Christmas Light Installation Software in 2026: The 6 Best Tools Compared, With Real Prices

The short version: lighting software has to measure the roofline, quote per foot, and rebook in September

For a seasonal installer the trade-fitting pick is QuoteIQ, from $29.99 a month, with satellite roofline measurement on its $74.99 tier and automated rebooking of last year's customers; the mockup tool that closes the sale is Strandr at $197 a year, which is design software rather than a CRM; and the safest general pick for a company that does another trade the rest of the year is Jobber Core at $29 or Housecall Pro Basic at $59. The only tool on this list built to get you found on Google is ServicePro, which is free. If the business does not exist yet, the Christmas light start guide covers the inventory and the season.

Here is the whole field, with prices taken from each vendor's own pricing page on September 5, 2026.

Every tool above except ServicePro manages the job after the homeowner has asked for a quote. The section after the reviews covers the other half: how an installer gets found in September, which none of the five do.

What lighting software has to do that general contractor software does not

Christmas light installation is a seventy-day season sold in the first thirty: quotes per linear foot from the roofline, an early-bird price with a deadline, install weeks assigned in the order booked, takedown in January, storage, and a rebooking email in September that fills a third of next season before an ad runs. General contractor software has none of that as a first-class object.

The features that matter, in the order they book the season:

• Roofline measurement from the address. Linear feet of roofline, peaks and pathways from satellite imagery, so the quote goes out in minutes without a site visit.
• Per-foot quoting with a package. Rooflines, trees and columns at $2 to $5 a foot from our pricing guide, the minimum, lights included or the customer's own, takedown and storage in the number.
• The mockup. A photo of the customer's house with the lights drawn on, which closes the sale the way a render closes a deck.
• Install-week scheduling. Slots assigned in booking order, with the crew's route by area.
• Takedown and storage. A second job auto-created for January, and a record of whose lights are in which bin.
• Rebooking. Every past customer emailed and texted in September with last year's price and a photo of their own house, with a self-booking link.
• Review requests on the evening of the install.

What installers are commonly upsold and rarely need: year-round pricing for a tool used for seventy days, and features built for the summer trade if this is the only one.

QuoteIQ: measurement, per-foot quoting and September rebooking

QuoteIQ was built for exterior cleaning contractors, and the satellite measuring tool built for pricing a house wash from the address measures a roofline just as well, which is why it has become the CRM most holiday lighting companies evaluate first.

Pricing as of September 2026, from QuoteIQ's pricing page: Essentials is $29.99 a month ($25 annual) for one user with estimates, invoices, scheduling and online payments; Beginner is $74.99 for two users and adds MapMeasure Pro, e-signatures and the Review Multiplier; Pro is $149.99 for four users with email and text automation; Elite is $299 with mass campaigns, which QuoteIQ's holiday lighting page recommends for multi-crew operations; Max is $699 for unlimited users. 14-day trial, no contract, and the price is locked once you are a customer.

Best for: an installer with one to three crews who wants the quote from the address, per-foot pricing from a saved list, self-booking for returning customers, and the September rebooking outreach automated.

What to know: the measurement is on the $74.99 tier and the automated rebooking on the higher ones, so the features that matter most for this trade sit above the entry price. QuoteIQ is billed year-round; a company that only installs lights pays for eight months it does not use. The website builder is an add-on, and a builder is a different thing from a site that ranks.

Strandr: the mockup that closes the sale

Strandr is design software rather than a CRM: a browser-based tool that draws the lights onto a photo of the customer's house, with measurement tools, so the quote arrives as a picture of their roofline lit.

Pricing as of September 2026, from Strandr's own comparison of design tools, updated the same day: $197 a year, all features, no tiers. It works on iPads and laptops, and it is built to pair with a CRM (QuoteIQ or Jobber) rather than replace one.

Best for: any installer selling from a quote. A homeowner deciding between two quotes at the same per-foot price picks the one that showed them their house lit, and at $197 for the year the mockup pays for itself on the first upgrade to a bigger package.

What to know: it schedules nothing, invoices nothing and rebooks nobody. It is the sales step, and the CRM is everything after it.

Jobber, Housecall Pro and ServiceM8: for the company with a summer trade

Most lighting companies are a landscaper, a pressure washer or a window cleaner for the rest of the year, and the tool they already run in summer can carry the season if it can quote per foot and schedule the takedown.

Jobber, as of September 2026 from its pricing page: Core is $29 a month on annual billing for one user, Connect is $99 for one user and $149 for five, and Grow is $149 for one and $229 for five, with review requests and campaigns as a $99-a-month add-on. Quotes with optional line items (the package upgrade), recurring jobs (next year's install) and the client hub cover the season well. Our Jobber pricing guide has every tier.

Housecall Pro, from its pricing page: Basic is $59 a month on annual billing or $79 month to month for one user, Essentials is $149 for up to five, and MAX is $299, with review requests on Basic. Our Housecall Pro pricing guide has the per-user steps.

ServiceM8, from its pricing page: free for one user and 30 jobs a month, Starter is $29 for 50 jobs, Growing is $79 for 150, with unlimited users on paid plans; a solo installer doing 30 houses runs the season free.

Best for: the company already on one of these for the summer trade, adding a lighting price list and a January takedown job template.

What to know: none measures the roofline; pair any of them with Strandr for the mockup, and measure from the same satellite view by hand or from a QuoteIQ trial.

The half none of these cover: being found in September

All five tools above start working after the homeowner has asked for a quote. "Christmas light installers" is searched about 110,000 times in November and 2,400 in June, and the installer who books the season at the early-bird price is the one the September searcher found on the map with photos of lit houses and a per-foot price on the page. Our Christmas light advertising guide covers the early-bird window; the pricing guide covers the per-foot rates.

Some of the tools gesture at this. QuoteIQ sells a site builder, Jobber includes a basic site, Housecall Pro sells one and sends review requests on Basic. None of them tracks whether you rank for "christmas light installers" in the towns you serve, builds the seasonal, permanent-lighting and town pages that earn map placement in October, or posts the lit house to your Google profile and social accounts the evening it goes up.

Where ServicePro fits

ServicePro covers the getting-found side, and it is designed to sit alongside whichever quoting tool you pick from the list above. We do not measure rooflines, draw mockups or schedule takedowns, so there is nothing to migrate.

The free plan builds a full website from your Google Business Profile in about five minutes, on your own domain, with up to five service pages (seasonal installs, permanent lighting, commercial, takedown and storage, and the summer trade) carrying the per-foot prices, a booking page that the display-house sign's QR code opens, an inbox for every call and message, a review widget with five review requests a month, and no per-lead fees at any volume.

Pro is $99 a month with no contract, and adds Google Map rank tracking for "christmas light installers" across every town you serve, up to 25 location pages, a tracked phone number with two-way texting, 100 automatic review requests a month with AI-drafted replies, and the lit house posted for you to your Google Business Profile and to Facebook and Instagram the evening it goes up. The Christmas lights page shows what the site and the rank tracking look like for this trade.

How to choose, by the season you run

• Lights only, one crew, first season. ServiceM8 free for the jobs, Strandr at $197 for the mockup, ServicePro free for the site with the per-foot price and the reviews. Under $200 for the season.
• Lights only, one to three crews, rebooking is the plan. QuoteIQ Beginner at $74.99 for the roofline measurement and the review request, moving to Pro at $149.99 for the September automation, plus Strandr and ServicePro Pro at $99 for the September rank tracking.
• A summer trade plus lights. Whatever you run in summer (Jobber, Housecall Pro, ServiceM8) with a lighting price list and a takedown template, Strandr for the mockup, and ServicePro with a permanent-lighting page added for the fall.
• Permanent lighting as a product. The same stack, with the quote and the financing line built around the $2,000 to $8,000 job, and a page per town for "permanent christmas lights", which is searched 165,000 times in November.

Whichever you pick, the September rebooking email with last year's price and the customer's own house lit is worth more than any tier, and every tool here can send it if the list is kept.