A Buildertrend Alternative Should Fit the Building You Sell

A Buildertrend alternative is worth shopping for when the mismatch is shape, not quality. Buildertrend is built for home builders, remodelers and specialty contractors, and its pricing page says it fits builders who oversee five or more projects a year or run complex, multi-phase builds. For that company it is deep: schedules, change orders, daily logs, punch lists, job costing, WIP reporting, a client portal with online payments and selections, and onboarding that connects QuickBooks or Xero.

A post-frame job has a different shape. A custom home runs on selections, allowances and a long list of subs. A 40x60 shop is one building: a materials package that falls out of the geometry (posts, trusses on 4- or 8-foot centers, girts, purlins, steel), a steel and trim color, a door schedule, a few draws, a crew or two, and a buyer who wants to see it before signing. Owners start looking for one of two reasons:

• The renewal. Divide the yearly bill by the buildings you signed. Price alone rarely justifies a switch; our Buildertrend pricing guide has the numbers.
• The shape. If your office stopped filling in selections and allowances, the tool is asking for work your jobs don't produce. Switching fixes that.

JobTread

• Fits: home builders and remodelers, plus pool, roofing, specialty and commercial contractors.
• Strengths: CRM, estimating and takeoff through contracts, budgets, purchase orders, change orders, job costing, invoices and customer portals. Published pricing: $199 a month with every feature included, plus $20 a month per added internal user and unlimited customer and vendor portal users.
• Ask: how a post-frame building's material list reaches the estimate. See JobTread vs Buildertrend.

BuildBook

• Fits: custom home builders and remodelers who lead with the client experience.
• Strengths: one-click proposal approval, schedules, selections, change orders and a branded client dashboard. A free plan covers its sales and marketing tools; paid plans include unlimited projects.
• Ask: whether selection tools earn their place on a shop or equipment building.

Houzz Pro

• Fits: new construction, remodeling, interior design and architecture firms.
• Strengths: 3D floor plans, takeoffs and selections, estimates through online payments, plus a website, email marketing and lead generation tools.
• Ask: how its 3D floor plans handle posts, trusses and a lean-to roofline.

Contractor Foreman

• Fits: contractors who want a wide toolset at a published entry price.
• Strengths: from $49 a month for project management, GPS time tracking, crew scheduling, job costing, estimating and client portals, plus permit and inspection tracking.
• Ask: how deep the estimating goes when the quote starts from a building, not a scope list.

Knowify

• Fits: specialty trades such as electrical, plumbing, HVAC, concrete and excavating.
• Strengths: fixed-price, time-and-materials and AIA billing, G702/G703 pay applications, work-in-progress, service dispatch and a two-way QuickBooks sync.
• Ask: whether AIA billing matters when you invoice a farmer directly.

JobNimbus

• Fits: roofing, siding, gutter and fencing contractors, plus restoration, solar and remodeling.
• Strengths: CRM boards, estimates and proposals, ordered roof measurements, two-way texting and email, and QuickBooks and CompanyCam integrations.
• Ask: how it quotes a whole building, frame and slab included.

Procore

• Fits: owners, general contractors and specialty contractors sharing one project with many stakeholders.
• Strengths: unlimited users and storage and live support for everyone on the project, priced per product on your annual construction volume.
• Ask: whether you need a platform for many parties when you sell to one owner.

What about CoConstruct? Its own site says its move into Buildertrend is in the final phase. For the wider field, see the best construction CRMs.

Typed line by line, a lean-to becomes a second estimate stapled to the first. Here it is a card on the building: which wall, how far along, how far out, the pitch, the post spacing and where it ties in.

Add it and it frames itself the way a crew builds it, with ledger, column line, beam and rafters, and the same footings as the wall posts. Every piece lands on the material list as its own order line.

The 40x60 customer wants two more 12x12 overhead doors and one less walk door. That is three lines: the doors, the labor to frame and hang them, and a credit for the door that comes out. Markup, tax and the days it adds roll up underneath.

It carries one of seven reasons, the customer signs from a phone, and once approved it folds into an invoice.