WorkHoist vs Contractor Foreman: an honest comparison
If you’re comparing Contractor Foreman and WorkHoist, this is written by the team behind WorkHoist — read it with that in mind. Every claim about Contractor Foreman comes from their own plans page, linked at the bottom. We’ll say up front what most comparison pages bury: Contractor Foreman is cheaper than WorkHoist at every team size, and for a lot of contractors that settles it. What this page is for is the question their pricing table doesn’t answer — which plan you’d actually end up on.
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The short answer
Contractor Foreman is the most affordable all-in-one in this market and it isn’t close. $332 a month buys unlimited users and every feature.
The $49 plan is not that product. It has one user and no daily logs, no change orders, no purchase orders, no time cards and no QuickBooks. Most contractors comparing it to anything else are really comparing Plus at $166 or Pro at $221.
Choose WorkHoist if two bands beat five tiers for you. Equipment and reporting are on Growth at $999; everything else, including the AI assistant, is in the $399 plan. Choose Contractor Foreman if breadth at the lowest cost matters more and you don’t mind working out which tier you need.
Which plan you’d actually be on
Contractor Foreman publishes its prices, which we respect. What the headline doesn’t show is that features are gated by plan — on their own comparison table, 204 of 672 feature cells are marked not included. So the useful question isn’t what it starts at, it’s where the thing you need turns on.
$49 Basic — one user
Basic includes projects, estimates, expenses and invoices. It does not include daily logs, punch lists, change orders, purchase orders, work orders, permits, time cards, the client portal, or any integration — including QuickBooks. It also doesn’t include the 100-day money-back guarantee or any training session. It’s annual-only; Contractor Foreman doesn’t offer Basic quarterly.
$105 Standard — three users
Adds punch lists, purchase orders, work orders, permits, bills, online payments, custom fields, audit logs and the Stripe, CompanyCam and calendar integrations. Still no daily logs, no time cards, no QuickBooks, and still no money-back guarantee.
$166 Plus — eight users
This is where most contractors’ shortlist actually starts. Plus turns on daily logs, time cards, change orders, RFIs, job costing reports, equipment and vehicle logs, QuickBooks Online and Zapier — and the 100-day guarantee.
$221 Pro — fifteen users
Adds submittals, AIA G702/G703 invoicing, takeoffs, the client portal and the time card manager. If you run commercial work with AIA billing, Pro is your floor, not Basic.
$332 Unlimited
Everything, unlimited users. This is the plan Contractor Foreman’s value reputation is really built on, and it’s genuinely strong.
None of this is hidden — it’s all on their comparison table. But the number people carry away is $49, and the number most of them would actually pay is $166 or $221. Work out which features you need before you compare anything on price.
How each one prices
Contractor Foreman
Contractor Foreman charges per company, not per user, on five annual tiers: Basic $49, Standard $105, Plus $166, Pro $221 and Unlimited $332 a month. Quarterly billing costs more — Standard $132, Plus $206, Pro $282, Unlimited $415 — and Basic isn’t available quarterly at all, so the headline price requires a year up front.
| Plan | Users | Annual, per month | Quarterly, per month |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | 1 | $49 | Not offered |
| Standard | 3 | $105 | $132 |
| Plus | 8 | $166 | $206 |
| Pro | 15 | $221 | $282 |
| Unlimited | Unlimited | $332 | $415 |
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, and two bands rather than five tiers — equipment and reporting are on Growth at $999; everything else, including the AI assistant, is in the $399 plan.
The number is on our pricing page.
What implementation costs
Contractor Foreman includes a training session from the Standard plan up, and a 100-day money-back guarantee from Plus up, with conditions.
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 | Contractor Foreman | WorkHoist |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | Yes, five tiers | Yes, two bands |
| Priced per | Company, by user ceiling | Company, by user band |
| Cheapest plan | $49/mo, 1 user, annual only | $399/mo, up to 20 users |
| Features gated by plan | Yes — 204 of 672 cells not included | Two features on Growth ($999): equipment and reporting. Everything else in every plan |
| Daily logs available from | Plus, $166/mo | Included |
| Time cards available from | Plus, $166/mo | Included |
| QuickBooks available from | Plus, $166/mo | No integration — set up during onboarding |
| Submittals and AIA billing from | Pro, $221/mo | Included |
| Client portal | Pro, $221/mo | Read-only, one project per client |
| Unlimited users | $332/mo | Not offered — bands to 75, then custom |
| Money-back guarantee | 100 days, Plus and above, conditions apply | Not offered |
| AI capabilities | AI takeoffs, AI chat and a project-context assistant | Read and write access over MCP plus an in-app assistant, on every plan |
| Best fit | Contractors who want maximum breadth for the lowest cost | Contractors who want two plans rather than five tiers, roughly 10–250 staff |
Where Contractor Foreman is the better choice
We’d rather tell you this than have you find out three months in.
Cost, at every size.
Shown above. Contractor Foreman’s top plan costs less than WorkHoist’s entry plan and includes unlimited users. That is not a rounding difference.
Breadth.
Permits, inspections, service tickets, safety meetings, incidents, retainage, sub-contracts, AIA billing, takeoffs. Contractor Foreman covers more ground than WorkHoist does and charges less for it.
QuickBooks Desktop.
Contractor Foreman integrates with QuickBooks Desktop as well as Online. Plenty of contractors still run Desktop, and most modern tools have dropped it. WorkHoist has neither.
Native mobile apps.
Contractor Foreman publishes iOS and Android apps built for the field.
The guarantee.
100 days is an unusually long money-back window. It applies to Contractor Foreman’s annual plans from Plus up and has conditions — a one-to-one training session and some real data entered — but it’s a real commitment and WorkHoist doesn’t match it.
Multi-language.
Contractor Foreman lets the whole company or an individual user switch language. If your crews aren’t all working in English that’s worth real money.
If two or more of those describe you, talk to Contractor Foreman. We mean that.
Where WorkHoist fits
What we don’t do yet.
WorkHoist is more expensive, WorkHoist’s integration list is short, and WorkHoist doesn’t offer takeoffs, online payment collection, multi-language, or a money-back guarantee. WorkHoist has no QuickBooks integration at all — we wire your accounting up during onboarding instead. WorkHoist’s client portal is read-only and covers one project per client.
Questions contractors ask
- What does the Contractor Foreman $49 plan include?
- Contractor Foreman’s $49 Basic plan covers one user and includes projects, estimates, expenses and invoices. It does not include daily logs, punch lists, change orders, purchase orders, time cards, the client portal, any integration including QuickBooks, or the 100-day money-back guarantee. It is annual-only.
- What Contractor Foreman plan do I need for QuickBooks?
- Plus, at $166 a month. Contractor Foreman’s QuickBooks Online and Zapier integrations are not available on the Basic or Standard plans.
- What Contractor Foreman plan do I need for AIA billing?
- Pro, at $221 a month. Contractor Foreman gates AIA G702/G703 invoicing, submittals, takeoffs and the client portal to Pro and Unlimited.
- Is Contractor Foreman cheaper than WorkHoist?
- Yes, at every comparable team size. Contractor Foreman’s Unlimited plan is $332 a month for unlimited users; WorkHoist is $399 a month for up to 20 users and $999 from 20 to 75.
- Does Contractor Foreman really cost $49 a month?
- Yes for the Basic plan, billed annually at $588, covering one user. Contractor Foreman does not offer Basic on quarterly billing, and most of the features contractors compare on start at the $166 Plus plan.
- 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; equipment and reporting are on the $999 Growth plan and everything else, including the AI assistant, is in the $399 plan. See pricing.
- Can you move our data across from Contractor Foreman?
- Yes. WorkHoist migrates up to 25 open jobs with their subcontractors, POs and contacts, from spreadsheets or any system we can export from — including Contractor Foreman, provided you can export your data from it.
- What happens to my data if I leave Contractor Foreman?
- Contractor Foreman documents a custom report builder covering any module — daily logs, estimates, invoices, time cards, change orders, projects, purchase orders and more — with your own choice of columns, filters and date range. Their documentation puts it as: “If the information exists in Contractor Foreman, you can create a Custom Report to extract it.” Reports download as PDF or Excel, their built-in reports also offer CSV, and some payroll reports are CSV only. Files work differently: their documentation says that in Contractor Foreman “files are downloaded, not exported” — you select them, click Download Zip, and the link arrives by email. Structured records in Excel or CSV is a materially better position to leave from than a folder of PDFs.
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.