What is the best job costing software for contractors?

How these were ranked

Five questions, in the order they decide whether a job cost report can be trusted:

• Does crew time land on the job as a cost, without anybody typing it in again?
• Do purchase orders and subcontracts count against the budget when they are approved, before the bill arrives?
• Is there a work-in-progress (WIP) report that shows over-billing and under-billing?
• Does it connect to your accounting, or is it the accounting?
• What does the plan with job costing in it cost for five people, and is that price published?

The first question carries the most weight. For a trade contractor, labor is usually the cost that moves: materials are bought against a quote, but the crew’s hours are where a job runs over. A job cost report that waits for somebody to key in last week’s time sheets tells you a job lost money after the week you could have done something about it.

Six tools. QuickBooks Online is not ranked on its own, because the question most subs are really asking is what to put next to it — Knowify, JobTread and Contractor Foreman all connect to it. Sage, ServiceTitan and others are not here because we have not checked them to the same standard, not because they are worse. Knowify pricing JobTread time tracking Contractor Foreman plans

The ranking at a glance

How to read the prices. Knowify’s page shows yearly prices first, and job costing and WIP reporting are not on its $99 Core plan. Contractor Foreman sells annual and monthly plans, monthly costing more, and time cards, subcontracts, job costing reports and QuickBooks Online start at Plus. JobTread is one plan with every feature: $199 a month including one user, plus $20 for each user from 2 to 10. WorkHoist is 15% off paid annually. Buildertrend publishes a starting price of $499 a month and quotes the final price; FOUNDATION publishes no price. Knowify pricing Contractor Foreman plans JobTread pricing FOUNDATION pricing Buildertrend pricing

1. Knowify: labor costed properly, and QuickBooks both ways

Who it is for: trade and specialty contractors — electrical, HVAC, plumbing, painting, concrete, excavation — whose books already run on QuickBooks Online. Knowify job costing

Price: job costing is on the Advanced plan, $329 a month billed yearly with ten users included, or $399 month to month. The $99 Core plan has no job costing, no project budgets, no subcontracts and no WIP reporting. Enterprise is priced on request. Knowify pricing

What it does well

Labor is costed the way an accountant would cost it. Knowify says it captures the fully loaded labor burden — benefits, union dues, overtime — rather than just the hourly rate, and puts time on the right project and phase when the crew clocks in and out on the mobile app, or when a foreman enters it. Knowify job costing

Purchase orders are raised from the project budget and show as committed cost straight away. Subcontracts track the work your subs have done and the invoices they have sent. Change orders update the job’s costs and projected profit, and the WIP report shows whether each job is over- or under-billed. Knowify job costing

The QuickBooks connection runs both ways and covers QuickBooks Online, QuickBooks Time and QuickBooks Online Payroll on every plan. Purchase orders, expenses, bills, employee time and invoices sync between the two and land in the right cost category. Knowify job costing Knowify pricing

What it does not do well

It is built around QuickBooks. If your books live somewhere else, most of the reason to choose it goes away, and QuickBooks Desktop is only on Enterprise. The plan you need for job costing is Advanced, not the $99 Core plan in the headline. Knowify pricing

2. Contractor Foreman: the essentials at the lowest published price

Who it is for: contractors and subs who want job costing, time cards and a WIP report in the same system as the rest of the job, for as little as possible.

Price: job costing needs the Plus plan, $166 a month on annual billing for up to eight users, or $199 month to month. Time cards, subcontracts, change orders, job costing reports and QuickBooks Online all start there. Basic ($49, one user) and Standard ($105, three users) have none of them. Contractor Foreman plans

What it does well

Time is tracked against the project and the cost code, by each worker or by a supervisor clocking in a whole crew at once, and the hours roll straight into job costing. Contractor Foreman time cards

Approved purchase orders and subcontracts become committed cost on the job’s financial tab, so you see what you owe before the bill arrives. Contractor Foreman help: committed cost

Its WIP report counts time cards, expenses and bills as actual cost, works out percent complete from cost against budget or from the schedule, and shows over-billing and under-billing on each job. Contractor Foreman’s own help article points out that bonding companies and banks care about exactly this report. Contractor Foreman help: WIP report

What it does not do well

Everything that makes it a job costing tool is a tier up from the headline: the $49 plan has none of it. And the headline prices need a year paid up front. Contractor Foreman plans

3. JobTread: the same essentials, month to month

Who it is for: contractors who want every feature on one plan, month to month, with setup help included.

Price: $199 a month including one internal user, plus $20 for each user from 2 to 10, so five users is $279 a month, or $223 on annual billing. Every feature is on the one plan. JobTread pricing

What it does well

You set hourly rates per employee and per type of work, and hours and time costs show on the matching line items of the job budget. Approved hours can be pushed into QuickBooks Time Activities for payroll. JobTread time tracking

Vendor bills go through a review and approval step and are reconciled against purchase orders, and cost variance can be read at any level of the budget. JobTread job costing

Its WIP report tracks job profitability and flags over-billing and under-billing. JobTread help: reporting

What it does not do well

The bill rises with every internal user: fifteen users is $454 a month on monthly billing. JobTread pricing

4. WorkHoist: job costing that starts from the estimate

Who it is for: contractors who want job costing in the same system as the estimate, the sales pipeline and the project, with crew hours costed on the job, and who keep their books separately.

Price: $199 a month for 1 to 5 paid seats, $399 for 6 to 15, $499 for 16 to 40 and $799 for 41 to 75, custom above that. A paid seat is an admin, project manager or finance user — anyone who manages work, builds estimates or handles the money. Field crew are free: they see their tasks and schedule, clock in and out, log hours on their own tasks, tick off checklists and add photos, notes and daily logs from the field app. Clients and subcontractors on the portals are free too. No per-user fees, month to month or 15% off paid annually, with a 14-day free trial. Every job costing feature below is on every plan. The numbers are on the pricing page.

What it does well

The estimate becomes the budget: its lines carry across with quantity, unit cost and markup, and the budget rolls up by cost category or by cost code. Approved change orders revise the budget, and approved purchase orders count as committed cost automatically.

The WIP schedule works out percent complete from cost to date against estimated total cost, then earned revenue, over-billing and under-billing for every active job, and exports to CSV. It is on every plan.

Bank statements import as CSV, OFX or QFX and are matched against costs already entered, so a bill the office keyed in is not counted a second time when it clears the bank. Foremen and subs can log a cost against a job they are on; it stays pending, and out of the numbers, until a PM or finance approves it.

Time cards become labor cost on the job: each person has an hourly cost rate with a start date, the company’s labor burden is added on top, and the hours land on the budget line of the task they were logged against. Overtime is worked out by week for each worker, from the company’s own workweek, and the premium lands on the job the overtime hours were worked on. The rate is fixed when the hours are logged, so a raise does not rewrite last month. You choose whether labor cost comes from time cards or from payroll expenses booked on the job, so it is never counted twice. At the end of each pay period the hours and wages export as CSV for whoever runs payroll.

What it does not do well

There is no payroll: overtime here prices hours on the job, and your payroll provider still calculates pay, so the hours export is a file you hand over, not a sync. A subcontract’s value does not count as committed cost either — only approved purchase orders do, unless you type the figure into the budget line. Its QuickBooks connection sends to QuickBooks Online one way, and time cards and labor cost are not sent. At five users it costs the same as Contractor Foreman month to month and $3 a month more on annual billing, and less than JobTread. Contractor Foreman plans JobTread pricing

5. FOUNDATION: job costing inside the accounting system

Who it is for: contractors who have outgrown QuickBooks and want job costing, payroll and the books in one accounting system built for construction.

Price: not published. FOUNDATION prices by the modules you choose. Job costing, payroll, and purchase orders and subcontracts come with the software; mobile time tracking, project management and equipment are add-ons. FOUNDATION pricing

What it does well

Budgets are built on your own cost codes or CSI divisions and compared against revenue, cost, labor hours and quantities. It has over/under-billing and WIP reports, change orders that update the budget detail on approval without touching the original contract, and alerts for cost or labor overruns. FOUNDATION job costing

Payroll is part of the product rather than a connection to someone else’s, which is what makes it an accounting system and not a job costing add-on. FOUNDATION pricing

What it does not do well

There is no published price, so you cannot budget for it before a sales call, and field time tracking costs extra. And it is your books: moving to it is a change of accounting system, not an app you try for a month. FOUNDATION pricing

6. Buildertrend: strong labor reports, built for home builders

Who it is for: residential home builders. Its own budgeting page says that is who its budgeting tools are built for. Buildertrend budgeting

Price: starts at $499 a month for the full platform, with unlimited users. Its pricing page says the final price depends on your annual construction volume and onboarding package. Buildertrend pricing

What it does well

Job costing with cost codes, purchase orders and change orders. Its help documentation describes a WIP report that shows over- and under-billing, and a Labor Actuals vs. Budgeted report that compares budgeted labor hours and cost against the time tracked on its Time Clock. Buildertrend budgeting Buildertrend help: reports

What it does not do well

Only a starting price is published, and it is built for home builders rather than trade subs. The labor report only includes jobs that use Time Clock, have been sent to budget and have their cost type set to Labor. Buildertrend pricing Buildertrend help: reports

Where WorkHoist helps, and where it does not

WorkHoist is fourth on this list. It helps where the job cost starts: the estimate becomes the budget, approved change orders and purchase orders move it without anybody re-keying them, crew time cards land on it as labor cost with burden and overtime, and the WIP schedule with over- and under-billing is on every plan rather than a tier up.

Questions contractors ask

What is the best job costing software for contractors?

For trade contractors and subs whose books are in QuickBooks Online, Knowify is the best job costing software as of October 2026: it turns crew time into a fully loaded labor cost on the job, counts purchase orders as committed cost, has a real-time WIP report and syncs both ways with QuickBooks Online and QuickBooks Online Payroll. Job costing is on its Advanced plan, $329 a month billed yearly or $399 month to month. Contractor Foreman is the cheapest capable option, with the essentials on its Plus plan at $166 a month on annual billing, or $199 month to month, for up to eight users.

What is the best job costing software for subcontractors?

The one that turns crew hours into job cost without re-keying, because labor is usually the cost that moves on a sub’s job. Of six tools compared in October 2026, Knowify, Contractor Foreman, JobTread, Buildertrend and WorkHoist all do that from their own time tracking, and Knowify and WorkHoist also include the labor burden and overtime. For a sub on QuickBooks Online, Knowify is the strongest fit. For the lowest published price, Contractor Foreman’s Plus plan.

How much does construction job costing software cost?

For five users, published prices in October 2026 run from $166 a month (Contractor Foreman Plus, annual billing, up to eight users; $199 month to month) and $223 to $279 a month (JobTread, annual or monthly billing) to $329 to $399 a month (Knowify Advanced, yearly or monthly billing, ten users included). WorkHoist is $199 a month for up to five paid seats. Buildertrend starts at $499 a month and quotes the final price; FOUNDATION does not publish a price. Watch the tier: Knowify’s $99 plan and Contractor Foreman’s $49 and $105 plans do not include job costing.

What is a WIP report, and do I need one?

A work-in-progress (WIP) report compares what you have billed on each open job with the revenue you have earned, based on how complete the job is. If you have billed more than you have earned, the job is over-billed; if less, it is under-billed. Bonding companies and banks use it to check that a contractor is not using one job’s money to fund another, so if you carry a bond or a line of credit, expect to be asked for one. All six tools compared here have a WIP report, though Knowify’s is not on its entry-level plan.

Does job costing software replace QuickBooks?

Mostly not. Knowify, JobTread and Contractor Foreman sit next to QuickBooks Online and sync with it. FOUNDATION is the exception: it is a construction accounting system with job costing and payroll built in, so it replaces the books rather than connecting to them. WorkHoist sits next to QuickBooks Online too, sending invoices, payments, expenses, bills and bill payments one way.

Where does WorkHoist rank, and why not first?

WorkHoist ranks fourth of six in this comparison. Its job costing starts from the estimate, moves with approved change orders and purchase orders, and includes a WIP schedule with over- and under-billing on every plan. Crew time becomes labor cost from each person’s rate plus burden, with overtime worked out by week, and each pay period’s hours and wages export as CSV for payroll. But there is no payroll, its QuickBooks connection is one way and leaves labor out, and a subcontract’s value is not committed cost. That puts it behind Knowify, Contractor Foreman and JobTread. It ranks above FOUNDATION because FOUNDATION publishes no price and sells field time tracking as an add-on.