Report updated May 20, 2026
Ugly's Electrical References
For electricians, electrical contractors, maintenance workers, and students who require portable, code-compliant reference material in the field.
Ugly's Electrical References is an established productivity app that is a paid app. With a 4.4/5 rating from 2.5K reviews, it shows polarized user reception. Users particularly appreciate comprehensive electrical reference material provides essential field support for journeyman and apprentice electricians, though aggressive review solicitation interrupts professional workflow and creates significant user frustration remains a common concern.
What is Ugly's Electrical References?
Ugly's Electrical References is a digital reference and calculator tool for electricians and contractors on iOS and Android.
Users hire the app to maintain NEC code compliance and perform field calculations without needing physical books or internet connectivity.
Current Momentum
v1.8 · 1mo ago
Maintenance- Updated content for 2026 NEC code.
- Expanded 3-phase transformer current coverage.
- Improved UI for trade size conductors.
Active Nemesis
Electrical Calculations
By Egal Net di Ettore Gallina
Other Rivals
7-Day Rank Pulse 🇺🇸
ProductivityRating Pulse 🇺🇸
Recent User MoodAI-powered deep analysis surfacing high-signal insights. Still in beta, accuracy improves daily. For informational purposes only.
What makes this app unique?
What Does It Look Like?
How Is The App's Momentum Right Now?
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What Are The Key Features?
Outlines and explains changes to the National Electrical Code, including 2020, 2023, and 2026 editions.
Includes Ohm’s Law, voltage drop, ampacity, and conduit fill calculators for field use.
High-definition video guides for conduit bending techniques.
How much does it cost?
- $12.99 one-time purchase
Paid model anchored at $12.99 per unit, utilizing a direct-purchase strategy for individual professionals and bulk B2B licensing.
Who Built It?
Informed Publishing
Providing specialized digital reference tools and textbook platforms for public safety, health professions, and trade industries.
Portfolio
6
Apps
Who is Informed Publishing?
Informed Publishing operates as the digital arm for Jones & Bartlett Learning, leveraging deep institutional content to maintain a dominant position in the professional trade and public safety sectors. Their moat is built on proprietary, industry-standard data like the Ugly’s series, which allows them to sustain a premium paid model in a niche market where competitors struggle to match their authoritative data. The publisher is currently navigating a strategic transition, attempting to migrate their academic audience toward a unified eReader ecosystem despite reported technical friction in their software suite.
Who is Informed Publishing for?
- Students in health
- Public safety
- Alongside trade professionals such as electricians
- EMS responders
Portfolio momentum
Released 2 updates across 6 apps in the last 6 months and 50% of the portfolio is currently active, maintaining a steady development cycle.
What other apps does Informed Publishing make?
What do users think recently?
High confidence · Latest 72 of 113 total reviews analyzed · Based on 113 reviews. Signal may be noisy.
How did the latest release land?
What is the recent mood?
Recent user voice shows a mixed sentiment. Users appreciate comprehensive electrical reference material provides essential field support for journeyman and apprentice electricians, but report aggressive review solicitation interrupts professional workflow and creates significant user frustration.
What Users Love
What Frustrates Users
What Users Want
What is the competitive landscape for Ugly's Electrical References?
How's The Productivity Market?
How does it evolve in the Productivity market?
The app maintains a #9 Paid rank in the US Tools category, but the 14-rank decline across international markets signals that technical regressions are eroding global discovery.
| Country | Category | Chart | Rank | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🇱🇹 Lithuania | Tools | AndroidPaid | #71 | ▲4 |
| 🇵🇱 Poland | Tools | AndroidPaid | #72 | ▲3 |
The rivals identified
The Nemesis
Electrical Calculations
★4.5 (48.3K)Egal Net di Ettore Gallina
🚀With over 48,000 reviews and a high-frequency update cycle, this app dominates the niche for specialized electrical utility tools.
Head to Head
The target app must leverage its official NEC content as a premium differentiator while accelerating the release of interactive calculation tools to match the nemesis's utility-first approach.
What sets Ugly's Electrical References apart
Integrates official 2026 NEC reference material and ebook content directly into the user workflow.
Provides a more professional, authoritative brand experience backed by established industry publishing standards.
What's Electrical Calculations's Edge
Offers a significantly broader range of specialized calculators that address niche electrical engineering pain points.
Maintains a higher user engagement velocity through frequent feature iterations and community-driven feedback loops.
Contenders
Conduit Bending
★4.8 (480)xNeat.com
⚡This app serves a highly specific, critical sub-task for electricians that the target app covers only broadly.
Focuses exclusively on complex conduit bending geometry, providing a deeper feature set for this specific task.
Optimized for field-use scenarios where rapid, precise calculation of bend angles is the primary user requirement.
Mike Holt's Electrical Toolbox
★4.6 (197)Mike Holt Enterprises
🚀Directly competes on the authority of electrical code expertise and professional training resources.
Leverages a strong industry reputation for electrical training that serves as a high-trust alternative to general references.
Positions itself as a professional toolbox rather than a digital book, focusing on practical application over theory.
New Kids on the Block
Deploys AI-powered search that allows users to query complex documentation faster than traditional static ebook navigation.
Provides a flexible, cross-platform workspace that allows electricians to store custom notes alongside reference material.
Offers advanced PDF annotation and management tools that outperform standard built-in ebook readers.
Provides a robust file-syncing ecosystem that allows users to access reference documents across all their devices.
The outtake for Ugly's Electrical References
Strengths to defend, gaps to attack
Core Strengths
- Official NEC content licensing creates a high-trust barrier against non-specialized reference apps.
- Offline-first architecture ensures utility in remote job sites where connectivity is unreliable.
- Volume purchase program provides a B2B distribution channel into electrical contracting firms.
Critical Frictions
- Aggressive review prompts surfacing on every launch drive negative sentiment and churn.
- Search functionality requires exact terminology, limiting usability for non-expert users.
- Technical regressions in the latest update broke video playback and removed critical tables.
Growth Levers
- Spanish language localization would capture a broader segment of the trade professional market.
- Accessibility features like zoomable diagrams would address specific user requests for readability.
- Direct integration with contractor project management software could deepen enterprise utility.
Market Threats
- Electrical Calculations app's 48,000 reviews and high-frequency update cycle threaten market share.
- Specialized conduit bending apps offer deeper, more focused geometry tools for field tasks.
- General productivity tools with AI search capabilities threaten the static reference book model.
What are the next best moves?
Deprecate persistent review prompts because they are the #1 driver of negative sentiment → restore rating baseline.
Sentiment analysis identifies aggressive review solicitation as the primary cause of user frustration.
Trade-off: Pause the current UI-refresh sprint — sentiment recovery is a higher priority for retention.
Rebuild search index and restore missing tables because navigation failures block core NEC reference access → reduce churn.
Users report that search and table availability failures hinder access to critical reference data.
Trade-off: Delay the planned Spanish language localization project — core functionality must be stable first.
A counter-intuitive read
The app's high price point is not a barrier but a signal of professional authority, meaning technical stability is more critical to retention than freemium-model expansion.
Feature Gaps vs Competitors
- Specialized electrical calculators (available in Electrical Calculations but missing here)
- Advanced PDF annotation tools (available in Documents but missing here)
Key Takeaways
Ugly's Electrical References holds a strong competitive position through its official NEC content, but the latest update's technical regressions threaten its professional reputation, so the PM must prioritize stability and navigation fixes over new feature expansion.
Where Is It Heading?
Declining
The electrical reference market is shifting toward high-frequency update cycles, as seen in the nemesis app's 48,000-review scale. Ugly's must move beyond static book-to-app conversion and address the technical debt in its navigation and search to prevent further market share loss to more agile, utility-first competitors.
Technical regressions in the latest update (broken video, missing tables) erode professional trust and drive negative sentiment.
Aggressive review solicitation on every launch creates a friction-heavy user experience that accelerates churn among long-term professionals.