Xero Job Management Software Compared (2026)

Xero job management software adds what Xero leaves out: quotes, jobs, timesheets, costs and progress invoices, all pushed back into your Xero ledger. Xero Projects covers the basics, while WorkflowMax, WorkGuru and Drum go further, each built for a different kind of business.

That last point matters more than any feature list. Most “job management” tools in the Xero App Store were built for tradies, workshops and fabricators. If you run an architecture, engineering or planning consultancy, your “job” is a fee proposal split into stages, with variations, hourly extras and a WIP figure your accountant asks about every month.

This guide compares the four options Australian consultancies shortlist most, with what each one costs a 10, 25 and 50 person firm. Full disclosure: we build Drum. It’s the most expensive option on licence in this guide, and we’ll show you exactly by how much.

	Xero Projects	WorkflowMax by BlueRock	WorkGuru	Drum
Built for	Any Xero business	Any job-based business, from trades to agencies	Fabrication, manufacturing and trade services	Architecture, engineering and other built-environment consultancies
Pricing	In Xero Ultimate: $143/month incl. GST for 10 users, +$7/user	$12.22 to $37.78 AUD/user/month, 3 plans	$350 AUD/month for 10 users, +$35/user	$225 AUD/month for 5 seats, +$45/seat
Quotes or fee proposals	Xero quotes only	Quotes; online acceptance on Pro and up	Quotes	Fee proposals with stages and fee types
Project phases or stages	No	Job phases from the Pro plan	Tasks within a job	Yes, each with its own fee and budget
Lump-sum and hourly work on one project	No	Usually split into separate jobs	Usually split into separate jobs	Yes, invoiced together
Variations	Edit the estimate	Hard to adjust a quote once the job is running	Variation quotes	Added to the project fee as the work changes
WIP and capacity planning	No	Advanced plan only	Scheduling; no consulting WIP	Included
Stock and purchasing	No	Purchase orders	Yes (stock is a $300/month add-on)	No
Accounting	Xero (it is Xero)	Xero and QuickBooks; no direct MYOB	Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks	Xero, MYOB and QuickBooks

Checked November 2026 against Xero’s projects page, WorkflowMax pricing and WorkGuru pricing. Drum prices exclude GST and onboarding.

What Xero Job Management Software Actually Has to Do

Xero is excellent at money that has already moved. It knows what you invoiced, what got paid and what’s sitting in accounts payable. What it doesn’t know is the story behind each job: how many hours the team has burned against a fixed fee, how much of that fee is earned but not yet billed, and whether the job is still going to make money.

Job management software fills that gap. The good ones share four habits:

They start with the quote. The price you agree with the client becomes the budget you track against, so nobody re-keys numbers.
They capture time and costs against the job, ideally at the stage or task level, not just the job as a whole.
They invoice from the job, then push a clean invoice into Xero so your bookkeeper reconciles one ledger.
They report on profit while you can still act, not three weeks after the job closes.

Why does that last habit carry so much weight? Because the losses are rarely dramatic. SPI Research has long tracked revenue leakage of 5% to 15% in professional services firms from unbilled hours, write-offs and scope creep. On a $2 million consultancy, the low end of that range is $100,000 a year walking quietly out the door.

So the real question isn’t “does it connect to Xero?” Nearly everything does. The question is whether the job structure inside the tool matches the way your firm wins and delivers work.

Xero Projects: The Built-In Option

Xero Projects is the job management tool Xero bundles into its Ultimate plan. At $143 a month including GST for 10 users, plus $7 per extra user, it’s the cheapest route here, and that price includes your accounting.

For simple work it does the job well. You set an estimate, staff log time from the Xero app, you add costs, and you invoice the project in a few clicks. Profitability sits on one screen, and there’s no second login to manage.

The ceiling arrives quickly for consultancies. Xero Projects has no stages, so a five-stage design commission is one bucket of hours. There’s no WIP report, no resource planning and no way to quote a lump-sum stage alongside hourly extras. We cover those limits in detail in our Xero Projects review.

A useful rule of thumb: if you can describe every job with one fixed number and one list of hours, Xero Projects is probably enough. If your proposals have a fee table, keep reading.

WorkflowMax and WorkGuru: Horizontal Tools Built for Every Industry

WorkflowMax and WorkGuru are the two names that dominate searches for job management software Xero users trust. Both are mature, both integrate tightly with Xero, and both are cheaper than Drum per user. They’re also horizontal tools. They’re designed to serve a plumbing contractor, a sign writer and a marketing agency with the same job structure, which means consulting workflows are left to workarounds.

WorkflowMax by BlueRock was part of Xero until 2024 and is now an independent product. It costs $12.22, $22 or $37.78 AUD per user per month on Essentials, Pro and Advanced, with minimums of 3, 5 and 10 users, and capacity planning and WIP only arrive on Advanced. There’s no direct MYOB integration. Our WorkflowMax pricing guide breaks down every plan.

The gaps for consultancies show up in the job structure. On a recent sales call, an established WorkflowMax customer told us their firm had outgrown the standard features and now relied on workarounds. Hybrid projects were the main pain: they couldn’t combine a lump-sum design fee and time-and-materials site visits in one job, so they set up several jobs per project. Adjusting a lump-sum quote for a variation partway through a live job was cumbersome. And they struggled to produce clean client-facing invoice PDFs that carried all their custom fields and project details.

WorkGuru is an Australian platform that describes itself as “built for fabrication, manufacturing and trade service businesses.” Pricing is $350 AUD a month for the first 10 team members, then $35 for each extra person, with optional modules such as inventory ($300 a month) and an automation suite ($200 a month). Its strengths are stock control, purchasing, scheduling and field jobs. Those are genuinely valuable for a workshop. A structural engineering firm will pay for features it never opens and still miss fee stages and consulting WIP.

None of this makes either tool bad. It makes them general. If you’re a design consultancy, the honest question is whether you’re happy to bend your projects to fit their jobs.

What Xero Job Management Costs a 10, 25 and 50 Person Firm

Here’s the monthly licence cost of each option at three firm sizes. WorkflowMax is shown on Pro and Advanced, because Advanced is the plan that includes capacity planning and WIP.

Monthly cost (AUD)	10 people	25 people	50 people
Xero Projects (Ultimate, incl. GST and accounting)	$143	$248	$423
WorkflowMax Pro	$220	$550	$1,100
WorkflowMax Advanced	$378	$945	$1,889
WorkGuru (platform only)	$350	$875	$1,750
Drum Complete	$450	$1,125	$2,250

Monthly billing. Xero Projects pricing includes GST and Xero Ultimate itself; other prices exclude GST. Drum excludes onboarding, which is custom-priced to your setup. WorkGuru modules are extra.

Drum costs more on licence at every size. For a 25-person firm, the gap to WorkflowMax Advanced is about $180 a month, or roughly two billable hours. Whether that’s worth it depends on what the cheaper tool costs you in workarounds.

Think back to that firm with several jobs per project. Every one of those jobs has to be set up, reconciled and reported on by hand, and every variation means another manual adjustment. If that admin takes a project manager two hours a month across the practice, the licence saving is already gone, before you count the leakage SPI Research measures.

Drum was built for exactly those projects. Each project carries stages with their own fee type, so a lump-sum concept design, an hourly site inspection and a percentage-of-construction fee can sit on one project and go out on one invoice. Variations are added to the project fee as the work changes. WIP, resource planning and fee proposals are part of Drum Complete, and invoices sync to Xero, MYOB or QuickBooks. You can see how it handles time against stages in our guide to the best timesheet app for Xero.

Choosing Xero Job Management Software That Fits Your Jobs

Pick the tool whose idea of a “job” matches yours. Xero Projects suits small firms with simple, single-fee work and no appetite for another login. WorkGuru suits fabricators, manufacturers and trade service businesses that live in stock and scheduling. WorkflowMax suits general job-based businesses that want a flexible middle ground at a lower price per user.

If your firm wins work through fee proposals, delivers it in stages, handles variations every week and needs a WIP number you trust, you’re shopping for consulting software rather than generic job management. That’s the gap Drum fills. Our Xero project management software guide covers the wider field, and every head-to-head we’ve published sits on our comparisons page.

The best next step is to take one real, messy project, with stages, a variation and some hourly work, and run it through each shortlisted tool. Book a Drum demo and we’ll build it with you, so you can judge our Xero job management software on your own work rather than our claims.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Xero have job management? Yes, through Xero Projects, which comes with the Ultimate plan at $143 a month including GST for 10 users, plus $7 per extra user. It covers estimates, time, costs and invoicing per project. It has no stages, WIP or resource planning, so consultancies with staged fees usually add dedicated job management software that integrates with Xero.

What is the best job management software for Xero? It depends on your industry. WorkGuru suits fabrication, manufacturing and trade services. WorkflowMax by BlueRock suits general job-based businesses on a per-user budget. For architecture, engineering and other built-environment consultancies, Drum handles fee proposals, stages, variations, hybrid lump-sum and hourly billing, and WIP, then syncs invoices to Xero.

How much does Xero job management software cost? Xero Projects is included in Xero Ultimate at $143 a month including GST for 10 users. WorkflowMax costs $12.22 to $37.78 AUD per user per month. WorkGuru is $350 AUD a month for 10 team members plus $35 per extra person. Drum Complete is $225 AUD a month for five seats plus $45 per extra seat, excluding onboarding.

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