.

What does not work is three tools that do not talk, and nobody sure who texted the homeowner last.

How does Scale Theory set up the CRM?

We run the lead layer in GoHighLevel, in a CRM account you log into and own. Qualified leads get a text and call inside 60 seconds, the estimate is booked on your calendar with the qualifier answers attached, and the follow-up texts run on days 1, 3 and 7. In most cases we push each booked estimate into your field service software.

The pieces, in order:

1. The form. Six tap-to-answer questions: home type, current system and age, replacement, new install or repair, timing, budget range, and homeowner or renter. Only qualified leads move into the active pipeline.
2. The first minute. A text in your company's name, then a call handled by an AI receptionist with a virtual assistant behind it, working to your booking rules.
3. The booking. Your calendar, your estimate slots. The homeowner gets a confirmation and reminders.
4. The handoff. In most cases we can push the booked estimate into ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro, Jobber or similar by webhook or Zapier-style automation. We confirm what is possible with your setup before we start. We have not built a native integration with any of them, and we will not pretend otherwise.
5. The follow-up. Texts on days 1, 3 and 7 after the estimate, signed by your comfort advisor, stopped the moment you mark the job won or lost. The full wording is in our post on HVAC lead follow-up.

We are new to the US market and have no HVAC client results to share yet. What we can show you is the exact build, on our HVAC CRM automation page.

What is a better CRM setup worth?

Usually more than the software costs. A CRM does not create leads, but it decides how many of the leads you already pay for become booked estimates. The way to judge any of these tools is the extra estimates it books, not its monthly fee.

Every number above is a planning assumption, not a client result. The booking rates and gross profit figure get replaced with your own once real leads run through the system. Our post on HVAC cost per lead explains why booked estimates, not leads, are the number to track.

Does the CRM setup change for Dallas HVAC contractors?

The tools are the same. The load is not. Dallas summers produce sharp spikes of urgent leads, often after hours, and the metro splits between electric and gas heat. Your CRM has to answer instantly at peak and tag each lead by system type so the right offer and follow-up go out.

NOAA's 1991 to 2020 normals for Dallas Fort Worth Airport show about 106 days a year at or above 90°F, and about 20 days at or above 100°F. On those days a broken AC is an emergency, and the homeowner books whoever answers first. A CRM that replies in 60 seconds at 8pm on a Sunday earns its fee in July.

Heating is mixed. The Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey shows about 60% of occupied homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro heat with electricity and about 37% with utility gas. So the pipeline needs to separate heat pump replacements from AC and furnace changeouts, because the estimate, the equipment and the day 3 follow-up text are different for each.

Rebates belong in the follow-up too. Oncor, which delivers electricity across much of north-central Texas including Dallas, runs a 2026 Home Energy Efficiency Standard Offer Program. Its program manual lists high efficiency central air conditioning and central heat pumps as eligible measures, with incentives paid through registered service providers who then pass them to the customer. If you are a registered provider and the job qualifies, the rebate line can go into the estimate follow-up. If not, leave it out.

For the local detail and territory status, see our Dallas HVAC marketing page. If you are losing leads before they ever reach the calendar, start with our post on HVAC booked estimates.

Alan

Co-founder. Onboarding and client operations

Alan runs onboarding and the day-to-day of every account: the CRM, the booking flow, the follow-up and the Friday report.

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