Buildertrend

Buildertrend is the dominant construction management platform in the U.S. residential market, trusted by over 20,000 contractors and reportedly powering more than half of new home builds nationally. Founded in 2006 in Omaha, it has grown into an end-to-end system covering the full builder workflow — from landing a lead to closing out a warranty claim.

What It Actually Covers

The platform is organized into four functional areas that work as a connected system rather than bolted-together modules:

Sales management includes a CRM hub for tracking leads, professional proposals with digital signature collection, and automated email marketing drip campaigns. When a proposal is signed, the project data flows directly into production — no re-entry required.

Project management covers scheduling, daily logs, to-do lists, time clock, change orders, selections, a dedicated subcontractor portal, and warranty tracking. The emphasis is on giving everyone — office staff, field crews, and subs — a single source of truth.

Financial management handles estimating with takeoff, bid management, purchase orders, bills, budget tracking, and invoicing. QuickBooks and Xero integrations eliminate double-entry, and a Gusto integration handles payroll. The Home Depot Pro Xtra integration (U.S. only) connects purchasing directly to job budgets.

Client management is where the client portal lives. Homeowners get a dedicated portal for reviewing selections, approving change orders, accessing files and photos, and tracking progress. Notably, Buildertrend has added AI-powered automated status updates — the system generates progress summaries for clients without the builder having to write them.

The Client Portal Experience

Clients can view schedules, approve selections and change orders, make payments (U.S. only), download files, and communicate through a messaging thread tied to their project. The portal is designed for homeowners who want transparency without needing to call their builder — photos, documents, and annotated files are all accessible in one place.

The AI-powered progress updates are a genuinely useful differentiator. Buildertrend notes that only 18% of builders currently use AI for client communication, and automating weekly summaries saves real time for smaller operations without dedicated client success staff.

Pricing and Who It's Built For

Buildertrend no longer publishes transparent pricing on its website — you fill out a form and get a custom quote based on your business size and project volume. The last publicly known starting price was $499/month, and all plans include unlimited users and unlimited projects. The company openly targets builders overseeing 5+ projects per year or working toward $1M–$8M+ in annual revenue; they even offer a "Builder Fit Quiz" to screen out smaller operators.

One customer (McManus Kitchen and Bath) reported saving $1,800/year by consolidating their CRM and project management into Buildertrend. Jkath Design Build scaled from $2M to $5M in revenue after adoption with a 50% productivity increase — the kind of testimonials that signal this is software for growth-focused builders, not hobbyists.

Onboarding and Support

Given the complexity, Buildertrend invests heavily in onboarding: guided setup assistance, data migration, a Learning Academy, live and on-demand webinars, 1:1 trainings, and live chat/email/phone support. They also offer onsite consulting and account health check-ins for larger customers. Expect weeks to full productivity, not days.

The Bottom Line

If you're a residential builder, remodeler, or specialty contractor managing multiple active projects and looking for a platform that handles sales, field operations, client communication, and financials under one roof — Buildertrend is the category leader. The price is steep and the custom quoting process is frustrating if you just want to understand the cost upfront. But for builders serious about scaling, the breadth of capability and the depth of industry-specific features is hard to match.