Both are built for trade contractors. Knowify is QuickBooks-first and focused on MEP trades — electrical, plumbing, HVAC. Leviathan Built is takeoff-first and focused on exterior specialty trades — masonry, veneer, stucco, concrete. The fit depends on which trade you're in.
Electrical, plumbing, HVAC, or refrigeration. Your back office runs on QuickBooks, and you want a job-management layer that speaks fluently to it.
Masonry, veneer, stucco, concrete, drywall. You bid from PDF plans with unit math — SF, LF, count — and you bill GCs on AIA pay apps with retainage.
Both serve trade contractors, but each was built around a different trade family and a different back-office anchor. The differences come from those choices.
| Capability | Knowify | Leviathan Built |
|---|---|---|
| Trade focus | Mechanical trades — electrical, plumbing, HVAC, refrigeration, painting; also some general contractors and remodelers | Exterior specialty trades — masonry, veneer, stucco, concrete, drywall, framing |
| Back-office anchor | QuickBooksBuilt around QuickBooks Online and Desktop; integration is the platform's spine | Native GLNative general ledger, AP, AR, WIP, pay apps. QuickBooks sync available for shops with existing QB workflows. |
| PDF takeoff (native) | NoNot part of the platform — use a separate takeoff tool | YesMulti-page sets, every measurement type, live multi-cursor collaboration, calibrated scale |
| Scope templates | Trade-aware for MEP — service tickets, panel schedules, fixture counts | Trade-specific for exterior trades — CMU partition, brick veneer, stucco three-coat, repointing — with unit math and waste factors built in |
| AIA G702/G703 pay apps | LimitedProgress billing exists; not built around AIA-style schedule-of-values workflow | First-classRetainage tracking, stored material, SOV traces back to scope buildup |
| Labor classifications | Per-user rate; service-tech-style cost coding | Mixed-crew on every scope — mason, tender, helper as separate hourly classes; prevailing-wage overrides per project |
| Live plan collaboration | No | YesTwo estimators on the same PDF with cursors visible to each other |
| Service work & tickets | StrongService-call workflow is a core competency — dispatch, ticket, invoice | NoProject-based work only; not built for service-call dispatch |
| Time tracking + mobile | Mobile clock-in; service-ticket time capture | PIN clock-in with photo and GPS verify; labor classification captured at punch |
| RFIs, submittals, change orders | LightChange orders supported; not the primary workflow | YesSub-scale workflows tuned for GC-facing project work |
| Daily logs | General-purpose fields | Trade-aware fields — blocks set, faces laid, joints tooled, coats applied — alongside weather, manpower, photos |
| Pricing model | Tiered per-user subscriptions | Flat per-seat. All features included. No tier gates. |
Plans scale with team size, with some features gated to higher tiers. Add-on costs may apply for QuickBooks edition compatibility. Often paired with the QuickBooks subscription that customers already pay separately.
Check Knowify's site for current per-user list.
One subscription. All modules — takeoff, estimating, CRM, project management, accounting, time tracking, AIA pay apps. No tier gating. Native accounting included, so no second QuickBooks subscription required (though we sync to QB for shops that prefer to keep it).
Most teams who switch from Knowify to Leviathan Built are exterior specialty contractors who outgrew the MEP-shaped workflow — they needed real takeoff, AIA-first pay apps, and mixed-crew labor instead of single-rate per user. Migration follows the same pattern as our other switches: keep active jobs running on Knowify until close-out, start new bids here.
Customer list and scope library port over during setup. PDF takeoff, scope buildup, and the AIA pay app workflow run on Leviathan Built from day one.
If your books live in QB and you want them to stay there, the sync sends invoices and bills back to QuickBooks. Some shops use the transition as a chance to consolidate onto our native GL; others stay on QB. Your call.
Active Knowify projects finish on Knowify. New projects run on Leviathan Built. Subscription transitions when the last Knowify project closes — usually 2–3 months.
Probably, yes. Knowify is built around your shape of work — service tickets, dispatch, QuickBooks-anchored billing, and trade scope templates tuned for MEP. If most of your day is service calls or panel-schedule installs, Knowify will feel more natural than Leviathan Built. We're built around exterior project work where PDF takeoff and AIA pay apps dominate the workflow.
Yes — via sync. The difference from Knowify is that QB isn't the only option. We have a native general ledger, AP, AR, and pay-app workflow that can run independently, with QuickBooks sync available for shops who want to keep their accountant on QB. Knowify treats QuickBooks as the spine; we treat it as one possible integration.
Not natively — their target trades generally don't bid from PDF plans the way exterior trades do. MEP bidding is more spec-sheet, fixture count, panel schedule, and walk-through. If you're doing serious PDF takeoff today (Bluebeam, PlanSwift, paper measurement), Leviathan Built includes it; Knowify will leave you keeping a separate tool.
Knowify wins here clearly — that's a core part of what they built. Leviathan Built is project-based: bid a job, install a job, bill the job. If you run a meaningful service-call business alongside projects, Knowify's flow will fit better.
Knowify costs labor per user. That works fine for MEP shops where techs run solo or in small same-class teams. For masonry-style mixed crews where margin depends on the lead-mason / tender / helper ratio per scope, the single-rate model doesn't capture it cleanly. Leviathan Built models mixed crews per scope.
Knowify is strong — for MEP contractors who want QuickBooks-anchored job management. We say so above. The honest comparison: are you doing mechanical service-and-project work, or exterior project-and-pay-app work? Different shapes of business benefit from different shapes of platform.
Book a 30-minute call. Bring a Knowify project or a bid you'd be running on either tool. We'll walk through where value shifts for your shape of work — and tell you straight if Knowify is the better fit.