I've Framed Houses. I've Done Masonry. Here's Why I Built an Invoicing App.
I know what the end of a hard day in the trades feels like.
Sore hands. Dusty clothes. The kind of tired that sits in your back and doesn't leave until morning. I've framed houses. I've laid block and mixed mortar and done the work that most people just drive past without thinking about.
So when I tell you that the invoicing apps available to tradespeople are insulting — I mean that as someone who's been on the job site, not someone who read about it.
What Nobody Who Builds Software for Tradespeople Actually Understands
Every invoicing app I've tried was built by someone who has never finished a job at 5pm with a customer standing there asking when they'll get their bill.
They're designed for freelancers. Consultants. People who invoice from a desk with good lighting and nowhere else to be.
That's not this life. This life is dirty hands, a truck full of tools, and a customer who paid a deposit and wants to know their balance. You don't have time to open a laptop. You barely have time to wash up.
And yet — getting paid is the whole point. You can do the best work on the block and still lose if your billing is slow, sloppy, or looks like it came from someone who doesn't run a real business.
I felt that gap for years. Eventually I decided to close it.
So I Built the App I Always Needed
MyToolbelt works on one simple idea: you talk, it writes the invoice.
Tap the mic. Describe the job out loud — "replaced the main shutoff for Dave Reynolds, three hours labor, ball valve and fittings from Home Depot." MyToolbelt pulls out the client name, the job description, the labor, and looks up real Home Depot prices for every material you mentioned.
Sixty seconds later you have a professional branded PDF ready to send. Before you start the truck.
No typing. No spreadsheet. No trying to remember what that fitting cost while you're sitting at the kitchen table at 10pm.
I also built in the things that kept tripping me up — deposit tracking so clients see exactly what they owe, full client history so any past job is findable in seconds, and multi-phase invoicing for bigger projects.
It looks like it came from a real business. Because it did.
Who This Is For
If you got the Invoice Simple price increase notice — they went from $19 a year to $199 — and started looking for something better, I built this for you.
If you're still texting photos of handwritten bills or copying last week's invoice and changing the name, I built this for you too.
MyToolbelt Pro is $19 a month. There's a free tier with 3 invoices so you can try it on a real job first, no credit card needed.
The trades are skilled, essential work. The software should match.
Seth Moser-Katz is the founder of MyToolbelt. He spent years working in the trades — framing and masonry — before a career in digital media and content production. He built MyToolbelt because the app he needed didn't exist.