About ProBase

What Is ProBase?

Free field service management software for home service professionals — scheduling, route optimization, invoicing, payment collection, and customer management. No free trial. No feature tiers. No credit card. Free from day one.

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There's a version of running a service business where you finish your last job and you're actually done for the day.

Most home service professionals aren't living that version. They're finishing their last stop and then starting the second shift — the one that happens on their phone in the driveway, or at the kitchen table after dinner. Invoices. Tomorrow's route. The customer who called while you were mid-job. The quote you haven't sent yet.

"I know that every pool care pro has so much to do after you've cleaned your last pool. You're out there doing invoices, planning tomorrow's route, getting back to 3 customers, doing sales calls. It feels like this never-ending rat race."

— Steve Corcoran, Founder & CEO, ProBase

The rat race isn't a time management problem. It's a tools problem. And most tools charge you more every year for the privilege of solving it. Skimmer — the market leader in pool service software — doubled its per-pool rate in 2024. A 100-pool operator who didn't change a thing about their business went from paying $1,200/year to $2,400/year overnight.

$0
ProBase costs $0. No trial. No tiers. No credit card required.

Why Is ProBase Free?

Everyone's got to make money, us included. Here's how it works.

We partner with marketplaces that connect homeowners with service professionals. Through ProBase, you can pick up jobs from these marketplaces if you want to. We take a percentage of those jobs.

You're never required to take a single job from us. Every tool — scheduling, routing, invoicing, customer acquisition, all of it — is free whether you take marketplace jobs or not.

Why give it away? Because we need the best pros. And the way we get the best pros is by building something so good you'd be crazy not to use it.

What Does ProBase Do?

ProBase handles the full administrative layer of a field service business — so you finish your last job and you're actually done.

You stop losing hours to logistics

ProBase builds your route every day. When a customer cancels, the route adjusts. When you finish a stop, you send the invoice with a single tap. Customers tap a link, save a card, and pay through their own portal — no chasing checks, no follow-up calls.

Operators who switch to ProBase recover an average of 130 hours per year previously lost to scheduling, invoicing, and follow-up. The goal is simple: you finish your last job and you're done. Not done at 10pm — done.

Route management →

You stop losing history

At 80, 120, even 200 stops a week, no one remembers every detail from three weeks ago. ProBase ties every visit to a record — notes, photos, chemical readings (chlorine, pH, alkalinity, and more for pool service), and services performed — stored by customer, date, and visit.

When a client calls with a question, the answer is in the app in seconds. Not in your head. Not on a notepad that got rained on.

Service history →

You start getting tipped

Service professionals get tipped — but most customers pay online now, with no moment to hand over cash. ProBase builds a tipping prompt into every online payment, and customers use it.

Tip collection →

The Tipping Difference

Cash tips disappeared. ProBase brings them back — digitally.

"Our tipping software is the best in the world. If you're not making at least 11% of your income from tips, we can improve that."

— Steve Corcoran
52% of jobs receive a tip
18% average tip amount
+$1,404 per month on a 100-pool route
  • Rating first, tip second. Customers rate the visit before they see tip options — the ask only lands on positive sentiment.
  • One-tap presets. 15%, 20%, and 25% with the dollar amount pre-calculated. "No tip" is the same one tap away.
  • Paid with the invoice. Tip rides along with the invoice payment — no separate transaction, no extra fees, payout hits your account instantly.

LawnStarter internal data across 500,000+ home service customers. Revenue estimate assumes $150 average invoice. Neither Skimmer nor Pool Brain has tip collection built in.

See how tip collection works →
The one thing no competitor does

You get new customers — not just manage the ones you have.

Every competitor — Skimmer, Pool Brain, Pool Founder — manages the customers you already have. If you want to grow, that's your problem. ProBase connects you to the LawnStarter and Lawn Love marketplaces, where homeowners are actively looking for service professionals right now.

You set your availability. You choose what you accept. You can ignore it entirely and never lose a single feature. But when you want more work, it's there — and no other software in this category can say the same.

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How Does ProBase Compare?

The pool software market has one dominant player, one enterprise option, and several mid-market alternatives. Here's the honest picture.

The Others ProBase
Monthly cost
$40–$200+ / mo $0
Per-pool fee
Up to $2 / pool None
Free forever
Trials only Yes, permanently
New customers
You're on your own Marketplace built in

Comparison reflects standard tiers at Skimmer, Pool Brain, Pool Founder, and PoolDial as of 2026.

On pricing

Skimmer's per-pool model means your software bill grows every time your business grows. Add 20 pools, add $40/month. ProBase is flat zero regardless of how many customers you have or how fast you grow.

On Skimmer specifically

Skimmer doubled its price in 2024. The pros who were on the $1/pool tier got moved to $2/pool. No grandfathering for long-term customers. That's the risk of per-pool pricing — the company controls your costs, not you. Full comparison →

What ProBase doesn't have yet

LSI calculators, QuickBooks integration, and offline mode are on the roadmap but not in the current build. If your daily workflow depends on Bluetooth water testing synced to a dosing calculator, Skimmer is worth the cost. If you're logging chemicals, running routes, and billing customers — which is most of what most pool pros do, most days — ProBase handles all of it for free.

Comparison

Skimmer vs ProBase

$200/month vs. $0. Feature-by-feature breakdown.

See comparison →
Comparison

Pool Brain vs ProBase

Enterprise pricing vs. no pricing. What you give up and what you gain.

See comparison →
Comparison

Spreadsheets vs ProBase

Google Sheets works until it doesn't. Here's where the gap shows.

See comparison →

Who Is ProBase For?

Service businesses running 1 to 5 crews and 50 to 200+ stops a week. The owners who are still close to the work — scheduling at the kitchen table, answering the phone between jobs, and probably still on the truck themselves a few days a week. ProBase was designed for you.

ProBase is not designed for large commercial operations with 20+ crews, enterprise dispatch, or corporate billing workflows. Those operations have different problems. ProBase is built for the professional running their business from their phone between stops — and who shouldn't need to pay $200/month to do it.

The first beta cohort is pool service. Lawn care and other home services are next.

Who Built It?

Steve Corcoran founded ProBase after more than a decade running home services operations business, LawnStarter. Founded in 2013, LawnStarter scaled to over 500,000 pool and lawn customers nationwide.

That scale matters because it shows up in ProBase. The tipping system was built and tested across half a billion real service transactions before it came to ProBase. The route logic was developed by people who know what a 100-stop week looks like. This isn't a product built by developers guessing at what a service route feels like.

How Do I Get Started?

ProBase is currently in beta with pool service professionals. There's no credit check, no commitment, and no minimum. Setup takes less than five minutes.

1

Run through the setup wizard

Four steps. Business name, service area, payment setup. Under five minutes from first screen to running.

2

Import your customer list

CSV, PDF, or a photo of your spreadsheet. ProBase pulls in your existing customers — no manual re-entry.

3

Start your first route

Works from any browser. Optimized for mobile. Add it to your home screen on iOS or Android for an app-like experience.

"What we're doing at ProBase is trying to do something that sounds very simple, but it's hard. It will save you 5 minutes here, 10 minutes here, 1 mile a day with a slightly better route. We're doing that all for free.

"My promise to you is I'll be working here at 10 at night just like you are so that I can get you 1 hour back, 2 hours back, a weekend free, time with your family. That's ProBase."

— Steve Corcoran, Founder & CEO

Frequently asked questions

Answers to what pool pros ask most about ProBase.

Yes. There is no free trial and no credit card required. The software is free permanently. ProBase makes money when pros choose to accept jobs from partner marketplaces — but that participation is never required. If you never accept a single marketplace job, every feature stays free.
The current beta is focused on pool cleaning and maintenance. The platform is built for home service professionals broadly — lawn care and other service types are coming next.
No. Marketplace participation is entirely optional. You run your own customers, set your own schedule, and keep full access to the software regardless of whether you ever accept a single marketplace job.
You do. Your customer list, service history, payment records — all yours. ProBase never sells customer data to third parties, and you can export everything anytime. If you ever decide to leave, you walk out with your data intact.
Skimmer costs $2/pool/month — $2,400/year for a 100-pool operation — and doubled its price in 2024. ProBase is $0. Skimmer has a more developed chemistry toolset (LSI calculator, LaMotte integration). ProBase has tipping, customer acquisition through marketplace jobs, and no price risk. See the full ProBase vs. Skimmer comparison.
Yes — and this is the part most pool pros get wrong. Your customers' saved cards live in Stripe, not in Skimmer. Stripe runs an official "Copy customers" process that moves all of your card and ACH data to your new ProBase-connected Stripe account in under 72 hours. Customers don't have to re-enter anything. What doesn't transfer (on any platform) is your recurring billing setup — we walk you through recreating that during onboarding. Real humans, free, one billing cycle to go live.
Yes. ProBase uses Stripe Connect — each pro gets their own Stripe account that they own. Card details are entered directly into Stripe's PCI-compliant payment form and never touch ProBase's servers. We process payments through your Stripe account; we don't own it. If you ever leave ProBase, your Stripe account goes with you, payment history exports as CSV, and saved customer cards can be copied to your next platform.
ProBase runs in any browser and is optimized for mobile. You can add it to your home screen on iOS or Android for an app-like experience. Note: ProBase currently requires an internet connection — it does not support offline mode.
Steve Corcoran founded ProBase after more than a decade running LawnStarter, a home services operations business that scaled to over 500,000 pool and lawn customers nationwide. That experience — building routes, processing payments, running the operational side of home services at scale — is what ProBase is built on. Learn more.

Stop losing evenings to admin work.

Join pool pros in the ProBase beta. Free. No credit card. No commitment. Setup in under five minutes.

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