AroFlo (NZ) vs Invven

Full field-service management for established AU/NZ trade businesses

Full field-service management for established trade businesses across Australia and New Zealand. It sits between ServiceM8 (simple) and Simpro (enterprise) — strong on field-to-office workflow, compliance/safety forms, and asset and project management. It is now part of the global Simpro Group.

Pros

• + Strong field-service depth (compliance forms, assets, project Gantt, stock)
• + Large ANZ base (30,000+ tradespeople)
• + NZ support line
• + New AI layer (AroFlo Lightning)

Cons

• − No public pricing (demo/quote only)
• − AU-centric; lighter NZ localisation than ServiceM8
• − Learning curve
• − Simpro-owned — portfolio-overlap questions over time

NZ-built jobs, invoicing and inventory in one, with cost prices hidden from customer documents

A young Auckland-built alternative to the established NZ stack, pitching the same operator-authenticity argument Fergus already owns. Founded by Shane Smale, who names himself publicly and has owned and operated a New Zealand motorhome dealership for 27 years: adjacent to the building trades rather than of them, which is worth knowing when weighing the domain-expertise claim. Published tiers from NZD $29 to $159 and a self-serve 14-day trial with no card. The real differentiator is inventory-aware invoicing: live stock levels while you build the invoice, and cost price that never reaches a customer-facing document.

Pros

• + Company independently verifiable on the NZ Companies Office register (NZBN 9429053630247), which most vendors this young are not
• + Founder named publicly and verifiably: Shane Smale, on the About page, alongside a registered NZ company number. He added his name within hours of us publishing the anonymity as a con, which is the response we would want from any vendor and the opposite of the usual one
• + Genuine self-serve purchase: sign-up works and the 14-day trial takes no credit card
• + Inventory-aware invoicing is a real differentiator: live stock levels while quoting, and cost price never appears on any customer document

Cons

• − The AI Receptionist is a paid add-on from $39 NZD+GST and is NOT included in the free trial, despite being the headline feature on the homepage and in the vendor's own submission. Verified 2026-08-31.
• − WhatsApp messaging is metered at $0.05 per message on top of the plan price
• − All billing is processed in NZD regardless of the currency displayed, so non-NZ buyers carry the FX conversion and their card issuer's rate. Note the vendor removed the contradictory US-targeting clause from its terms on 2026-09-01 after we raised it, verified the same day.
• − About 5.5 months old (domain registered 2026-03-13), so there is no track record on reliability, pricing stability or support