WorkHoist vs Buildertrend: an honest comparison
If you’re a contractor comparing Buildertrend and WorkHoist, this page is written by the team behind WorkHoist — so read it with that in mind. Every claim about Buildertrend comes from Buildertrend’s own website, linked at the bottom, and there’s a section on where Buildertrend is the better choice. For a lot of builders, it will be.
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The short answer
Choose Buildertrend if you build homes or remodel them, you want the deepest residential feature set on the market, and you’re happy to book a call to find out what it costs.
Choose WorkHoist if you want to see the price before you talk to anyone, and you’d rather pay monthly than commit to a quarter or a year up front.
That second sentence is most of the difference. The rest of this page shows our working.
How each one prices
Buildertrend
Buildertrend doesn’t publish a price. Their pricing page is a quote-request form, and their own FAQ answers the question “How much does Buildertrend cost?” like this:
“Buildertrend’s pricing is tailored to meet the unique needs of your business. To determine the best solution and pricing for your company, we recommend connecting with one of our team members.”
buildertrend.com/pricing
They’re straightforward about why. On their own pricing-comparison page they list custom pricing’s drawback themselves:
“Requires consultation to determine exact cost.”
Buildertrend construction software pricing guide
The quote form has three steps. Step two asks for your average annual construction volume, in bands from under $500K to over $31M. So the number you are eventually given is shaped by how much you build.
One thing Buildertrend does well, and it’s worth saying plainly: they don’t charge per user. Their pricing FAQ says users are included, and their own comparison table lists cost per user as “no extra cost”. If you see a page claiming Buildertrend charges per seat, it’s wrong.
WorkHoist
$399 a month up to 20 users. $999 a month for 20 to 75. Custom above that. Annual prepay saves 15%. No per-user fees.
The number is on our pricing page. You didn’t have to fill in a form to read it.
When you actually pay
This is the part that doesn’t show up in feature comparisons, and it’s the one that hits a contractor’s bank account.
Buildertrend’s own software-pricing page includes a comparison table. In the row headed “Payment options”, Buildertrend is listed as annual or quarterly. The competitors in that same table are listed as monthly or annual.
So the smallest commitment Buildertrend offers is a quarter, paid ahead.
If your cash comes in on draw schedules — and most contractors’ does — paying a quarter or a year in advance is a different decision from paying monthly. It isn’t a hidden cost. It’s just a bigger cheque, earlier.
WorkHoist bills monthly. Pay annually if you’d rather, and save 15%. Either way you choose, not us.
What the extras cost
Buildertrend sells services alongside the platform: Onsite Consulting, and Buildertrend University, a two-day training conference at their Omaha headquarters.
Prices for these aren’t published either. Their own FAQ:
“Some services require a meeting to provide an accurate quote.”
Buildertrend additional services
WorkHoist: onboarding is free for our first 25 customers, and after that it becomes a paid engagement. We’ll move your live work in for you — up to 25 open jobs with their subs, POs and contacts — from spreadsheets or any system we can export from.
Side by side
| Feature | Buildertrend | WorkHoist |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | No — quote only | Yes, on the pricing page |
| Quote shaped by | Annual construction volume band | Not applicable |
| Per-user fees | No | No |
| Unlimited users | Yes | Up to your plan’s band |
| Billing cadence | Annual or quarterly | Monthly or annual |
| Annual prepay discount | 10% | 15% |
| Services pricing published | No | Onboarding free for first 25 customers |
| In market since | 2006 | Newer |
| Best fit | Home builders, remodelers and specialty contractors wanting the deepest residential toolset | Contractors from roughly 10 to 250 staff who want a published price and monthly billing |
Where Buildertrend is the better choice
We’d rather tell you this than have you find out three months in.
Track record.
Buildertrend has been in this market since 2006. Their site says more than a million users across more than a hundred countries, and over 20,000 contractors. That is a depth of real-world use WorkHoist does not have and cannot claim.
Residential depth.
Client portal, sub portal, selections, warranties, takeoff — Buildertrend has spent nearly twenty years building for home builders and remodelers specifically. If your work is custom homes or renovations and you want the most thoroughly worked-out toolset for exactly that, they have it.
Training as a product.
Onsite Consulting, Buildertrend University, a learning academy. If your team needs structured training to adopt software — and plenty of teams do — that ecosystem is real and we don’t have an equivalent.
Payments.
Buildertrend runs payments inside the platform, in the US. If collecting client payments in the same place you run the job matters to you, that’s a point in their favour.
If two or more of those describe you, talk to Buildertrend. We mean that.
Where WorkHoist fits
What we don’t do yet.
We’re a smaller team and a younger product. Our integration list is shorter. We don’t run a training conference, we don’t do onsite consulting, and we don’t process payments. If you need any of those, we’re not the right answer today.
Questions contractors ask
- Does Buildertrend publish its prices?
- No. Buildertrend’s pricing page is a quote-request form. Their own FAQ says pricing is tailored to your business and recommends connecting with their team to find out what it costs.
- Does Buildertrend charge per user?
- No. Their pricing FAQ says users are included in your pricing, and their own comparison table lists cost per user as no extra cost.
- Can you pay Buildertrend monthly?
- Their own software-pricing comparison table lists Buildertrend’s payment options as annual or quarterly. WorkHoist bills monthly, or annually for 15% off if you prefer.
- Why does Buildertrend ask for my annual construction volume?
- Their quote form asks for it at step two, in bands from under $500K to over $31M, before giving you a price. WorkHoist doesn’t ask — your volume isn’t part of our calculation.
- How much does WorkHoist cost?
- WorkHoist costs $399 a month for up to 20 users, $999 a month for 20 to 75, and custom pricing above that. Annual prepay saves 15%. WorkHoist charges no per-user fees. See pricing.
- Can you move our data across?
- Yes. WorkHoist migrates up to 25 open jobs with their subcontractors, POs and contacts, from spreadsheets or any system we can export from — including Buildertrend, provided you can export your data from it.
- What happens to my data if I leave Buildertrend?
- We could not verify an export mechanism either way, and we would rather say that than guess. Buildertrend’s help documentation describes six built-in reports — work-in-progress, budgeted versus projected, profitability, invoicing, labor actuals versus budgeted, and cash flow — and does not mention exporting or downloading any of them. The same documentation caps the work-in-progress report at the most recent 200 jobs sent to the budget, and only open jobs appear in it. Their help centre’s search sits behind a login, so we could not check any further. That is an absence of documentation we could read, not evidence that no export exists — ask Buildertrend directly, and ask before you commit to a date.
See it on one of your own jobs
Book 20 minutes and we’ll set it up with you on the call — so you spend your 14-day trial running jobs, not configuring software.