Contractor CRM tools, or customer relationship management tools, are a great way to:
- Keep track of all paperwork, design work, proposals, and project updates
- Give your customers a platform where they can talk to you at all times
- And offer your clients the transparent process they want for their home upgrade
The only problem is, what’s the right construction CRM for your needs?
Out of dozens of CRMs that do more or less the same thing, we’ve picked the ones that make the most sense for contractors.
Many of our contractors are using JobTread, and based on their feedback, it’s definitely a great CRM option.
This tool is exclusively for contractors, so it has everything you need to manage your leads. It helps you “win more jobs and make more money in less time” – their words.
Some of the things you can do with JobTread are:
- Customizable forms you can embed on your website
- Track leads by status
- Direct messaging with clients, vendors, and project managers
- Unlimited storage for documents, photos, and videos in any file type
- Add people to every project and set roles for them
- Generate customer, vendor, and job reports
- And a lot more.
Cost Of JobTread
As of April 2024, JobTread is priced at $199 per month, or you can pay one year in advance for $159 per month for one internal user.
Internal users are employees who you want to have full access to your JobTread interface, like a project manager or an accountant.
It’s fair to say JobTread is not cheap. But for $1,908 for the entire year, we can almost guarantee this contractor CRM will help you build better relationships with your clients.
Buildertrend offers some unique features that we don’t see with any other CRM. It’s also exclusively made for contractors, builders, and remodelers.
The features that will really level up your contracting business and make your life easier are:
- Materials management for both builders and suppliers
- Sales management
- Bids, estimates, financing options, payments & invoices, insurance
- Various solutions for home builders, remodelers, specialty contractors, and commercial contractors
- E-books, podcasts, webinars, and templates specific to contractors
- Training, networking, courses, and certifications
- And more
And here’s another awesome feature we couldn’t find with any other CRM (let alone construction CRMs).
Buildertrend lets you manage materials and earn supplier rebates through brand partnerships, allowing you to increase your profit margins more easily and quickly.
Cost Of Buildertrend
Look, Buildertrend is not our #1 pick because, let’s face it… it’s expensive.
It offers 3 plans:
- Essential starts at $199 the first month and then $499 the following months.
- Advanced starts at $499 the first month and then $799 the following months.
- Complete starts at $799 the first month and then $1099 the following months.
However, you can include it under Office Supplies and deduct this expense for your contracting business. In fact, most marketing expenses are tax-deductible, so you shouldn’t worry too much about it.
And remember, if it weren’t for the huge price, Buildertrend would most likely be the #1 CRM for thousands of contractors.
HubSpot is widely regarded as one of the best CRMs for all sorts of businesses. Note that this is not a client relationship management tool exclusively for contractors but for all industries.
One of the best things about HubSpot is that it offers multiple “Hubs” for content, operations, commerce, service, sales, and even marketing.
While this is great, it can also be quite overwhelming for a lot of our contractors, especially if all you’re trying to do is keep track of your leads pipeline.
Some of HubSpot’s popular features are:
- Lead management & prospecting
- Email templates
- Email tracking
- Sales automation
- Call tracking
- Quote software
- Payment management
- And more
The only problem with these features?
Many are automated, and while it helps you be hands-free, your clients need you there. They need to talk to a human being on the other side of the line, not a robot.
Cost Of HubSpot
The Sales Hub Professional starts at $100 per month per internal user, and the Sales Hub Enterprise starts at $150 per month per internal user.
Neither plan includes the required, on-time Professional Onboarding, which costs an extra $1,470 for the Professional option and $3,420 for the Enterprise option.
Pipedrive was designed to help small businesses grow, regardless of the industry they’re in. While this is not a contractor CRM, it’ll work great for your context too.
The tool was created by an Estonian-based company back in 2010, and by now, they have over 100,000 companies using Pipedrive, ~100M deals created by their tool each year, and over 400 integrations with various other tools.
They also won awards like:
- Best Software as a Service 2022-2023
- Easiest To Use CRM 2023
- Best Sales Generating Tool 2023
- Category Leader for Best Inside Sales Software 2022
- And Best Lead Management Software 2023
In the US, they have headquarters in New York and Florida, and lots of other offices in Europe.
Cost Of Pipedrive
Still an underdog compared to HubSpot, Buildertrend, and JobTread, Pipedrive attracts a lot of business with more affordable plans for their CRM.
They have 5 plans, starting from $14 for the Essential all the way up to $99 for the Enterprise. Their most popular plan is Professional, at $49 per month per internal user. All their plans are billed annually, and they do offer a 14-day trial period without requesting credit card info.
We’re saying one of the oldest because Salesforce started back in 1999, when the internet was still in its infancy. Of course, after 20 years of developing their platform, you can imagine their tool is pretty darn good.
But is it?
Well, it is an all-in-one solution that lets you manage leads, contracts, active clients and projects, and it does what a CRM is supposed to: helps you close more leads.
Salesforce’s true power might lie in its ability to customize pretty much anything in your sales pipeline.
However, all that customization has a drawback – it’s very difficult to implement.
The more complicated the sales pipeline you want to implement, the more difficult it gets to use the software. This makes Salesforce a not-so-easy-to-use CRM.
Cost Of Salesforce
The Starter Suite for Salesforce starts at $25 per user per month and it can be billed monthly or annually. You can also get the Pro Suite that takes your CRM a step further for $100 per user per month, billed only annually.
Both of these plans offer a free trial, and you can add other tools to them. However, you’ll have to pay extra for tools that other CRMs already offer in their standard plans.
You’ve heard of Houzz, and you’ve probably spent some time there.
You most likely already have an account on Houzz, but if you don’t, get one. It’s an important business directory that can generate some extra leads.
But Houzz Pro let’s you take everything a step further and offers you a decent construction CRM right on their platform.
It’s a great tool because you’re already familiar with the platform and because it’s exclusively built for contractors. In fact, over 3 million contractors, designers, architects, and remodelers use it.
Some of its unique features are:
- Mood boards
- 3D floor planner
- Quick estimates
- Targeted local advertising on Houzz
- Powerful premium Houzz profile
- And more
Cost Of Houzz Pro
Houzz Pro offers 3 plans for its CRM and all its tools:
- The Starter plan is $85 per month.
- The Essential plan is $129 per month.
- The Pro plan is $199 per month.
All plans come with a 30-day free trial that you can cancel before the annual subscription begins at the end of the trial period.
Monday.com started in 2012 but lately, it is really starting to gain a lot of business with some big names in all industries. Monday.com is not exclusively made for contractors, although it does work great for different trades and services.
They offer a great and easy-to-use work management tool and a sales CRM that’ll help you keep projects, clients, and your goals organized.
Some of its features are:
- Automated task generation
- Email composition and rephrasing
- Content generation
- Hundreds of integrations
- And more
But is it better than JobTread or Buildertrend?
That’s difficult to say because we don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. However, you’ll find Monday.com features in most other CRMs listed here.
Cost Of Monday.com
- Basic CRM comes at $36 per month per user, billed annually.
- Standard CRM comes at $51 per month per user, billed annually.
- Pro CRM comes at $84 per month per user, billed annually.
- And for the Enterprise CRM you’ll need to contact their sales team for a personalized offer that’ll work in your favor.
Are There More Construction CRMs?
For construction businesses, not really.
For other trades and services, there are probably hundreds.
But if you’re just starting out and you want something very basic that you don’t even have to pay for, we got you covered.
We’ve built a free CRM for contractors that you can use without any previous experience. This quick video will show you how to make the most of it.
Download Your Empty CRM
Conclusion
A construction CRM for your contracting business is a must, especially if you plan to start scaling.
But you can’t know what’s right for you until you try it.
Try the free trials, look at what each option gives you, see what price makes the most sense, and look at what features could make managing your business easier for you.
And another important thing we noticed our clients love with their CRM is the support they get when things are not working properly. You can have all the features in the world, but if the support team ghosts you when you need them, it’s pointless.
There’s another thing…
You can have a CRM to manage your leads, but you need someone to actually get you these leads. We’ve had many of our clients change CRMs simply because what they had before couldn’t handle all the incoming leads and quote requests. If that sounds interesting, let’s talk!
Gabriel Iacob, Copywriter @ Contracting Empire
Gabriel is a copywriter that makes sure your website, content, and ads are optimized to bring in high-value local leads. He loves to dive deep and research your customer’s behavior online, so every line he writes speaks to your audience.
In his free time, Gabriel loves riding his custom-made mountain bike, hiking, and discovering new music.