The number on the pricing page is almost never the number on your card. Three things move it: how many people need logins, how much AI you use, and whether the good rate requires paying twelve months up front. Here's what to ask before you subscribe.
Last reviewed: August 2026 · 6 min read
The short version. Compare on total annual cost for your actual crew size, not the advertised monthly rate. Then ask where the pricing data comes from — a national average of other people's jobs, or your own past quotes.
We'll show our own numbers throughout so you can check the math. BuildCraft Pro starts at $59.99/month with unlimited projects (Kim Assistant; Partner $199 and Crew $499 add Kim answering your intake page, follow-ups, and team seats).
Per-seat pricing is normal in software and awkward in construction. Hire a second estimator, or let a lead carpenter look up a number on site, and you pay more for the same jobs. Plans in this category commonly ship with a seat cap — two users, or five — and going past it means the next tier, not a small add-on.
Ask for the price at the crew size you'll have in a year, not today's. And ask whether a read-only login for a bookkeeper or a project manager still counts as a seat.
Some tools include a monthly allowance of AI runs, often called credits. An entry plan might come with 50. That sounds generous until you're mid-bid in your busiest month.
Get specific: what consumes one credit — a whole estimate, each revision, each blueprint page? What happens at zero: does it stop, or does it bill you? Do unused credits roll over? Metering quietly makes your busiest month your most expensive software month, which is exactly backwards.
A lot of headline rates are the annual-prepay rate. The month-to-month figure can be 20–25% higher, which you find out at checkout. That's a legitimate discount, not a trick — but it means the number you compared wasn't the number you'd pay unless you commit for a year on a tool you've used for a week.
Ask for both figures, and ask what happens to your data and your estimates if you stop paying mid-term.
This is the question that decides whether the estimates are usable, and it gets asked least.
One approach prices from a large dataset of past projects across the country. You get a plausible number in seconds, and it reflects other contractors' costs in other markets. That can land close, or it can be badly wrong for your city, your suppliers, and your crew — and "badly wrong" cuts both ways: a number that's too high loses you the job and makes you look unserious, one that's too low you have to eat.
The other approach learns from your own past quotes: the prices you've actually charged and won work with.
Either way — and this matters more than which approach — check every AI number against your own costs before it goes to a client. Any tool that discourages you from doing that is selling confidence, not estimating.
Estimating is one job on a job. Ask which of these are included, which are an add-on, and which need a second subscription: proposals and e-signature, invoicing, change orders, scheduling, budget vs. actual cost tracking, time and crew tracking, a client portal, accounting export, and offline access for sites with no signal.
A cheap estimating tool plus three other subscriptions is not cheap, and moving data between them by hand is where jobs get mispriced.
Say you're a small GC: you, an estimator, and a lead who needs to look things up on site. Three logins. Here's how the two pricing models diverge over a year — the per-seat column uses a $149/month entry plan capped at two users, with a $299/month tier to get past the cap, which is a shape you'll see often in this category.
| Year one | Per-seat + metered AI | BuildCraft Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Plan needed for 3 users | Next tier up (2-user cap) | Base plan |
| Monthly rate | $299 | from $59.99 |
| Twelve months | $3,588 | $719.88 |
| Extra AI usage in busy months | Possible — depends on credits | Paid to your AI provider, typically a few dollars |
| Year one, before AI usage | $3,588 | $719.88 |
| Difference | $2,868 — about four months of a truck payment | |
Two honest caveats on that table. First, plans and prices change constantly, so get current numbers from whoever you're comparing — we're showing a shape, not a quote on their behalf. Second, a higher price can absolutely be worth it: if a tool's estimates land closer for your trade, saving one mispriced job pays for years of subscription. Cost is one input, not the answer.
It's a standard software model that fits construction badly — you pay more for the same jobs because a second person needs to see a number. Plans in this category often cap seats at two or five. Ask what your third and fifth user cost before you subscribe.
A metered allowance of AI runs, often 50/month on entry plans. Ask what consumes one, what happens when you hit zero mid-bid, and whether they roll over. Metering makes your busiest month your most expensive software month.
Honestly, both. Better on cost and on transparency — you pay the AI provider directly at their rates, with no reseller margin and nothing metered. Worse on setup: it's a real extra step at signup, and it's the main reason someone might prefer an all-inclusive plan. Worth knowing which trade-off you're making rather than discovering it later.
Good enough to save hours, not good enough to send unchecked. It's excellent at not forgetting scope and at structuring a bid fast; it can be well off on prices, especially with national-average data in a local market. Treat the output as a complete first draft you price-check, not a finished bid. We put that warning in the product itself, next to the AI, on purpose.
Run a project you've finished through it and compare against your real costs. 14-day free trial — $0 today, plans from $59.99/mo.
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