Honest Review of Buildertrend
2024

Good for project management but challenging to use, especially on mobile.

Written by Asim Qureshi
By Asim Qureshi, CEO Jibble

August 21st 2024

As a CEO of a time tracking software company, I need to know what my competitors are up to. That means I’m often researching about and/or playing around with their products… you know, it’s part of the job. Here, I share my findings from that research, giving credit to those competitors where credit is due and being honest about which products I believe you really need to avoid. And so, there you have it, this review. And in it, I try to be honest, fair, and insightful...

This Review Covers:

Overview

Buildertrend is a fairly popular cloud-based construction management software designed for builders, remodelers, and contractors. It offers tools for project scheduling, client communication, and financial management. An impressive array of features I have to say, but how well do they actually perform? 

I spent quite a substantial amount of time looking through Buildertrend’s features, checking out how they worked and going over first-hand customer experience to truly get a comprehensive view of the software I was dealing with.

For the most part, Buildertrend did live up to its promise of bringing order and efficiency to the construction process. Their project management tools are particularly robust. You can set detailed schedules for each project task, from initial design to final installation. Its time clock feature is also a strong asset, offering offline time tracking and GPS location verification.

Aside from project management, Buildertrend offers a range of other valuable features that cater to various aspects of construction management. For financial management, Buildertrend provides a suite of tools designed to help with budgeting, cost control, and financial tracking. In terms of materials management, Buildertrend offers features to help you manage your supplies and procurement processes. The platform facilitates negotiated rebates and discounts with suppliers, helping you save money on material purchases.

With all these features on board, Buildertrend sets itself up as an all-in-one solution for construction professionals.

But Buildertrend isn’t all perfect though; no software is, after all. During my research into Buildertrend, I found some areas where the platform could significantly improve. Its mobile app, despite being a convenient tool for on-the-go management, has received mixed reviews. Users have reported bugs, limited functionality, and occasional glitches because of recent software updates. The time clock feature, while useful, also comes with its own set of issues, such as excessive notifications and sometimes unreliable offline tracking.

These are definitely concerning issues, especially for professionals who rely heavily on seamless functionality for day-to-day operations. But let’s not draw conclusions first. To get a full picture of whether or not Buildertrend is a good fit for you and your team, read on to find out what actual users have to say, the features that make the app standout, and my final verdict on the all-in-one construction management solution that is Buildertrend.

What Do Users Like About Buildertrend?

  • Offers a high level of project overview
  • Easy to schedule projects
  • Centralized project management tools

What Don’t Users Like About Buildertrend?

  • Bugs and glitches on the mobile app
  • Proposals and Estimates are separate modules so you still have to enter some data manually
  • Lacks facial recognition
  • Difficult to use

What Pricing Plans Does Buildertrend Offer?

Buildertrend offers a variety of pricing plans to cater to different business needs and sizes. Fair warning, they’re not the cheapest option but they do offer $300 off for all their plans during the first month. Here’s a breakdown of their main plans:

  • Essential Plan: Priced at $499 per month, this plan is designed for those just getting started with tech in their construction projects. It includes key sales and project management tools such as scheduling, to-do lists, a customer portal, and proposal creation.
  • Advanced Plan: The most popular option, this plan costs $799 per month. It’s ideal for businesses aiming to maximize profitability and growth. It includes advanced features like estimating, change orders, takeoff tools, and financial management.
  • Complete Plan: For those looking to scale their business significantly, the Complete Plan is available at $1,099 per month. This plan provides the most comprehensive set of tools, including selections management, warranties, detailed reporting, and requests for information. It’s perfect for builders aiming to grow their business from six to eight figures.

Each plan is designed to offer specific features that align with the varying needs of construction businesses, ensuring you have the right tools to succeed at every stage of your growth.

*Prices accurate as of August 2024

What are the Standout Features of Buildertrend?

1. Project Management

Construction projects take A LOT to manage. Thankfully, Buildertrend does have some good features to help make things a bit easier.

Under project management, it’s got daily logs, scheduling, a time clock, and to-do lists, to name a few.

You can set schedules for each of your project tasks, whether it’s designing, plumbing, installations, and so on. You can even link dependent work which I think is pretty cool. So for example, you can designate certain tasks like rough HVAC to only be done after framing, or rough plumbing only after rough HVAC, and so on.

Schedules can be viewed as a list, calendar, or Gantt chart. Scheduled items can even be color-coded for better organization.

To keep track of project progress, Buildertrend has a daily log feature where workers can log what they did during the day, and add notes or photos and videos to show a full picture of the project underway. The only thing I have against these daily logs is that you have to create these entries manually. Not something most people can stick to, especially on a busy day.

They do have a time clock though which I think is a better alternative for tracking projects. It can be installed right on your phone and can even keep tracking time offline. There’s a GPS tracking feature too which is especially helpful for making sure workers are in the right location.

The time clock definitely sounds promising, but be advised, users have raised several complaints about the mobile time clock including bugs, limited features, issues when tracking time offline, and one too many notifications.

An overview of the Buildertrend scheduling feature. Image credits to Buildertrend.

2. Financial Management

Buildertrend’s financial management feature offers practical tools to help construction companies manage their finances more effectively. This feature provides accurate cost estimation, real-time tracking, and efficient resource allocation.

The budgeting templates, either pre-built or custom, help organize line items, cost breakdowns, and estimates, saving time and ensuring consistency. Excel integration allows for easy uploading and managing of financial documents, making information sharing straightforward.

Managing change orders and purchase orders within Buildertrend helps maintain control over costs, even when project scopes change. Accurate job estimations and actual cost comparisons enable realistic planning and resource allocation from the start, supporting better timeline management.

Job costing features provide visibility into individual project profitability, while cost coding and custom qualifiers help understand and forecast expenses. Online payments make it easier to get paid quickly and efficiently, improving cash flow.

Real-time reporting and analytics allow for quick access to job costs and detailed budgets, tracking daily expenses across all projects. This helps builders make informed decisions and maintain financial control.

Overall, Buildertrend’s financial management feature streamlines budgeting and financial processes, reducing errors and improving profitability for construction companies.

An overview of the Buildertrend financial management feature. Image credits to Buildertrend.

3. Materials Management

Buildertrend’s materials management feature helps construction companies handle their materials and supplies more efficiently. By creating an organized catalog of suppliers and integrating cost items and codes into the platform, it simplifies the process of managing materials.

One notable aspect under materials management is the ability to negotiate rebates and discounts, which can lead to cost savings. Buildertrend even streamlines getting money back from material purchases, making it easier for builders to benefit from these savings.

Managing materials and reporting is also straightforward with Buildertrend. The platform provides tools to calculate contract terms, submit rebate items, and handle disputes, ensuring accurate and efficient reporting. This helps builders stay organized and focused on their projects while maximizing their cost-efficiency.

Selected Positive User Feedback

  • “Having everything you need in one place makes it easy to have a high-level overview of the project and see any detail needed. BT also sync’s with Quickbooks making accounting a breeze!” – Ashley K. (Source: Capterra)
  • “What I like the most about Buildertrend is that it helps me organize the projects I manage and that is user friendly and easy to use.” – Frenando H.  (Source: Capterra)
  • “Customer support was excellent . Navigation through modules . Integration with QBooks.” – Svetlana G.  (Source: Capterra)
  • “Great program to keep your jobs organized!!” – Jacob Malone (Source: Google Play Store)
  • “Easy to schedule projects and assign tasks to workers or sub-contractors.” – Nathan M. (Source: GetApp)
  • “I think what separates is from other similar tools is that it’s completely customized for construction. It has estimating and quoting, work orders, task management, field service monitoring, you name it. It saves you from having to buy and use a dozen different software for each thing.” – Janelle B. (Source: GetApp)

Selected Negative User Feedback

  • “Proposals and Estimates are separate modules. You can import proposals to esimates, but not if you want to template any of your allowances or selections. Basically, no matter what you do, you’re stuck doing a bunch of manual entry every time you set up a new job. Also lots of duplicate entry with allowances and selections.” – Verified User in Construction (Source: G2)
  • “The salesman assigned to our account was very rude and unprofessional. We were ready to purchase the software but decided not to because we were sooo turned off by their rude and unprofessional salesman.” – Tyler W. (Source: Capterra)
  • “The mobile version needs some help. Not very screen friendly” – Johnnie B. (Source: Capterra)
  • “The app ignores custom notification settings and pushes all notifications. In jobs that are huge with multiple coworkers submitting daily logs and updating to do lists and more, your device will get absolutely flooded with notifications annoying you to the point of disabling app notifications entirely, and you miss important notifications for a specific category due to this. “ – Carlos Pineda (Source: Google Play Store)
  • “Almost every part of their software has failings that make it hard and cumbersome to use. There could be so many easy things they could do to make it as powerful as they claim it is, but at the rate they seem to make improvements 9r fix hugs, it may take years to reach its potential.” – Jacob Kirk (Source: Google Play Store)
  • “I very, very, very often run into bugs with this app, like it saying that I have no job selected after selecting a job, and then the link to select a job says there are no jobs, but if I go under the More tab I can see all the jobs. Also, every time I start a new job with my contractor I have to contact Buildertrend support to fix my account because it completely breaks. Every single time.” – MrOBrian (Source: App Store)

What are Buildertrend’s Review Ratings from Review Sites?

As of July 2024:

  • Capterra: 4.5/5
  • G2: 4.2/5
  • TrustRadius: 6.3/10
  • Software Advice: 4.5/5
  • GetApp: 4.5/5
  • Google Play Store: 4.5/5
  • App Store: 4.5/5

What’s My Final Verdict on Buildertrend?

So, Buildertrend, is it worth it or not?

In terms of cost, Buildertrend isn’t the most practical choice for small construction companies that only need basic construction management tools. Now, if you’re a big construction company, you may choose to see it as more of an investment.

The app does offer a wide range of powerful features that can justify its price, particularly for larger operations where project complexity and scale demand more robust management solutions. Fix the mobile app issues, streamline some of the app redundancies, and maybe work on improving customer service further, and this platform could be stellar. The question is IF and WHEN they fix these issues. Until then, I’d give it a solid 4 stars. Not bad, but also not too good.