Aspire got one thing right: the estimate should be the budget, and every hour, receipt and change order should land against it. Shortcut runs that same loop. The difference is what it costs to own: a flat price per crew, a migration that happens overnight, and a crew app your crews actually open.
A 20-minute call to see if Shortcut fits how you run. Running 1–2 crews? Start a free trial
Every claim about Aspire here was checked on . Sources below.
Aspire prices by quote. Operators and third-party comparisons report 0.5 to 1 percent of annual revenue, plus implementation. Put in your numbers.9, 4
Aspire
$17,388–35,988
per year, before the hire and the fee
Shortcut
$21,600
$17,280 billed yearly. Unlimited users, everything included.
A reviewer on Capterra: "it's a full time job to properly manage the software for a team." That line is why the hire is on the receipt.4
Pricing
Aspire quotes privately; operators and third-party comparisons report the range.9, 4
Time to go live
Per Aspire's own comparison page.1
Property measurement
PropertyIntel is sold separately.10
What people say about Aspire, and what we built instead
Three things come up in nearly every review and every operator conversation. Each one is a design decision in Shortcut.
$180 per crew per month, or $144 billed yearly. Unlimited users. Everything on this page is included. Your bill goes up when you add a crew, never when you add a customer or an office hire.
In Aspire: Quote-only. Reported at 0.5 to 1 percent of revenue, with implementation fees, annual contracts, and three tiers. Purchasing needs Corporate. Inventory needs Enterprise. Takeoff is a separate product. No free trial.4, 9
We move your data overnight. Both systems run side by side for two weeks while you check it. One working session seeds your price book and your cost model from what you already run. Crews switch on a Monday with us on the phone.
In Aspire: Aspire's own comparison page says 30 days for Growth and up to 90 for Corporate and Enterprise. Its implementation guide calls days 0 to 120 "the grind." Reviewers describe a learning curve "still happening years later" and consultants who know the product better than support.1, 2, 4
Today's route or today's phase. Clock in the whole crew in one tap. Works offline and syncs when back in service. Photos, notes, a declared percent complete, and a one-tap flag when the crew finds something. No dollars on their screen.
In Aspire: Aspire Mobile, the app replacing Crew Mobile, sits at 2.2 of 5 from 64 ratings on the US App Store. Recent reviews report crashes, lag opening tickets, and random clock-ins. Managers say they "often return to desktop."3, 5
The idea Aspire got right, done in one click
This is the loop Aspire charges a percentage of your revenue for. Here it is in Shortcut, start to finish, with the moments that usually cost a landscape company money.
01Price book, in your order
Your items appear in the order your people have used for years, with cost and sell side by side. Search is there when you want it. The same order runs through the crew checklist and closeout.
02Estimate
Every line carries your cost, markup and price. Direct cost, overhead, break-even and margin update as you type. A three-line enhancement takes a maintenance estimate plus two or three fields.
03Approval
The customer signs, or you mark it approved from a phone call. Phases are created, the budget locks as the baseline, the deposit invoice goes out, milestones are set, and the penciled schedule turns real.
04In the field
The crew lead sees today's phase, clocks in like always, and at the end of the day declares where it stands with a note and photos. The office confirms, and that confirmation is what releases the milestone invoice.
05Change found
One tap, a photo and a voice note, timestamped. The office prices it with the schedule impact shown, and the customer approves from their phone. Real life doesn't always wait, so there's also authorize now, price later.
06Closeout
Hours and materials, estimated against actual, per phase. Returns credited back. Unbilled change-order work caught before the final invoice. Over-runs tagged site condition or estimating miss, so the next bid learns.
Side by side
Aspire's cells come from its product pages, release notes, community forum and public reviews.
| Feature | Shortcut | Aspire |
|---|---|---|
| Price and terms | ||
| Pricing | $180 per crew per month, flat. $144 billed yearly. Unlimited users, no add-ons, no implementation fee. | Quote-based. Reported at 0.5 to 1 percent of annual revenue, plus implementation fees and annual contracts. Three tiers: Growth, Corporate (adds purchasing), Enterprise (adds inventory).4, 9 |
| Free trial | 14 days, no card, for companies running one or two crews. | None. |
| Implementation | Migrated overnight. Two weeks side by side. One working session seeds your price book and cost model. | 30 days for Growth, up to 90 days for Corporate and Enterprise, per Aspire's comparison page. Often with a paid consultant.1 |
| Support | Same day, from the team that built it. Text the founder. | Weekday ticket queue. Reviewers report admin-only access and escalation delays. |
| Estimating and job costing | ||
| Estimating a small job | A three-line enhancement is a maintenance estimate plus two or three fields. Sheet mode for packages you bid every week. Catalog in your order, search second. | Kits and templates with management-approved markups. Reviewers describe a steep learning curve and 30-minute estimates. |
| Margin before you send | Direct cost, overhead, break-even and margin update live, red against your target, before the estimate goes out. | Markups and profit factored into pricing. Costing is a report you run afterward. |
| Estimate to schedule | One click: phases, locked baseline, deposit invoice, milestones, crew schedule. Hours become days against real crew capacity. | Won bids become work tickets, then a separate scheduling pass. |
| Reporting | Fixed views that answer three questions: am I charging enough, did I make money, where am I leaking. Every number labeled measured or modeled, with sample sizes. | Custom report designer and advanced search. |
| Installs and billing | ||
| Change orders | Field flag with photo and timestamp. Priced with the schedule impact shown. Customer approves on their phone. Authorize now, price later when the job can't wait. | Linked to the original estimate. "Change orders are annoying. If a mistake is made, very difficult to fix." (SoftwareAdvice review, July 2026)5 |
| Deposits and progress billing | Deposit, progress and final invoices. Office review releases each milestone. Billed ahead of progress is shown plainly. | Progress billing, earned vs invoiced, WIP, month-end close. |
| Dispatch and the crew app | ||
| Dispatch and routing | One board for maintenance and installs. Fleet route optimization, AI schedule fixes and crew balancing, preview and undo on every change. | Drag-and-drop work tickets. Users report sequencing routes in Google Maps. |
| Crew app | Offline with safe sync, whole-crew clock-in, photos and notes, progress declared per phase, one-tap change flag. No dollars shown to crews. | Aspire Mobile: 2.2 of 5, 64 ratings on the US App Store. Recent reviews cite crashes and lag. (Checked Oct 2, 2026)3 |
| Money | ||
| Payments and collections | Cards, ACH, Apple Pay, Google Pay. Autopay with recorded consent. Pay by text. Late fees and overdue reminders on your rules. A cleared deposit is what makes a project schedulable. | Card payments through Clover Connect. No autopay in the customer portal. Collections through partner agencies.6, 7 |
| QuickBooks | One-way sync of invoices, payments, refunds, fees and payouts, with install and maintenance revenue mapped separately. | One-way summary posting. Reviewers call it rigid, with errors "locked in." |
| Everything else | ||
| Chemical programs | Programs with seasonal rounds, EPA label lookup, application records with the weather filled in, filing exports. | Not featured on Aspire's product pages. |
| Property measurement | Satellite measurement included. Plan PDFs attach to install estimates. | PropertyIntel, sold separately at $199 to $499 per month.10 |
Aspire features and claims as of Oct 2, 2026, from youraspire.com, community.youraspire.com, the Apple App Store, Capterra and SoftwareAdvice. Tell us if something has changed and we'll update the row.
Switching from Aspire
It happens at night, not over a quarter. You give us read access to your Aspire account. We move the data while your crews sleep, both systems run side by side while you check it, and your crews switch on a Monday with us on the phone. No fee. No consultant.
Aspire is one of the systems our import tool already reads, alongside LMN, Service Autopilot, RealGreen and Jobber.
What it costs
Everything included, unlimited users, billed only for the crews you run. Migration, onboarding, and support: no fee.
Running 1 or 2 crews? Start a 14-day free trial, no card.
$180per crew
per month
Save 20%Pay yearly: $144 per crew per month. That's $432 back per crew, every year.
Your first year next to Aspire is in the receipt at the top. Change the revenue and crews to see your own.
When you have an issue
Every Shortcut customer gets a direct line to our team, including me. The same people who moved your data answer you, same day, every day. If you've spent a week waiting on a ticket, you already know why that matters.
Chance Heath, founder
What an Aspire customer asks on the first call, in plain words.
Shortcut is $180 per crew per month, or $144 per crew billed yearly, with unlimited users and no add-ons, implementation fee or annual contract. Aspire does not publish pricing. Operators and third-party comparisons report 0.5 to 1 percent of annual revenue, plus an implementation fee, with purchasing on the Corporate tier and inventory on Enterprise. A company doing $3M a year is typically quoted $15,000 to $30,000 for the license alone.
The data moves overnight. Both systems then run side by side for up to two weeks while you check customers, properties, catalog items, open projects and invoices. Crews switch on a Monday with our team on the phone for the first eight hours. Aspire's own comparison page puts its implementation at 30 to 90 days.
Yes. The approved estimate becomes the budget. Labor lands against it from the time clock, materials from the crew's checklist, and change orders fold into the contract value. You see sold margin against projected margin while the job is running, and the realized margin at closeout with the reason for any overrun. Shortcut labels every number as measured or modeled and shows sample sizes, so you know what's real.
Yes. A crew flags a change with a photo and a timestamp, the office prices it with the schedule impact, and the customer approves from their phone. When the work can't wait, the office can authorize it now and price it later. Billing runs deposit, progress and final, and each milestone is released by an office review of the phase.
Crews never see dollars. Whether they see budgeted hours is your call: hide them, show the true number, or show an adjusted target. Office surfaces always show the real figures.
Both, as long as you run crews. Shortcut is built for a company with 5 to 30 crews doing maintenance, enhancements and installs, and an office of a few people.
Book 20 minutes with the team that built Shortcut. Bring that estimate and your messiest week, and we'll tell you straight whether Shortcut fits.
Rather skip the form? Open the calendar. Running 1 or 2 crews? Start a 14-day free trial, no card.