WorkHoist vs Houzz Pro: an honest comparison
If you’re a contractor weighing Houzz Pro against WorkHoist, this page is written by the team behind WorkHoist — read it with that in mind. Every claim about Houzz Pro comes from Houzz Pro’s own pricing page and help documentation, linked at the bottom. These two products are not really the same kind of thing, and the section on where Houzz Pro is the better choice is the most important one on this page.
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The short answer
Choose Houzz Pro if your problem is finding work. Houzz Pro is a marketing platform with construction software attached — the marketplace, the premium profile, the custom website and the advertising are the product, and the job tools are built around them.
Choose WorkHoist if your problem is running the work you already have. WorkHoist is a job system with no marketing of any kind: WorkHoist will never send you a customer.
That is a genuine difference in kind, not a feature-by-feature contest. A contractor with a full pipeline and chaotic jobs wants one of these. A contractor with clean jobs and an empty pipeline wants the other.
Where the two products actually differ
Houzz Pro and WorkHoist overlap on estimates, invoices, change orders, daily logs and scheduling. The differences are at the two ends: what brings work in, and what happens on a commercial job.
The top tier buys marketing, not operations
Houzz Pro’s Teams plan adds a premium profile, email marketing, a custom website, Verified Caller and Front Desk over the Pro plan beneath it. Those are customer-acquisition features, and they are what the extra money buys. That is worth saying without sneering: if your constraint is finding work rather than running it, that is real value, and WorkHoist offers nothing remotely like it.
Advertising is a separate spend on top
Houzz Pro’s advertising package is a separate product starting at $499 a month, on top of the subscription. So the full Houzz Pro proposition for a contractor who wants leads is the software plus a marketing spend that can exceed it. WorkHoist has no equivalent cost because WorkHoist has no equivalent product.
Houzz Pro is design-led
Houzz Pro carries 3D floor plans, mood boards, photorealistic renders, mobile room scan and a client selections workflow. For residential design work that toolset is genuinely strong, and WorkHoist has none of it — no 3D, no renders, no mood boards, no selections.
Commercial controls are where WorkHoist is ahead
Houzz Pro’s published materials describe no RFIs, no submittals, no equipment register and no AIA G702/G703 billing. WorkHoist has all four: RFIs and submittals are first-class records with their own fields and status, equipment is a standalone register on the Growth plan, and WorkHoist renders real G702 and G703 forms. Houzz Pro does have a punchlist, described below — that one is not a gap.
AI
Houzz Pro includes AI note-taking on the Teams plan. WorkHoist exposes the whole system over MCP on every plan, so an AI assistant can read your jobs and write to them in plain language, and WorkHoist includes its own AI agent on every plan. These are different shapes of the same idea rather than more and less of one thing.
The honest summary: Houzz Pro is trying to fill your pipeline and run the jobs that come out of it. WorkHoist is only trying to run the jobs. If the first half of that sentence describes your actual problem, Houzz Pro is the better buy and the rest of this page will not change that.
How each one prices
Houzz Pro
Houzz Pro publishes its prices, which we respect. There are four tiers, and the thing to watch is which of them charge per seat:
The Free plan carries a 3D floor planner, estimates and invoicing. Design adds 3D floor plans, mood boards, the product clipper and library, selections, a CRM, proposals and online payments. Pro adds takeoffs, bid management, change orders, budget management, contracts, a project schedule, daily logs and a Gusto integration in beta. Teams adds the marketing tier described above.
Advertising is separate again, starting at $499 a month on top of whichever plan you are on.
| Plan | Monthly | Users included | Extra users |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 1 | — |
| Design | $99 | 1 | $50 each |
| Pro | $199 | 1 | $50 each |
| Teams | From $399 | Unlimited | Included |
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.
What implementation costs
Houzz Pro does not publish an implementation or onboarding fee on its pricing page. Dedicated support is listed as a Teams-tier feature rather than a paid add-on.
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 | Houzz Pro | WorkHoist |
|---|---|---|
| Published price | Yes | Yes |
| Entry price | $0 free plan; $99/mo paid | $399/mo, up to 20 users |
| Per-user fees | $50/user on Design and Pro; none on Teams | No |
| Unlimited users | Yes, on Teams from $399/mo | Up to your plan’s band |
| Lead generation | Yes — marketplace, profile, advertising | None |
| Advertising cost | Separate, from $499/mo | Not applicable |
| Marketing tools | Email marketing, custom website, premium profile | None |
| 3D, renders and mood boards | Yes | None |
| Client selections | Yes | None |
| Punch lists | Yes, with client-visible items and photo proof | Yes, first-class records |
| RFIs and submittals | Not in their published materials | First-class records |
| Equipment register | Not in their published materials | Standalone register (Growth plan) |
| AIA G702/G703 billing | Not in their published materials | Included |
| Features gated by plan | Takeoffs, change orders and daily logs need Pro; marketing needs Teams | Two features on Growth ($999): equipment and reporting. Everything else, including the AI agent and API access, is in the $399 plan. |
| Best fit | Residential designers and remodelers who need leads as much as job control | Contractors running commercial-style controls, roughly 10–250 staff |
Where Houzz Pro is the better choice
We’d rather tell you this than have you find out three months in.
Lead generation.
Houzz is a marketplace that millions of homeowners already use, and a Houzz Pro subscription puts you in front of them. WorkHoist will never send you a customer. If your problem is finding work rather than running it, this is not close, and nothing else on this page outweighs it.
Design tooling.
3D floor plans, photorealistic renders, mood boards and mobile room scan. WorkHoist has none of these. For a designer or a design-build remodeler, that toolset is most of the job.
Client-facing polish.
Houzz Pro’s selections workflow and client dashboard are built for a homeowner choosing finishes. WorkHoist has a client portal, but it is read-only and covers one project per client, and WorkHoist has no selections workflow at all.
Punch lists the homeowner can see.
Houzz Pro’s punchlist assigns items to stakeholders with due dates, can require a photo or video before an item is marked complete, exports four ways, feeds the project schedule, and is visible in the client dashboard where the homeowner can add items themselves. WorkHoist has punch items as first-class records, but WorkHoist does not offer client-visible closeout or photographic proof of completion. On the client-facing side theirs is richer than ours.
A genuine free plan.
Houzz Pro’s free tier carries a 3D floor planner, estimates and invoicing. WorkHoist has no free plan — a 14-day trial, then $399 a month.
Unlimited users at $399.
Houzz Pro Teams includes unlimited users from $399 a month. WorkHoist’s $399 covers 20, and the next band is $999. Above 20 people, Houzz Pro is the cheaper seat.
If two or more of those describe you, talk to Houzz Pro. We mean that.
Where WorkHoist fits
What we don’t do yet.
WorkHoist is a smaller team and a younger product. WorkHoist does no lead generation — no marketplace, no directory, no advertising. WorkHoist has no marketing tools: no email marketing and no campaigns. WorkHoist does not build websites or host a public professional profile. WorkHoist has no 3D floor plans, no photorealistic renders and no room scanning. WorkHoist has no mood boards and no client selections workflow. WorkHoist has no free plan. If any one of those is load-bearing for your business, WorkHoist is not the right answer today.
Questions contractors ask
- Does Houzz Pro charge per user?
- On two of its plans. Houzz Pro’s Design and Pro plans include one user and charge $50 a month for each additional user. Houzz Pro’s Teams plan, from $399 a month, includes unlimited users at no extra cost. WorkHoist charges no per-user fee on any plan.
- How much does Houzz Pro advertising cost?
- Houzz Pro’s advertising package is priced separately from the software, starting at $499 a month, and sits on top of whichever subscription tier you are on. WorkHoist has no advertising product and no equivalent cost.
- Is Houzz Pro just for designers?
- No. Houzz Pro’s Pro tier carries takeoffs, bid management, change orders, budget management, contracts, a project schedule and daily logs, which are contractor tools rather than designer tools. Houzz Pro is design-led in its 3D, mood board and selections features, but the job management underneath is real.
- Does Houzz Pro have RFIs and submittals?
- Not in Houzz Pro’s published materials. Houzz Pro’s pricing page, feature index and help centre describe no RFIs and no submittals. Houzz Pro does have a punchlist, which is documented in their help centre and can require photo or video proof before an item is closed. WorkHoist has RFIs, submittals and punch items as first-class records.
- Is Houzz Pro cheaper than WorkHoist?
- At most team sizes, yes. Houzz Pro is cheaper below six users on its Pro plan and below eight on Design, its Teams plan is level with WorkHoist at $399 to 20 users, and above 20 users Teams is cheaper because it stays flat while WorkHoist moves to $999. WorkHoist is cheaper only between roughly six and twenty users, and only against the per-seat plans.
- 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.
- What happens to my data if I leave Houzz Pro?
- Houzz Pro documents exports per report rather than one export for the whole account. The global tracker report covers multiple projects at once and comes out as XLS or CSV, and punch lists export as PNG, PDF, CSV or XLSX. Two time limits are documented, and neither is the sort of thing anyone discovers until they need it: a generated report stays downloadable for 24 hours from the time it was generated, and image links inside a downloaded report expire after one week. If job photographs are part of what you need to keep, download the files themselves rather than relying on links inside a spreadsheet.
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.