Both platforms run a construction company's back office. They are built for different kinds of company. If you build homes, Buildertrend probably wins. If you bid scope to a GC, the answer is different.
Residential new construction, remodels, additions, custom homes. Your daily work is selections, change orders, and homeowner-facing comms.
Specialty subcontracting work: masonry, veneer, stucco, concrete, drywall, framing. You take off plans, bid scope, and bill an AIA G702/G703.
Both tools cover the same general territory — bids, projects, time, billing. The differences are in what each one chose to build deep, and for whom.
| Capability | Buildertrend | Leviathan Built |
|---|---|---|
| Target customer | Home builders, residential remodelers, custom-home GCs | Specialty subcontractors (masonry, veneer, stucco, concrete, drywall, framing) |
| PDF takeoff (native) | NoUse Bluebeam, PlanSwift, or paper | YesMulti-page sets, live multi-cursor collab, calibrated scale |
| Scope templates | Generic cost-code library; build your own from blanks | Trade-specific: CMU partitions, brick veneer, stucco, repointing — unit math and waste factors baked in |
| Labor classifications | One rate per user/role | Mixed-crew on every scope — mason, tender, helper as separate hourly classes; prevailing-wage overrides per project |
| AIA G702/G703 pay apps | LimitedBuilt around owner-direct draw billing for residential | First-classRetainage tracking, stored material, SOV traces back to the scope buildup |
| Live plan collaboration | No | YesMulti-cursor on the same PDF, like Figma for plan markup |
| Homeowner portal | YesFull comms hub, selections, owner approvals, photos | LightweightClient-facing proposal + pay app status; not a residential owner portal |
| Selections workflow | YesPaint, fixtures, finishes — core to residential | NoNot part of a specialty-sub workflow |
| Daily logs | General fields, weather, crew count | Trade-aware fields — blocks set, faces laid, joints tooled — plus weather, manpower, photos |
| Time tracking + mobile | Mobile clock-in | PIN clock-in with photo and GPS verify; classification captured at punch |
| RFIs, submittals, change orders | Yes | Yes |
| Accounting | Syncs to QuickBooks / Xero | Native GL, AP/OCR, AIA pay apps, WIP; QuickBooks sync available |
| Pricing model | Tiered subscriptions (Essential / Advanced / Complete), feature-gated; add-on fees for signatures and processing | Flat per-seat. All features included. No per-project, per-revenue, or per-signature fees. |
Subscription tiers (Essential, Advanced, Complete, and higher) gate features. Common features — integrations, advanced reporting, certain workflows — sit behind higher tiers. Pay-per-use add-ons cover digital signatures and payment processing. Pricing scales with feature tier, not strictly per seat.
Current public starting price: ~$199/mo Essential, ~$499/mo Advanced, ~$799+/mo Complete
One tier. Everything — takeoff, estimating, CRM, project management, accounting, time tracking, AIA pay apps — is in the same subscription. No feature-gating. No per-project surcharge. No per-signature fee. No per-revenue cut.
You don't have to rip Buildertrend out on day one. Most teams keep it running on active jobs until close-out and start new bids in Leviathan Built. Clean break, no data scrambling, no field-team confusion.
Set up scope templates, customer list, and labor classifications. Begin running new bids and projects on Leviathan Built. Buildertrend keeps running on the projects you started there.
Each Buildertrend project finishes on the system it started on. No mid-job migration. The field crew doesn't have to switch tools mid-stride.
Once the last project there closes, drop the subscription. Customer list and scope library port over; chat threads and historical reports stay archived. Most teams complete the transition in 2–4 months.
No platform has everything the other has. The honest answer: Leviathan Built has features Buildertrend doesn't (native PDF takeoff, trade-specific scope templates, AIA G702/G703 as first-class, mixed labor classifications, live plan collaboration). Buildertrend has features Leviathan Built doesn't (full residential owner portal, selections workflow). The question is which side of the trade you're on.
For most small and mid-size shops, yes — especially when you'd otherwise need Buildertrend Advanced or Complete for the features you want, plus a separate takeoff tool like Bluebeam. Our flat per-seat price includes the modules Buildertrend gates behind higher tiers, plus takeoff. We'll show a side-by-side on the consultation.
Customer list and scope library, yes — we help port those over during onboarding. Active job history and chat threads, no. Most teams keep Buildertrend running on in-flight projects until they close out, so historical data isn't a blocker.
Not in the same form. We have client-facing views for proposals, change orders, and pay app status — sufficient for a GC-facing workflow. If you're doing residential remodels where homeowner comms is a daily core workflow, Buildertrend is likely still the better fit for you, and we'll say so on the call.
Right — that's a meaningful difference. We have native PDF takeoff in the browser: open a multi-page plan set, calibrate scale, measure areas/lengths/counts, two estimators live on the same plan with cursors visible to each other. The measurements flow directly into estimate rows. See how it works →
Buildertrend is a strong, mature platform — for the audience it was designed for. We say so above. The honest comparison is: are you the audience they designed for? If yes, they're a great choice. If no — specifically, if you're a specialty subcontractor — the fit will be off in ways that matter, and a tool built for your shape of work will earn its keep faster.
Book a 30-minute call. Bring a Buildertrend project, or a job you'd be using both for. We'll walk through where the value actually shifts for your shape of work, and tell you straight if the answer is to stay where you are.