BuilderTREND Pricing - why 2/10?

Shlomi LaviShlomi Lavi / Jul 08, 2020

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BuilderTREND Total Cost Rating: (2/10)

When comparing BuilderTREND to their competitors, on a scale between 1 to 10 BuilderTREND is rated 2, which is less expensive than the average Construction software cost. BuilderTREND are offering few flexible plans to their customers, the basic cost of license starting from $99 per month, read the article below in order to calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO) which includes: customization, data migration, training, hardware, maintnance, updgrades, and more.

You can also leave your info with us to get a free custom quote with the break downs for your business needs.

Construction Software Price Ranges

Most construction software in the market are priced on a per-user, per-month basis, although the terms are flexible, depending on the need of an organization. The price points for construction software can be divided into three tiers, and the price ranges for each respective tier are $0 to $20, $20 to $100, and $100 above. For instance, FINALCAD pricing starts from $55 per user monthly, EZOfficeInventory pricing from $35 per user monthly, and Adoddle costs about $25 per user monthly.

Meanwhile, some construction software are priced per year, while others have perpetual licenses that can be bought with a one-time fee. For example, ConstructionOnline is priced at $2,400 per year and Contactors Office cost price is around $700 per year.

In addition, construction software vendors adjust their prices to fit different business sizes, while others specifically serve some business sizes.

  • Small Businesses can expect to pay between $5 to $15 for a construction software product. This price range is for the entry-level offerings for small businesses as found on some vendors websites. For example, OpenProject BIM Edition pricing starts from around $5 per user monthly, Site Diary from $10 per user monthly, and PayPanter from $29 per month for two user accounts.
  • Medium Businesses can expect to pay prices that fall between $20 to $45 for a business software. The number of users on each given package can also influence the price of this software. For example, Praesto AE pricing starts from $35 per month, BrickControl from $29 per user monthly, and Pruvan cost price falls around $35 per month.
  • Large Businesses can expect to pay between $120 to $350 and $350 to $1,500 for a construction software per month, although many vendors do not disclose their pricing and would rather have an understanding of the need of a large organization to conclude on pricing. Sometimes, the offering for large businesses usually includes more than one user account. For example, ImproveIt 360 cost price starts from around $150 per month, Onware pricing sits around $500 per month and Aidi from $1,200 per month for unlimited users and projects.

Construction software best of breeds and their price ranges are as follows:

  • Construction CRM Software The pricing for most construction CRM software in the market are set on a per user, per month basis. The price ranges are between $12 and $50 upwards. For instance, Projul pricing starts from around $50 per month, JobNimbus from $25 per user monthly, and Project SaleArchiver from around $47 per month. These price ranges correlate mostly with the starting offerings from each vendor; thus, premium or enterprise plans with more features will cost more, depending on the number of users.
  • Architecture Software The price ranges for architecture software in the market usually fall between the range of $100 to $500, $500 to $2500, and $2,500 upwards and they are set on a per-user, per-month basis. For example, SketchUp pricing starts from around $300 per user yearly, Revit from $3,000 per user yearly, and nanoCAD costs about $150 per user, per year.
  • Construction Accounting Software Most construction accounting products have perpetual licenses that can be bought with one-time fees. However, there are others with monthly plans. The price ranges for perpetual licences are $3,000 to $6,000 and $6,000 to $35,000. For example, STRUCTURE costs around $17,000, Jonas Enterprise around $30,000, and Ventus cost price is up to $5,000. On the other hand, CoreCon, for example, is a construction accounting software which costs $60 per month.
  • Construction Estimating Software Construction companies can expect to pay within the price ranges of $80 to $180, $180 to $1,200, and $1,200 above for a construction estimating software. Most products are priced per year. For example, RsMeans Data Online pricing starts from $240 per year, ProEst from $5,000 per year, and Square Takeoff from $800 per user yearly.
  • Home Builder Software Most home builder products in the market are priced on a per user, per month basis. The price ranges are $25 to $60, $60 to $150, and $150 above per month. For example, Cedreo pricing starts from $79 per user monthly, Contactor Foreman from $50 per user monthly, and BuildTools from $200 per month for three user accounts.

Construction - Total Cost Breakdown

When it comes to selecting Construction software product, buyers are primarily concerned about its cost. In fact, it is the cost that determines whether a potential buyer would go with the product. True, there is no one-size-fits-all formula to determine the “worth” of a software product, but as a software buyer, you want to make sure you get the best value for your money, without having to dig a big hole in your pocket.

Understanding the exact price of Construction Software isn't easy as The overall cost of software includes the cost of software license, subscription fees, software training cost, customization cost, required hardware, and the cost of maintenance & support and other related services. It's critical that you account for all of these costs to gain an understanding of the system's "total cost of ownership."

3 Software Pricing Models

There are primarily three common pricing models – Perpetual License, Subscription, and Commercial open source.

  • Subscription/Software-As-A-Service: - Relevant for BuilderTREND
    Under this software pricing model, the software is accessed over the Internet, as opposed to installed on-premises. The payment is made either on a per user basis or subscription basis. Ideally, customers are required to pay a recurring monthly fee until a specific period for using the software. Subscription pricing model is more common with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) apps.
  • Upfront cost for customization and integration is less compared to perpetual license cost because there is not much flexibility with SaaS systems in this area.
  • Recurring cost is greater as customers are required to make monthly payments as subscription fee. Additionally customers using premium support services must pay an extra fee.
  • All in all, the total cost of ownership in the both cases is almost the same and may span over a period of 7-10 years, though you may have to pay a higher perpetual license fee upfront. The software cost may vary from starter to mid range to enterprise level apps in both cases.
  • Perpetual license: - Relevant for BuilderTREND
    A common pricing model for on-premise applications, perpetual license requires a customer to pay an upfront sum to own the software or other intellectual property on-premises for a fixed term.
  • Upfront cost involves the fee for installation, customization, integration with existing systems, besides perpetual license fee.
  • Recurring cost is low in this pricing model and may include cost for updates, maintenance, upgrades, and patches. Some vendors do offer premium support services, which come for an extra price.
  • Commercial open source: Not relevant for BuilderTREND
    The customer can acquire the software free of cost without having to incur any upfront license fee. As a customer, you’re solely responsible for the ongoing maintenance, upgrading, customization, and troubleshooting of the application to meet your specific needs. You are on your own for providing end-user support, since you are not locked in with a vendor-supplied software solution.

BuilderTREND - cost of customization:

If you need specific features in your software catering to your specific business requirements, the vendor will charge customization cost, depending on your needs and feature requirement. Ideally customization cost is more complex to calculate compared to licensing cost.

Some apps allow you to easily combine data from multiple sources, without any complicated query requirements, while some others can be embedded into different applications to provide enhanced reporting. If you seek products that support customizable dashboards and predictive analysis to identity possible trends and facilitate decision making, you may have to pay higher for all the customization features.

Additionally, the following factors may affect the cost of customization:
  • User interface changes
  • Configurable dashboards
  • Data elements required for tracking
  • Forms to collect additional data
  • Dashboard, management and operational reports that are needed.
  • Workflows and how complex they are.
  • Forms to collect additional data.
Here are some questions to answer: How much customization is needed? How many system you want to integrate to? Does your company work like industry standars or has it's own customize processes? What kind of special reports are needed?

In order to calculate the cost of customization you can use the following estimates:

  • Minimal customization - integrate with 1-2 systems: $2,500
  • Standard customization - integrate with 3-5 systems: $10,000
  • Fully customized system - integrate with more than 5 systems: $25,000

BuilderTREND - cost of data migration: Relevant for BuilderTREND

Most companies opt for data migration services from a vendor, which raises the cost of product ownership. If you choose to transfer data on your own, you can avoid paying the cost of data migration.
Data migration cost depends on the amount of data to be transferred, your current software, availability of migration tools, complexity of data, and gaps between the existing system and the new system.

If your data is stored in excel spreadsheets, then it may incur you a lot of time and money to migrate data from excel.
By involving a software services provider in data migration, you are asking them to offer additional services, for which you may have to pay extra.

As a rule of thumb the cost of data migration depents on how many records you want to migrate. Records can include number of Customers, invoices, financial transactions, products, versions, etc. Here is a list you can use as a rule of thumb:

  • 1,000 records: $500
  • 10,000 records: $2,500
  • 100,000 records: $10,000
  • 1,000,000+ records: $25,000

BuilderTREND - cost of training: Relevant for BuilderTREND

As a software buyer, you are required to pay extra for in-person training, though some vendors offer web-based training as part of the package. Training cost may involve end-user training, video/self training, group training, department training, and train the trainer.

Training cost derived from the training approach that you select for your organization:
  • End-user training.
  • Group/Department training.
  • Video /self training.
  • Train the trainer approach.

Here are some questions to answer: How many training groups (different departments, usages, type of users) are needed?

In order to calculate the cost of training you can use the following estimates:

  • 1-2 Training Sessions: $500
  • 3-4 Training Sessions: $1,500
  • 5-7 Training Sessions: $2,500
  • 8-10 Training Sessions: $5,000

Cost of Hardware & IT: - Relevant for BuilderTREND

This can be a major expense for on-premise software buyers that need their own servers and other infrastructure to install the solution. This may be a costlier alternative than cloud solutions. In that case, you may want to go with cloud services that do not involve infrastructural investments and you can rely on the vendor’s web-based solutions.

Software pricing may also depend on software capabilities, including marketing automation, sales automation, help desk, and call center.

Cost of support for BuilderTREND - An Important Factor:

As a customer investing in a software product, you are looking for constant support, besides the price of the software. Support has become a crucial part of value-based pricing that you are willing to pay as a customer.

There is no use buying a software product and facing inconvenience due to some technical glitches that you know nothing about and are reliant on the vendor to give you a solution. It is crucial that you go for a product from a vendor that provides solutions to ongoing problems.

Shift From Licensing Fee to Subscription Fee Models: - Relevant for BuilderTREND

In an effort to build more sustained relationships with customers, most software vendors have chosen to offer the managed services model to accommodate changing customer behavior. There has been a significant drop in licensing revenue, thanks to the emergence of software-as-a-service model and downfall of the packaged software.

The new pricing model requires customers to pay little upfront fee and ongoing subscription fee on a monthly basis. The alternate pricing model stretches payments over a period of few years compared to lump-sum licensing fee.

Customers are happy to pay small monthly installments for subscribing to the ongoing support and maintenance services from vendors, without having to pay large upfront payment which can be too much for small businesses.

Compare BuilderTREND pricing to Alternarive Construction solutions:

When comparing BuilderTREND to alternative software tools, on a scale between 1 to 10 BuilderTREND is rated 2, which is less expensive than the average Construction software cost. The two main competitors of BuilderTREND are Spitfire and Synergy. While BuilderTREND is a cloud-based solution only while spitfire is both a cloud-based solution as well as an on-premise solution. Spitfire can support business growth more than BuilderTREND because it is more flexible than BuilderTREND.

The available online reviews that users have given show that BuilderTREND has been rated at 4.5 while Spitfire has been rated at 4.4. Synergy users with contractors and mobile access two features that are not available in BuilderTREND. The available online reviews that customers have provided show that BuilderTREND has ratings of 4.5 while Synergy has ratings of 4.2.

How Can We Help?

The science of software cost/pricing may not be easy to understand. If you seek to understand software pricing model, get in touch with ITQlick experts. Contact us today and find solutions to all your questions. We will match software vendors that offer the best pricing on technology that fits your needs.

BuilderTREND specifications

ITQlick Score: 97/100
ITQlick Rating: (4.5/5)
Company: BUILDERTREND SOLUTIONS, INC.
Address: Omaha, NE
Pricing: Starting from $99 per month
Typical customers: Small business, Medium business, Large business
Platforms: Desktop, Mobile, Cloud
Operating Systems: Mac OS, Windows, Linux