Skimmer’s cheapest plan is $1 per serviced pool address a month, and it’s called Getting Started. The name makes it sound like the same software on a smaller bill. It isn’t. Route optimization, recurring work orders, quotes and estimates, scheduling and the dosing calculator all come with Scaling Up, Skimmer’s $2 plan, not with Getting Started. Pool Brain charges one price that includes all its features.
So before setting Skimmer’s price beside Pool Brain’s, pick the Skimmer plan your route would actually run on. If you need those tools, the match-up is Scaling Up against Pool Brain, and the answer comes from two counts you already have: pools serviced in a month and techs in the field.
Skimmer bills per serviced pool location each month: $1 on Getting Started with a $49 minimum, or $2 on Scaling Up with a $98 minimum, with unlimited technicians and admins on both. Pool Brain bills $50 a month for unlimited office users plus $65 a month per active field technician, with all features included. Scaling Up and Pool Brain cost the same when your serviced pools equal 25 + 32.5 × your active techs: about 58 pools with 1 tech, 90 with 2 and 123 with 3. Service more pools than that and Pool Brain’s list price is lower; service fewer and Scaling Up’s is.
Figures are US list prices for new sign-ups from getskimmer.com, poolbrain.com and each company’s help center, checked on October 17, 2026. None of it comes from using either product. Every total here leaves out Skimmer add-ons, card-processing fees and tax, and both companies can change their prices. The math is written for a pool company running from an owner-operator up to about five field techs and roughly 40 to 250 serviced pools a month.
One bills per pool address, the other per tech in the field
| Plan | What you pay | Minimum and who’s covered |
|---|---|---|
| Skimmer Getting Started | $1 per serviced location a month | $49 a month, covering 49 locations; unlimited techs and admins |
| Skimmer Scaling Up | $2 per serviced location a month | $98 a month, covering 49 locations; unlimited techs and admins |
| Pool Brain | $50 a month + $65 per active field tech | Priced per active field tech; unlimited office users; all features, no plan tiers |
Skimmer’s minimum covers your first 49 locations, and each one past that adds $1 or $2. Skimmer’s own billing FAQ puts 100 serviced locations at about $200 a month on Scaling Up and about $100 on Getting Started. Companies servicing more than 1,000 pools a month get custom pricing.
Pool Brain’s bill moves with people instead. Three active field techs come to $50 + 3 × $65 = $245 a month, the same figure Pool Brain uses on its own comparison page.
What Getting Started leaves out
These come with Scaling Up at $2 a location and are not on the $1 Getting Started plan:
- Route optimization
- Recurring work orders
- Quotes and estimates
- Job management and scheduling
- LSI and dosing calculator
- Unlimited service texts (Getting Started pays $0.029 per text)
- Live phone support
If your route needs any of them, the comparison that matches like with like is Scaling Up against Pool Brain. Getting Started is the lower-cost option only if you can run your route without them. That’s a statement about which plan carries which tools, not about how well either company builds them; the full plan grid is on Skimmer’s pricing page.
Your route as two numbers
Let P be the pool addresses you service in a month and T your active field techs. Each bill is then:
Skimmer Getting Started = $1 × P, or $49 if P is 49 or fewer
Skimmer Scaling Up = $2 × P, or $98 if P is 49 or fewer
Pool Brain = $50 + $65 × T
Five hypothetical routes, each with its inputs in the first column:
| Route | Getting Started | Scaling Up | Pool Brain |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 pools, 1 tech | $49 (min.) | $98 (min.) | $115 |
| 70 pools, 1 tech | $70 | $140 | $115 |
| 120 pools, 2 techs | $120 | $240 | $180 |
| 150 pools, 3 techs | $150 | $300 | $245 |
| 240 pools, 3 techs | $240 | $480 | $245 |
Setting the Scaling Up line equal to Pool Brain’s gives 2 × P = 50 + 65 × T, so the two cost the same at P = 25 + 32.5 × T. At list price that’s about 58 serviced pools with 1 active tech, 90 with 2, 123 with 3, 155 with 4 and 188 with 5. Above the number for your tech count, Pool Brain’s list price is lower; below it, Scaling Up’s is.
The crossing point per tech slides as you add techs, from about 58 pools each with 1 tech to about 38 each with 5. So I wouldn’t carry a pools-per-tech rule of thumb into this decision. Start from your own tech count and read off the pool number for it.
Getting Started crosses Pool Brain at P = 50 + 65 × T: 115 pools with 1 tech, 180 with 2 and 245 with 3. That line only matters if your route can run without the Scaling Up tools listed above.
What a slow month does to each bill
Skimmer bills a serviced location once a month: several visits, or several pools and spas at one address, still count once. A location you don’t service that month isn’t billed, and you don’t need to delete it. The bill only falls to the plan minimum, though. Skimmer has no pause option, so a month with no service at all still costs $49 on Getting Started or $98 on Scaling Up.
Pool Brain’s bill tracks active field techs, so servicing fewer pools doesn’t lower it by itself.
Here’s how that plays out for a hypothetical company with 3 active techs that services 150 pools in a summer month and 90 in a winter month. Scaling Up goes from $300 to $180, and Getting Started from $150 to $90. Pool Brain stays at $245 if all 3 techs remain active; Pool Brain prices per active field technician and doesn’t publish how it counts a tech who goes idle or is deactivated partway through a month. Between Scaling Up and Pool Brain, the lower list price is Pool Brain’s in that summer month and Scaling Up’s in that winter month.
That flip is why I’d run the formulas for your slowest month as well as your busiest one before choosing.
Before the first full bill
At the time of checking, Skimmer let new users cancel and request a refund of the subscription fee within the first 30 days, and offered a limited-time first month free on Scaling Up through its promo link, while Pool Brain offered a 30-day free trial. Both publish monthly prices, and with either one you cancel yourself from inside the app.
If a general field-service app is also on your shortlist, how two general field-service apps price their plans for a small HVAC team works through per-user plan choice the same way. And if your techs share one business number for customer calls and texts, what a small crew sharing one business phone number pays per user covers that separate bill.
The order I’d work in: decide which Skimmer plan your route would really need, put your own tech count into 25 + 32.5 × T, and hold the result against the pools you service in a normal month and in your slowest one. Then confirm today’s rates on Skimmer’s pricing page, Skimmer’s billing FAQ and Pool Brain’s pricing page before you sign up.