I run a small pest control crew. Two trucks. Lots of ants. A few snakes. Before software, my “system” was sticky notes and a lucky clipboard. It was chaos. Spring swarm season hit, and I lost a whole day because I forgot Mrs. Jensen’s termite re-check. I felt awful.
So I tried real pest control software. Not just any job app. The pest stuff. I used these in real life, with real bugs, real clients, and real coffee stains in the truck.
- GorillaDesk (1 year, my shop)
- PestPac by WorkWave (8 months, when I joined a mid-size firm)
- FieldRoutes (6 months, during a growth push)
- Housecall Pro (4 months, when I first started solo)
Let me explain what happened, the good and the bad. I’ll keep it plain. (The full play-by-play lives over here if you’re curious.)
The Day I Switched To GorillaDesk
I stuck with GorillaDesk the longest. It just fit my brain.
- The calendar felt clean. I dragged jobs to color-coded routes. Monday went green. Mosquito routes stayed blue. Easy on the eyes.
- Text reminders cut my no-shows. Folks replied “Y” more than I thought. I even got a “Thank you!” from a man who worked nights.
- I logged chemicals in the field. EPA reg number, amount, site. Texas wants that during audits. I printed the report in two clicks. My hands stopped shaking.
- I took before-and-after photos of a rodent job. I attached them to the visit. The owner paid on the spot. Square through the app. No chasing checks.
- Device tracking saved me on a big warehouse. We barcoded the bait stations. My tech scanned them row by row. Missed one? The app called it out.
If you want to see how other operators rate it, the crowd-sourced insights in these GorillaDesk reviews lined up with my own experience.
What bugged me: the mobile app got slow with no signal. A crawl space turned it cranky. I learned to sync in the truck first. Also, custom forms were okay, not fancy. I built a simple WDI form, but it wasn’t pretty.
Still, GorillaDesk felt steady. Like a good wrench.
PestPac: Heavy Gear For Big Crews
I used PestPac at a 20-tech company. Lots of routes. Lots of detail.
- Route Manager showed drive time. It stacked stops smart. Saved fuel on my ant “milk runs” in June.
- Termite renewals? Pure relief. It sent letters, emails, and billed the plan. Folks paid more on time. My boss actually smiled. Rare sight.
- NPMA-33 (WDI) forms looked sharp. We drew quick diagrams. Lenders were happy. Less back-and-forth.
- Reporting ran deep. I could see cancel reasons. Tech time per stop. Even callbacks by pest type. It helped training.
But wow, setup took a while. Training was a whole thing. We had weekly calls. And it cost more. Support was kind, though tickets bounced a bit during busy months (I’ve seen queues melt down before—this real-life queue software story still rings in my ears). It felt like a semi truck—powerful, but you don’t whip it around.
FieldRoutes: Fast Moves, A Few Bumps
I switched to FieldRoutes when we chased door-to-door sales in summer. It worked for that fast pace.
- We booked from the sales app on porches. E-sign right there. The scheduler dropped jobs into open slots. Less back-office chaos. That kind of smooth lead routing reminded me of the headaches (and wins) I captured in this no-fluff review.
- Batch scheduling made mosquito Fridays smooth. We ran 60 houses in a loop and shaved about 45 minutes off the route.
- The customer portal was clean. People moved appointments, paid, and added notes like “gate code 4280, dog is nice.” Bless those notes.
- I liked “pause for winter” on mosquito plans. It tracked holds and started again in spring. No weird spreadsheets.
Cons? The mapping glitched in a cul-de-sac near the lake. It kept reordering stops silly. Also, during a heat wave, the sales app crashed twice. Not all day—just annoying. Pricing was per active account, so my bill swung with season.
If you’re still comparison-shopping, FieldRoutes put together a handy breakdown of popular pest control CRM apps that helps map features to company size and growth goals.
Housecall Pro: Simple, But Not Pest-Specific
When I was solo, Housecall Pro felt light and quick.
- Online booking worked. Folks grabbed Saturday morning slots without calling. That helped while I was under a sink.
- Postcards and emails for follow-ups were easy. My fall rodent push landed some nice attic jobs.
- It handled HVAC for a buddy who subbed with me, too. Nice if you juggle trades.
But it’s not built for pesticides. I had to make custom fields for chemical logs. No real device barcodes. WDI forms took extra steps with a PDF workaround. It’s a good starter, but once termites took over my week, I needed more.
Real Moments That Sold Me
- Spring audit: The inspector asked for March usage logs. GorillaDesk spit out the report with EPA numbers and totals. Two pages. Done. My heart slowed down.
- Bed bug treatment series: PestPac auto-scheduled my 7-day and 14-day follow-ups. No missed visits. No angry landlord.
- Warehouse rodent plan: With barcodes in GorillaDesk, I found the three stations no one checked. We fixed placement and cut activity in a week.
- Door-to-door summer: FieldRoutes turned same-day sales into same-day routes. Charge, sign, schedule. Less back-office work for me at 9 p.m.
- If you want to see the math behind shaving miles off a route, Cupid Systems has a quick explainer that's worth two cups of coffee.
Money Talk (What I Paid, Roughly)
Prices change, so take this as a feel, not a quote.
- GorillaDesk: I paid around the price of a nice tank of gas per tech each month. Add-ons raised it a bit.
- Housecall Pro: Cheaper at first. Great for one or two people.
- FieldRoutes: Charged me based on active customers. Could jump in summer.
- PestPac: Most costly. But it had the most tools.
I always ran a trial first. Always. Moved one route, one tech, then grew from there.
Things I Wish Someone Told Me
- Data move is never “click and done.” Clean your customer list first. Fix duplicates. Fix addresses. Future you will thank past you.
- Offline matters. Crawl spaces and barns eat signal. Test the app with your phone in airplane mode. It’s the same mindset I took into my supply-chain compliance experiment — test under real-world stress, not the showroom demo.
- Barcode labels peel in heat. Get good ones. Clean the station before sticking. Learned that the sweaty way.
- Train your techs. Then train again. Little habits add up—photos every time, chemical logs every stop, notes that help.
My Short Picks
- Solo or two techs, pest-first features: GorillaDesk. It hits the sweet spot.
- Fast growth with door-to-door: FieldRoutes. Quick booking, clean portal.
- Big company with complex billing, termite plans, deep reports: PestPac. Heavy gear, but it pays off when you have the crew.
- Starter, mixed trades, simple jobs: Housecall Pro. Gets you moving, then you may outgrow it.
Final Word (From A Truck That Smells Like Cinnamon Spray)
Software didn’t fix everything. I still carry a headlamp, extra glue boards, and a cooler. But the right app saved hours. Fewer missed stops. Fewer “Hey, where’s my invoice?” calls. More nights home for tacos.
Tech isn’t all route maps and chemical logs—after a 12-hour crawl-space marathon, sometimes a quick break to meet new people helps reset your brain. I’ve jumped onto MeetNFuck for spur-of-the-moment chats and casual local meetups, a fast way to unwind before the next day of ant hills and attic rats. For those nights when my route took me up near Calhoun County, I also scrolled through local classifieds like Backpage Battle Creek which filters out the spam and surfaces real, up-to-date listings, making it easy to snag a low-key coffee or conversation while the sprayer batteries recharge.
You know what? Pick the one you’ll actually use every day. Set it up right. Make one neat workflow. Then stick to it. The bugs won’t wait, and