6 Best Contractor & Construction CRM Software for 2022
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Customer relationship management (CRM) software for construction businesses lets users pair basic CRM features like lead management and data organization with tools specifically useful to builders and contractors. This includes features for project management, quote generation, and managing contractor operations. We evaluated dozens of construction CRM products for contractors as well as other trades and identified the top six options:
- HubSpot: Best overall for new construction businesses looking for a free CRM
- JobNimbus: Excellent option for general contractors looking for an all-in-one business and construction management CRM
- Insightly: Great choice for small contractors looking for elaborate lead management features
- Unanet, CRM by Cosential: Solid pick for construction firms sending a high-volume of proposals
- MarketSharp: Good choice for local contractors who use a variety of sales and marketing tactics
- JobProgress: Best CRM for contractors seeking strong mobile capabilities
Provider | Free Plan | Starting Price for Paid Plans* | Free Trial for Paid Plans | Key CRM Features for Construction Management | Customer Support |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Yes (unlimited users) | $45 per month for 2 users | 14 days | Built-in payment processing & quote generation tools | Chat, email, and phone support from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST |
 | X | Must contact sales for pricing | 14 days | Project management with permit processing automation | Live chat, phone, & email support during business hours |
 | Up to 2 users | $29 per user, per month | 14 days | Built-in project management | Email & phone support from 4 a.m. to 7 p.m. PST |
 | X | Must contact for pricing, estimates start at $10 per user, per month | X | Advanced proposal management, business intelligence, & reporting features | Live chat, email, & phone support during business hours |
 | X | Starts at $99 per month for 1 user + $40 per month for each additional user | X | Reputation & referral management with local radius-based marketing tools | Email, live chat, & phone support during business hours |
 | X | $500 one-time fee plus $55 per user, per month | X | Proposal & invoice management with digital signature & built-in payment processing | Email, live chat, & phone support during business hours |
*Based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for slightly higher rates.
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HubSpot: Best Overall Construction Management CRM
HubSpot
Overall Score: 4.40
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Free for unlimited users
- High ease of use for operating features and navigating interface
- Built-in ad management features
What's Missing
- Deal management only allows 1 pipeline on free plan
- No built-in payment processing on free plan
- Weak project management tools built primarily for marketing
HubSpot Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Supports an unlimited number of users
- HubSpot for Startups: Ranges from $40 to $89 per month
- Marketing Hub: Starts at $45 per month
- Sales Hub: Starts at $45 per month
- Service Hub: Starts at $45 per month
- CMS Hub: Starts at $23 per month
- Operations Hub: Free plan for data-syncing HubSpot with third-party apps; paid plans start at $45 per month
- CRM Suite: Starts at $45 per month
- Free trial: 14 days
*Pricing based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
HubSpot is well-known for its powerful marketing tools that include built-in ad management, email marketing automation, landing page customization, and audience list segmentation features. These, along with the sales management tools, customer service modules, and content management system (CMS), can be accessed and operated with ease thanks to the solid overall system usability and clean interface design.
Construction businesses that are just starting particularly like the free-forever plan options that allow an unlimited number of users. Furthermore, the ability to manage online forms, email marketing campaigns, landing pages, advertisements, leads, and deal pipelines for free gives new contractors powerful tools for generating new business with minimal initial costs.
While it is ranked as the best CRM for construction businesses, HubSpot’s main weakness is its lack of robust project management capabilities—something important for a contractor or builder. For a CRM product that offers strong project management features, we recommend JobNimbus, which has robust modules for managing construction projects and the resources that go into them.
HubSpot Plan Summary
Free | Starter | Professional | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Contact & Lead Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Email Scheduling | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Meeting Scheduling | 1 personal meeting link | 1,000 personal and team links | 1,000 personal and team links | 1,000 personal and team links |
Deal Pipeline Management | 1 per account | 2 per account | Up to 15 per account | Up to 100 per account |
Documents | Up to 5 per account | Up to 5,000 per account | Up to 5,000 per account | Up to 5,000 per account |
Quotes | Basic quote generation (without e-signature and payment processing) | Basic quote generation along with payment processing | Up to 100 per deal and includes e-signature and payment processing | Up to 100 per deal and includes e-signature and payment processing |
Built-in Payment Processing | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Sales Automation | X | Task and email notification workflows only | Up to 300 custom workflows | Up to 1,000 custom workflows |
Video Messaging | X | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Sales Forecasting | X | X | ✔ | ✔ |
E-signature | X | X | Up to 10 per month | Up to 30 per month |
HubSpot Key Features
- Email marketing: Included in the free plan, allows users to design and send mass email campaigns to leads and contacts.
- Ad management: Available for free, lets marketing teams manage various advertisement and online lead generation campaigns by integrating with connected accounts, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Google.
- Quotes: Free basic quoting features for creating and sending professional quotes. Paid plans allow for e=signatures on quotes as well as payment processing through Stripe integration or ACH.
- Meeting scheduling: Free built-in link for customers to sign up for appointments based on a preconfigured schedule of a company representative.
Want a full product guide on everything HubSpot CRM offers small businesses? Check out our in-depth HubSpot review to explore pricing plans, features, and the types of businesses we recommend the product for.
JobNimbus: Best for General Contracting Businesses
JobNimbus
Overall Score: 4.16
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Built specifically for construction and contractor businesses in terms of modular and integration capabilities
- Robust project and construction management features
- CRM contains full sales cycle management capabilities, including the ability to send estimates, proposals, contracts, invoices, and collect payments
What's Missing
- Lacks transparent pricing
- Interface can be clunky and difficult to navigate
- No free-forever plan option
JobNimbus Pricing at a Glance
- Early: Contact for quote
- Growing: Contact for quote
- Established: Contact for quote
- Free trial: 14 days
JobNimbus is a specialized CRM built for general contractors, construction companies, and other related trade businesses like roofers, landscapers, and window installers. It has modules for many aspects of a contracting business, including lead management, digital proposal and contract generation, and invoicing and payment processing.
While these types of features are common in most CRMs, they work well in conjunction with the project management features of JobNimbus. The projects and task modules allow you to organize and collaborate on client work as well as manage resources that go into projects through activities like calculating materials and labor costs.
Though there are plenty of features for handling sales development, financial management, and project management for a general contractor, JobNimbus falls short of being the top construction CRM system because they don’t offer a free plan or public pricing on their website. HubSpot is an alternative CRM product that offers a free option for an unlimited number of users.
JobNimbus Plan Summary
Early | Growing | Established | |
|---|---|---|---|
Lead & Pipeline Management With Unlimited Contacts | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Workflow Tracking With Boards | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Invoicing & Payment Processing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Unlimited Job Management | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Workflow Automation | X | Up to 10 workflows | Unlimited workflows |
Project Management | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Integrations | X | Up to 5 | Unlimited integrations |
Custom Data Fields & Task Types | X | X | ✔ |
JobNimbus Key Features
- Paperless features: Built-in digital generation tools for creating and sending proposals, contracts, invoices, work estimates, and material orders.
- Photo archive: Photo-taking capabilities with storage and organization directly on the CRM in a lead or project record.
- Project management: Ability to create and management construction projects and associated tasks on a Kanban board view.
- Reporting and insights: Real-time visibility on new business opportunities, the sales funnel, payment cycles, and current projects.
Is JobNimbus the best CRM for your business? Learn more in our comprehensive JobNimbus review to see if it meets your feature, usability, and budget requirements.
Insightly: Best for Lead Management Capabilities
Insightly
Overall Score: 3.48
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Built-in project management features with data syncing to Google Workspace and Office 365 applications
- Excellent lead management tools that include automated lead assignment, profile enrichment, and duplicate detection
- Solid reporting and dashboard features with real-time insights and custom report scheduling
What's Missing
- Free plan limited to 2 users
- Quote generator requires Professional plan
- Workflow automation requires Professional plan
Insightly Pricing at a Glance*
- Free: Up to two users
- Plus: $29 per user, per month
- Professional: $40 per user, per month
- Enterprise: $99 per user, per month
- Free trial: 14 days
*Pricing based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Insightly offers a solid mix of features for sales, project management, automation, and business intelligence. In terms of pricing, growing contractors can get scalable options as well as a free-forever plan for up to two users and some basic features. The project management features include are milestone and task tracking, opportunity-to-project conversions, and the option to sync project data to a team calendar.
Insightly’s lead management features make this CRM software stand out from the rest. Contracting businesses can optimize much of their sales process by automatically routing incoming leads to a rep, detecting duplicated contact data, and automatically enriching profiles based on information found on social media accounts. There are also mass emailing capabilities with premade templates to stay in touch with leads and customers.
Despite the capabilities for managing leads and their contact data, Insightly requires users to subscribe to the Enterprise plan for sending quotes—something critical to a contractor’s sales process. For a CRM that allows you to generate and send quotes at a lower price, we recommend HubSpot or Unanet, CRM by Cosential.
Insightly Plan Summary
Free | Plus | Professional | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Contact, Opportunity & Project Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Mass Emailing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Project Milestone & Task Tracking | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Business Intelligence Dashboards | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Report Scheduling | X | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Roles, Permissions & Profiles | X | 2 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
Custom Calculated Object Fields | X | X | X | ✔ |
Workflow Automation | X | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Products, Price Books & Quotes | X | X | X | ✔ |
Insightly Key Features
- Integrated project management: Project, milestones, and task organization with calendar sync, configurable processes, and ability to convert opportunities to projects.
- Report scheduling: Automatic custom sales reports can be created and emailed to relevant parties on preset schedule.
- Lead management: Features for organizing lead information, auto-routing leads to sales reps, enriching profiles with up-to-date social media information, and tracking leads in a Kanban view.
- Products, price books, and quotes: Centralized creation and sending of price estimates and quotes directly from the CRM.
Learn more about this platform to decide if it’s the best fit for your business by reading our in-depth Insightly review.
Unanet, CRM by Cosential: Best for Proposal Management Automation
Unanet, CRM by Cosential
Overall Score: 3.10
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Great proposal management features, including advanced automation for proposal generation tasks
- Supplemental resources for product education including a blog, webinars, full-time customer success rep, and one-on-one user training
- Powerful built-in business intelligence dashboards and analytical reporting capabilities
What's Missing
- Lacks transparent pricing
- Project management features require integration
- No free-forever plan or free trial available for testing out the platform
Cosential Pricing at a Glance*
- Unanet CRM by Consential Pricing: Must contact for pricing, estimated starting price is $10 per user, per month
*Pricing based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Unanet, CRM by Cosential is designed to help sales reps, marketers, and principals of construction companies manage some of the unique aspects of their operation. This includes continuously monitoring the financial health of the business, strategizing business development opportunities, and making better decisions on which project opportunities to pursue using the data in the CRM.
One of the key features of Unanet is the capabilities offered to sales reps and marketers for proposal generation and deployment. This industry-specific CRM provides for many proposal tasks, such as populating proposal templates and publishing final drafts for automation. The system also keeps proposal resources in one spot so you won’t constantly chase down information for each opportunity.
It’s important to note that despite being designed for construction, architecture, and engineering businesses, it’s mostly helpful for managing the sales process and gaining business insights. Therefore, project management capabilities cannot be fulfilled without integration with an external application such as Procore. JobNimbus and Insightly are alternative construction CRMs with built-in project management modules.
Unanet, CRM by Cosential Summary
Unanet Cosential CRM Summary | |
|---|---|
Mobile Business Card Scanner | Create contacts while on the go by scanning their business card to have their data stored in the CRM |
Call Logging | Record option from contact profile |
Contact & Lead Management | Includes linking to LinkedIn profiles or company web page of a contact |
Proposal Management | Automation to help track down proposal information, organize templates, and publish submittals |
Opportunity Management | Includes viewing pending opportunities on Kanban-style chart |
Built-in Gross Margin Calculator | Input dollars or percentages to get automatic calculations on project opportunity margins |
Revenue Projection | Estimates based on current and potential projects |
Go/No-go Decision Making | Risk analysis of opportunities with automated notifications if an opportunity meets criteria |
Advanced Strategy & Business Planning | Evaluates critical success drivers to accounts and past completed projects |
Won Opportunities-to-Project Conversions | Drag-and-drop editing to move won deals into new projects |
Unanet, CRM by Cosential Key Features
- Proposal management: Ability to store premade proposal templates and resources as well as automate repetitive proposal management tasks and directly send out proposals from Adobe InDesign and Microsoft Word integrations.
- Contact and lead management: Contact data organization, linking to LinkedIn profiles and online web pages, business card scan-to-contact profile, and call logging directly from a lead profile.
- Strategic decision features: High-level strategic management capabilities include finding success drivers of your accounts and opportunities, running revenue projections, optimizing financial resources toward projects, and building a SWOT analysis.
MarketSharp: Best for Small Contractors Using a Variety of Lead Generation Methods
MarketSharp
Overall Score: 3.03
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Multidimensional sales and marketing features, which account for all types of sales strategies
- Modules and features built specifically for contractors, home improvement businesses, and remodelers
- Unique CRM features including commission management, reputation management, and radius marketing
What's Missing
- Relatively expensive paid plans
- No free plan or free trial available
- System can be difficult to set up and has limited customization capabilities
MarketSharp Pricing at a Glance*
- Standard: $99 per month (includes 1 user then $40 per additional user, per month)
- Pro: $199 per month (includes 1 user then $45 per additional user, per month)
- Ultimate: $299 per month (includes 1 user then $50 per additional user, per month)
*Pricing based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
MarketSharp is one of the best contractor CRMs as its sales and marketing features are designed specifically for specialty trade businesses like carpenters or plumbers as well as home improvement and remodeling companies. While it is fairly expensive compared to other products on this list, it does offer a centralized solution to manage all types of sales and marketing strategies.
For instance, businesses using direct sales prospecting for leads get basic contact management modules and have the ability to auto-route a newly generated appointment to a sales rep. Additionally, marketing-heavy businesses can manage direct mailing and automated email campaigns from the CRM system. For more unique tactics, local contractors can use MarketSharp to manage their referral marketing sources and online reviews.
Even at the starting prices, the subscription costs of MarketSharp are much higher than other construction CRMs on this list. Additionally, there is no free-forever plan or a free trial to test the features. Insightly and HubSpot are high-quality alternatives for businesses with a limited budget for a CRM platform.
MarketSharp Plan Summary
Standard | Pro | Ultimate | |
|---|---|---|---|
Lead, Account & Contact Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Calendar, Scheduling & Appointment Tracking | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Document & Photo Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Referral Marketing Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Direct Mail Campaign Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Quotes, Estimates & Payment Processing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
Job Costing & Production Management | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Commission Tracking | X | ✔ | ✔ |
Email Automation | X | X | ✔ |
Sales Appointment Routing | X | X | ✔ |
MarketSharp Key Features
- Streamlined project management: Ability to manage and communicate on projects and client jobs while also scheduling and tracking production crews on job sites.
- Automated lead nurturing: Automated follow-ups, appointment confirmations, promotional offers, social media invites, newsletters, and online reviews through email campaigns.
- Roof measurements feature: Unique tool for acquiring roof measurements of customer homes to provide quick and easy quotes.
- JobSite radius marketing: Automated email and online marketing to showcase recent work completed in the audience’s neighborhood to generate leads.
- Reputation management: Features for managing referral campaigns, customer feedback, online reviews, and recent job satisfaction.
JobProgress: Best for Mobile Capabilities
JobProgress
Overall Score: 2.84
OUT OF 5
What We Like
- Built as a robust business management solution specifically for contractors
- Mobile application capabilities are parallel to the web application
- Unique insurance estimation and selling price worksheet tools
What's Missing
- Expensive starting costs that include a hefty, one-time setup fee
- No free plan or free trial available
- Some synchronization issues reported about integration with third-party applications
JobProgress Pricing at a Glance*
- JobProgress Plan: $500 one-time fee plus $55 per user, per month
*Pricing based on annual billing. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
JobProgress is a CRM for contractors that lets users do everything from managing sales opportunities and their finances to tracking stages on customer projects. This platform is a full solution to easily send out estimates and proposals as well as obtain electronic e-signatures and payments from customers.
This construction CRM is well-known for how strong the mobile application is for contractors looking to get CRM functionality from their iPhone, Android, or tablets. The functionality of the mobile application compared to the web application is virtually the same—letting business owners and managers easily get work done from job sites or other on-the-go locations.
Though built for construction businesses, this CRM comes at an expensive cost and has many reported integration issues—specifically for data not syncing properly between systems and frequent interface glitches. Insightly is a great CRM alternative with a free option, scalable paid plan options, and a broad variety of integration options with minimal issues reported by users.
JobProgress Plan Summary
JobProgress Summary | |
|---|---|
Estimating & Quoting | Automated estimates and proposal generator with tracking |
Financial Management | Includes profit and loss analysis |
Custom Workflow Stages | Stages and steps in a sales process and work project |
Digital Signatures & Payment Processing | Ability to send out contracts and proposals for e-signature and collect payments from the CRM |
Email Automation | Email scheduling and drip campaigns |
Mapping, Navigation, PhotoDraw & VoiceNote | Contact profiles can have Google Map location and store photos and voice recordings for noting |
Estimator, Proposal & Contract Template Builder | Ability to custom create customer documents using premade templates |
Integration With Popular Apps | |
Insurance Estimator Tools | Cost tracking for field underwriting insurance for a customer project |
Selling Price Worksheets | Feature for getting and outlining price estimates for customers |
JobProgress Key Features
- Mapping and navigation: Ability to integrate with Google Maps to pinpoint job sites, acquire navigation directions, and track workers at customer locations.
- Insurance estimation: Built-in system for tracking costs, additions, depreciation, and other items involved in insurance underwriting a contracting project.
- Automated estimates and proposals: Features for auto-populating and generating estimates and proposals to be sent to customers.
- Digital signature with payment processing: Capabilities to send documents and contracts for e-signature as well as digital invoices with payment processing options from the CRM.
How We Evaluated the Best Contractor & Construction CRMs
To determine the best CRM systems for contractors and construction businesses, we evaluated the software in terms of features relevant to builders and trade businesses such as plumbers and electricians. For instance, capabilities like project management, quoting, invoicing, and payment processing are extremely useful to contractors. We also evaluated general product characteristics such as price, ease of use, and customer support.
We found HubSpot to be the best CRM for contractors as it offers a free plan for an unlimited number of users and excellent system usability attributes for those new to using a CRM. Additionally, its CRM features relevant to a contractor include automated email marketing, quote generation, built-in payment processing, and online ad management.
The tabs below offer insight into our evaluation process:
40%
Pricing
20%
General Features
15%
Ease of Use
15%
Help & Support
10%
Expert Score
40% of Overall Score
Cost is typically among the most important criteria for any business, so it was the most heavily weighted when reviewing the top construction CRMs. Pricing took into account free plan availability, scalable pricing options, and having options to pay monthly or save by paying annually.
20% of Overall Score
We looked at overall features we feel are necessities, such as CRM integration options, analytics tools, and a mobile app. We also evaluated features specific to contractor and construction management, like project management modules, work estimate generation capabilities, and unique marketing tools for managing referral sources and reputation—key lead generation resources for a local contractor.
15% of Overall Score
The solutions were also evaluated on platform usability. This was analyzed in terms of the expertise needed to set up an account, the ease of integrating with native or third-party applications, and the skill required to use the features specific to construction companies. We also reviewed the overall intuitiveness of navigating the system’s interface.
15% of Overall Score
Extensive support and service help prevent poor user experiences and outcomes users may encounter while using any of these CRM software platforms. Help and support were evaluated in terms of customer service hours and the availability of support via phone, live chat, and email.
10% of Overall Score
In addition to firsthand experience with these software systems, we evaluated what users say about each product. These criteria consider how customers feel, based on their reviews, to gain insight into platform popularity, ease of use, and overall value for the price.
*Percentages of overall score
