LoadSnap vs ComplyWaste,
side by side for .
ComplyWaste is one of the sharpest pieces of field software in this market and it is honest about its scope: it captures Waste Transfer Notes and does not try to run your business. That scope is the whole comparison.
Who it's for
LoadSnap: Carriers and receivers
ComplyWaste: Offline-first Waste Transfer Note capture for UK carriers - built for a driver in gloves, in rain, with one bar of signal
Pricing
LoadSnap: Free plan, then from £25/mo
ComplyWaste: Free for one driver, then £39, £99 and £199/mo + VAT
DEFRA submission
LoadSnap: DEFRA API submission included on every plan
ComplyWaste: Receiver submission live in production; carrier submission awaits DEFRA's carrier API
A tool and a platform, not two platforms
ComplyWaste is a capture tool, deliberately and openly. Their own framing puts it better than we could: the government service is where data ends up, and they are how it gets captured without slowing the round. Everything in the product serves the thirty seconds a driver spends on a note, and everything that does not serve that has been left out.
The craft is real and worth naming. Sixty-four pixel touch targets. A signature pad that works through a wet work glove. Predictive search across all 842 EWC codes with a trade-term dictionary, so a driver types bricks and gets 17 01 02. It works in airplane mode. This is somebody who has watched a driver try to use software in the rain, and it is better field design than most of this market manages.
LoadSnap is a platform. It captures the note too, but it also plans the round, dispatches the driver, tracks the skip through deliver and exchange and collect, raises the invoice and files the receipt at the gate. That is more product, which is not automatically better. If the note is your whole problem, more product is more to learn.
The hazardous line, and the carrier API
Two things in ComplyWaste's own words are worth reading carefully before you buy, and neither is hidden: they publish both.
The first is on the footer of every page. Their Waste Transfer Notes cover non-hazardous waste under section 34 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, and hazardous consignment notes are a separate regime they do not cover. If you move asbestos, contaminated soil, oils, batteries or anything else consigned, that is not a preference, it is a hard stop. LoadSnap runs the full consignment-note workflow with HP codes, POPs, consignment numbering and the three labelled copies.
The second is the carrier API. Their receiver-side DEFRA submission is genuinely live in production, and they publish a dated status page proving it, which is more transparency than anyone else in this market offers. But for carriers, their own homepage is future tense: the app records every field the service needs today and will plug in when the carrier API opens. That is honest and it is also correct, because DEFRA's carrier phase is not until October 2027. It just means that for the audience they market hardest to, submission is a promise rather than a shipped feature.
The network effect is real, and we have the same one
ComplyWaste's best structural idea is that every signed note mints a short code, the receiver enters it, and both records are checked end to end before DEFRA ever sees them. Where both parties are on ComplyWaste, a mismatch in EWC code or weight surfaces between the two businesses rather than as a compliance problem later. They argue that carrier-only and receiver-only tools cannot do this, and they are right.
LoadSnap does the same thing, for the same reason, and calls it Connect. The two halves of a movement pair on a shared code and produce one filing rather than two, which matters because two submissions for one load is double-counted national tonnage. Neither of us invented the idea; both of us built it because covering one side of the gate and pretending the other side does not exist produces bad data.
So this is not a difference between us. It is a thing we both do and most of the market does not, and it is a reasonable argument for choosing either of us over a single-sided tool.
Price and accessibility
Both of us have a genuinely free tier, which in this market is unusual. ComplyWaste gives one driver unlimited legally complete notes, all 842 EWC codes and the two-year retention, free, forever. LoadSnap gives ten loads a month with DEFRA submission included. Theirs is the better free tier for a one-van carrier who only needs notes, and we will not argue otherwise.
Paid, ComplyWaste is £39 for branding, £99 for up to five drivers and £199 for unlimited drivers with CSV export and API access, plus receiver plans at £99 and £249 a site. All plus VAT. LoadSnap is £25 for a self-carrier, £39 for fifty loads a month, £65 for a hundred and fifty, £169 for five hundred and £249 for a thousand, also plus VAT, priced on loads rather than drivers.
The seat-versus-volume difference decides it. Six drivers doing sixty loads between them costs £199 on ComplyWaste and £39 on LoadSnap. Two drivers doing four hundred loads costs £99 on ComplyWaste and £169 on LoadSnap. Work out which shape you are before you compare the headline numbers.
Feature comparison
How LoadSnap and ComplyWaste line up on the things that matter for DEFRA compliance. Items marked [verify] are awaiting independent confirmation.
| Feature | LoadSnapFree plan, then from £25/mo | ComplyWasteFree for one driver, then £39, £99 and £199/mo + VAT |
|---|---|---|
| Capture and the driver | ||
| Built for carriers as well as receivers | Yes | Both sides |
| Offline driver app | Opens and captures offline | Offline-first |
| AI waste classification from photos | Yes | Predictive EWC search |
| EWC code management | Yes · 850+ | Yes · 842 |
| Digital signatures | Yes | Yes |
| Weighbridge capture | Yes | No |
| Compliance and DEFRA | ||
| On the GOV.UK software-provider list | Yes | Yes |
| DEFRA API submission | All plans | Receiver side live |
| Digital Waste Transfer Note PDFs | Yes | Yes |
| Hazardous consignment notes | Yes | Non-hazardous only |
| Both halves of a movement reconciled | Yes | Yes |
| Two-year duty-of-care archive | Yes | Yes |
| Running the business | ||
| Route planning and optimisation | Yes | No |
| Drag-and-drop scheduler | Yes | No |
| Jobs and recurring work | Yes | No |
| Container and skip tracking | Yes | No |
| Invoicing your customers | Yes | No |
| Vehicle safety checks | Yes | No |
| Pricing and access | ||
| Free plan | Yes · 10 loads | Yes · 1 driver, unlimited notes |
| Free trial | 14-day · no card | 14-day · no card |
| Published pricing | Yes | Yes |
| Entry price | £0, then from £25/mo | £0, then from £39/mo |
An honest take
No tool is best for everyone. Here's where each one is the stronger choice.
Where ComplyWaste may be the better fit
- Field design that is genuinely better than ours: wet-glove signature capture, 64-pixel targets, trade-term EWC search, thirty seconds from start to signed.
- Offline-first architecture where the phone is the source of truth, rather than the office holding the record and the phone catching up.
- A free forever tier giving one driver unlimited notes, which is more generous than our ten loads a month.
- A public, dated DEFRA status page showing 14 of 14 sandbox scenarios passed. Nobody else in this market publishes that.
- Storing the complete DEFRA payload verbatim rather than translating a house format later, which lowers migration risk.
- Less product to learn, if the note is genuinely all you need.
Where LoadSnap is the stronger choice
- Hazardous consignment notes with HP codes and POPs, which ComplyWaste explicitly does not cover.
- Route planning, a drag-and-drop scheduler, jobs and recurring work: the day, not just the document.
- Container and skip tracking through deliver, exchange and collect.
- Invoicing your customers from the jobs already logged, with Sage, Xero and QuickBooks export.
- Weighbridge capture and the receiving side of a movement in the same subscription.
- Priced on loads rather than drivers, so a six-driver crew doing modest volume is not charged like a fleet.
When to choose each
Find the row that sounds like your operation. Where the honest answer is “either”, it says so.
| If this is you | Take | Because |
|---|---|---|
| You move hazardous waste | LoadSnap | ComplyWaste covers non-hazardous transfer notes only, and says so in their own footer. Consignment notes are a separate regime they do not handle. |
| One van, and the note is your entire problem | ComplyWaste | Their free tier gives one driver unlimited notes and all 842 EWC codes, forever. It is a better free tier than ours for that job. |
| You want the round planned as well as the note captured | LoadSnap | ComplyWaste has no routing, scheduling, container tracking or invoicing, and does not claim to. That is a scope decision, not a gap they overlooked. |
| Your drivers work with no signal for hours at a time | ComplyWaste | Offline-first is the core of their product, and the phone is the source of truth. LoadSnap opens and captures with no signal once the app has been opened on that phone once, but the office stays the source of truth. |
| You run a permitted site taking waste in | Either | Both file the receiving side to DEFRA today. Theirs is live in production with a dated public status page; ours is on every plan including the free one. |
| You need to invoice from the work you have logged | LoadSnap | ComplyWaste's only mentions of invoicing are their own subscription billing. There is no customer invoicing in the product. |
| You have six drivers doing modest volume between them | LoadSnap | They charge per driver and we charge per load. At six drivers and sixty loads that is £199 against £39. |
Other alternatives to ComplyWaste
Still weighing it up? These are the other tools people put on the same shortlist.
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LoadSnap vs Waste Logics
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LoadSnap vs QWTN
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LoadSnap vs WasteNote
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LoadSnap vs WasteReady
£39/mo or £390/yr founding, £79/£790 standard. VAT treatment not stated
Questions
LoadSnap vs ComplyWaste: FAQs
01Does ComplyWaste handle hazardous waste?
02Is ComplyWaste's DEFRA submission live?
03Which has the better free tier?
04Can ComplyWaste plan my rounds or raise my invoices?
05Do both of you reconcile the two halves of a movement?
Comparison based on publicly available information about ComplyWaste (www.complywaste.co.uk) as of 5 September 2026, believed accurate but not warranted; features and pricing may have changed since. Items marked “[verify]” could not be independently confirmed at the time of writing. LoadSnap claims reflect the live product as of 5 September 2026. ComplyWaste and any related marks are the property of their respective owners; this page is not affiliated with or endorsed by ComplyWaste.
Sources: complywaste.co.uk (www.complywaste.co.uk) · ComplyWaste pricing (www.complywaste.co.uk/pricing) · ComplyWaste DWT status (www.complywaste.co.uk/dwt-status) · GOV.UK - choose a software provider (receipt of waste)
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