Projul vs CoConstruct

⚠️ CoConstruct has shut down. See our complete CoConstruct migration guide for step-by-step instructions on switching to Projul.

Projul vs CoConstruct: What contractors need to know in 2026

Projul vs CoConstruct: Projul is actively developed construction software with flat-rate pricing and no per-user fees. CoConstruct was acquired by Buildertrend in 2021 and no longer receives updates. For contractors who want a platform with a future, Projul is the safer bet.

Projul is an actively developed construction management platform with flat-rate pricing starting at $4,788/yr for no per-user fees. CoConstruct was acquired by Buildertrend in 2021 and is no longer receiving product updates. If you’re choosing between these two, the acquisition is the biggest factor in your decision.

CoConstruct still works. It still accepts new customers. But you’re buying a product that hasn’t shipped a feature update in years. Bugs that exist today will exist next year. The company behind it wants you on Buildertrend eventually.

Projul is independently run, actively developed, and built by a former general contractor. Your feedback actually shapes the roadmap.

The acquisition changes everything

Buildertrend bought CoConstruct in February 2021. Since then, the product has been in maintenance mode. No new features. No bug fixes. No roadmap.

When you pick construction software, you’re making a multi-year bet. You’re going to invest time setting it up, training your crew, building your workflows. Choosing a frozen product means that investment has an expiration date.

Buildertrend has been encouraging CoConstruct users to migrate. That migration will likely become mandatory at some point. When it does, you’ll be moving to a platform with per-user pricing that looks very different from what you signed up for.

Projul ships regular updates driven by feedback from over 5,000 contractors. The product gets better every month. That’s the difference between a living platform and a legacy one.

Pricing: what you’ll actually pay

Projul publishes flat-rate annual pricing on the website:

• Core: $4,788/yr (no per-user fees, unlimited projects)
• Core+: $7,188/yr (no per-user fees, unlimited projects)
• Pro: $14,388/yr (no per-user fees, unlimited projects)

No per-user fees. No per-project fees. No onboarding fees. Add your whole crew without your bill changing.

CoConstruct pricing starts at $99/mo for the first two months, then jumps to $199-$499/mo depending on your plan and active job sites. Because Buildertrend owns the product, pricing could change without notice.

Neither platform charges per user, which is a point in CoConstruct’s favor compared to most competitors. But Projul’s pricing is transparent and published. CoConstruct’s future pricing is anyone’s guess.

Where CoConstruct earned its reputation

Give credit where it’s due. CoConstruct was built specifically for custom home builders and remodelers, and it did that job well before the acquisition.

The selections management was genuinely strong. Clients could browse finish options and see real-time price impacts. Single data entry flowed through specs, selections, proposals, and budgets without re-entering information. For the custom home workflow, it was tight.

Choose CoConstruct if:

• You’re already established on the platform and migration costs are high
• You’re comfortable using a product that won’t improve
• You plan to move to Buildertrend eventually anyway
• Your workflow is exclusively custom homes and you don’t need the broader toolset

But understand what you’re getting: a snapshot of 2021 software at 2026 prices.

Where Projul pulls ahead

Active development. Projul ships updates regularly. Features improve. Bugs get fixed. When contractors request something, it gets on the roadmap. CoConstruct’s feature set is permanently frozen.

Broader capabilities. CoConstruct nailed the custom home builder workflow but falls short for GCs, specialty trades, and remodelers who need strong CRM, estimating, and field communication tools. Projul covers the full spectrum.

Mobile that works. Projul’s mobile app is full-featured with auto photo uploads, Spanish-language support, and offline capabilities. CoConstruct’s mobile app can’t add or edit selections or reports from your phone. In 2026, that’s a dealbreaker for field crews.

Scheduling depth. Projul offers 7 scheduling views including Gantt charts. You can slide entire timelines when one sub falls behind and everything downstream needs to shift. CoConstruct has functional scheduling, but reviewers say it could be more intuitive.

Support that fixes things. Projul’s support team is rated 9.8/10 on G2 and offers phone, text, email, and video call assistance. They can join your screen live and walk you through issues. CoConstruct’s support was well-rated too, but they can’t fix product issues that will never get patched.

Mobile App: Native App vs. Mobile Website

This one matters more than most contractors realize until they’re standing on a jobsite with no Wi-Fi trying to check a schedule.

CoConstruct’s mobile experience is web-based, not a true native app. It runs in your phone’s browser. That means slower load times, no push notifications, and limited offline capability. When your cell signal drops on a rural jobsite or inside a concrete structure, you’re stuck waiting for pages to load or staring at a spinner. You also can’t add or edit selections or run reports from your phone. For a platform that built its reputation on selections management, that’s a real gap.

Projul built native iOS and Android apps from the ground up. Native apps load faster, work offline, and take advantage of your phone’s hardware. Here’s what that means in practice:

• Offline time tracking. Your crew clocks in at the jobsite even when there’s no signal. Hours sync automatically when they’re back online. No lost time, no paper sheets.
• Geofencing. Workers auto-clock in and out based on GPS when they arrive at or leave a jobsite. No manual punching, no buddy punching.
• Native camera integration. Snap a photo and it uploads directly to the project. No texting pictures to the office. No emailing files and hoping they get filed.
• Push notifications. Schedule changes, task assignments, and reminders go straight to your crew’s phones. No group texts.
• Full feature parity. Everything you do on desktop works on mobile. Scheduling, estimating, change orders, job costing. Your PM can run the business from the truck.
• Spanish-language support. The entire app works in Spanish so every crew member can use it.

CoConstruct’s mobile limitations were understandable in 2018. In 2026, with a frozen product that will never get a native app update, they’re a dealbreaker. Your crew lives on their phones. Your software should too.

QuickBooks Integration: Living Sync vs. Frozen Connector

For most contractors, QuickBooks is the accounting backbone. The integration between your project management tool and QuickBooks determines whether your financial data stays accurate or slowly drifts out of sync.

Projul offers a two-way sync with QuickBooks Online that keeps both systems updated automatically. When you create an invoice in Projul, it shows up in QuickBooks. When a payment comes through, both systems reflect it. Your bookkeeper sees clean data without anyone manually entering numbers twice.

CoConstruct also offered QuickBooks integration, and it worked well enough when the product was actively maintained. The concern now is what happens when QuickBooks releases an API update. Active software vendors update their integrations to stay compatible. CoConstruct has no development team shipping those updates. If QuickBooks changes something on their end, the CoConstruct connector could break with no one to fix it.

This is not a hypothetical problem. QuickBooks Online pushes multiple API updates each year. Every integration partner has to keep pace. Projul’s engineering team handles these updates as they come. CoConstruct’s integration is running on borrowed time.

If your accounting workflow depends on clean data flowing between your project management tool and QuickBooks, picking the platform with active development is the only safe choice. One broken sync during tax season and you’re spending hours reconciling data that should have moved automatically. Read our full guide on construction QuickBooks integration best practices to understand what a healthy integration looks like.

Scheduling Depth: 7 Views vs. Basic Calendar

Scheduling is where construction projects live or die. A missed deadline on framing pushes drywall, which pushes paint, which pushes your client’s move-in date. The domino effect is real and it costs money every time it happens.

Projul gives you 7 scheduling views including Gantt charts, calendar views, and timeline views. The standout feature is project sliding: when one trade falls behind, you select the downstream tasks and slide the entire schedule forward. Everyone affected gets notified automatically. No group texts, no phone calls, no “I didn’t know the schedule changed” conversations on the jobsite.

You can also manage sub scheduling across multiple projects. When your electrician is booked on three jobs, you see all three timelines in one place and catch conflicts before they become problems.

CoConstruct had online scheduling with automatic notifications. It worked. But reviewers consistently noted it could be more intuitive, and the lack of a true Gantt view made it harder to visualize overlapping phases on complex projects.

For custom home builders running one or two jobs at a time, CoConstruct’s scheduling was good enough. For contractors juggling five, ten, or twenty active projects, the lack of multi-project visibility and timeline sliding becomes a real bottleneck. And since CoConstruct will never improve its scheduling tools, that bottleneck is permanent.

If you want to dig deeper into scheduling strategy, check out our guide on how to create a construction schedule in 5 steps or learn about construction look-ahead schedules.

Daily Logs, Photos, and Field Documentation

Documentation protects you. Every contractor who has dealt with a dispute, an insurance claim, or a warranty callback knows that the crew with the best records wins. The question is whether your team will actually create those records.

Projul makes field documentation simple enough that crews do it without being nagged. The mobile app includes photo and document management with auto-uploads. Your crew snaps a photo and it goes directly to the project file. No emailing, no texting, no “I’ll upload it later” that never happens. Photo markup lets you draw directly on images to call out issues, which is faster than typing a description.

Daily logs capture what happened on the jobsite each day: weather conditions, crew hours, work completed, materials used, and any issues that came up. These logs become your first line of defense when a client disputes a timeline or a sub claims they weren’t told about a change.

CoConstruct had project-level documentation and photo storage. But with a mobile app that couldn’t handle key functions from the phone, field documentation became an office task rather than a field task. That defeats the purpose. Documentation needs to happen in the moment, on the jobsite, by the person who saw the work. Not two hours later when someone gets back to a computer and tries to remember what they saw.

Projul’s approach treats the field crew as first-class users. Spanish-language support through Projul en Espanol means every crew member can log their work in their preferred language. Mobile notifications keep everyone aware of task assignments and schedule changes. The result is more complete documentation, fewer disputes, and better project records.

Client Communication and the Client Portal

Homeowners and commercial clients both want the same thing: to know what’s happening with their project without having to call you. A good client portal handles that by giving clients a window into progress without giving them access to your internal operations.

Projul’s client portal lets property owners view schedules, approve selections, sign documents with e-signatures, review change orders, and make payments. Automated client reminders nudge clients when something needs their attention, like approving a selection or signing off on a change order. This cuts down on the back-and-forth that eats your day.

CoConstruct actually had one of the better client portals in the industry, particularly for custom home builders. Clients could browse selections, see how finish choices affected pricing, and communicate with the builder through the platform. It was a legitimate strength.

The problem, again, is that the portal is frozen. Client expectations keep rising. Homeowners in 2026 expect a digital experience that matches what they get from every other service provider. A portal that looked modern in 2020 looks dated in 2026. And it will look even more dated in 2028.

Projul’s client portal keeps improving with regular updates. New features roll out based on what contractors tell the team their clients need. That responsiveness matters when client experience is part of how you win referrals. Learn more about why construction client portals matter for client retention and referral business.

Estimating, Change Orders, and Getting Paid

Getting paid starts with a solid estimate. And in construction, estimates always change. The question is whether your software handles those changes smoothly or creates extra work.

Projul’s estimating and change order workflow is connected. Your original estimate sets the project budget. When scope changes happen, you create a change order that adjusts both the client-facing price and the internal budget. The client approves the change order through the portal with an e-signature, and the financial impact flows through to job costing and invoicing automatically.

Progress billing lets you invoice based on milestones rather than waiting until the project is complete. For any job over $10K, this keeps cash flowing and reduces the risk of a large outstanding balance. You define the milestones, attach them to schedule phases, and invoice as each phase completes.

CoConstruct handled estimating through its single-data-entry model, where specs and selections flowed through to proposals and budgets. For the custom home workflow, this was well designed. The estimate-to-selections-to-proposal pipeline was one of the tightest in the industry.

But CoConstruct lacked the change order automation that modern contractors need. When a homeowner wants to upgrade their countertops mid-project, you need that change reflected everywhere: the client-facing price, the internal budget, the invoicing schedule, and the cost tracking. Projul automates that chain. CoConstruct required more manual work to keep everything in sync, and that gap will never close.

For contractors who want to understand the full estimating landscape, our guide on construction estimating for beginners covers the fundamentals, and our piece on estimate vs. quote vs. proposal clarifies the terminology.

The selections question

CoConstruct built its reputation partly on selections management. Projul also includes selections management. Clients can view allowances, make finish choices, and see how selections affect project pricing.

The difference: Projul continues developing and improving this feature. CoConstruct’s version is frozen at wherever it was in 2021.

Reporting and Financial Visibility

Running a construction business without good reports is like driving with your eyes closed. You need to know which projects are profitable, which ones are bleeding money, where your labor hours are going, and whether your overall business is on track.

Projul includes reporting tools that pull data from across the platform: job costing reports, WIP (work in progress) reports, time tracking summaries, budget variance reports, and project status overviews. Because everything lives in one system, the reports are accurate and current. You don’t need to pull data from three different tools and merge it in a spreadsheet.

WIP reports deserve special attention. They show the financial health of every active project in one view: how much you’ve billed, how much you’ve spent, how much remains, and whether you’re tracking above or below your target margin. For contractors running ten or more active projects, this is the report that prevents surprises.

CoConstruct had basic reporting, but the depth was limited compared to purpose-built project management tools. And since the platform is frozen, any reporting gaps that exist today will exist permanently. You can’t request a new report type or a different data view. What you see is what you get, forever.

Many contractors who outgrow basic reporting end up exporting data to Excel and building their own reports. That works when you have time, but it breaks when things get busy, which is exactly when you need the reports most. Having automated reports that run inside your PM tool means the data is always there, always current, and always accurate.

For contractors evaluating what reports they need, our guide on job costing in construction covers the financial metrics that matter most and how to set up tracking from day one.

What happens when you pick a frozen product

Here’s the scenario contractors face with CoConstruct:

Year one, everything works fine. Your crew is trained, your workflows are set up. Year two, you notice a bug that’s been there since you started. It’s not getting fixed. Year three, Buildertrend sends you an email about migrating. Year four, the migration is no longer optional.

Now you’re moving to Buildertrend, which charges per user, has a different interface, and requires retraining your entire team. All the setup time you invested in CoConstruct? Gone.

Choosing Projul today means choosing a platform that will be better next year than it is this year. That compounding improvement matters more than any single feature comparison.

Time Tracking: Geo-Fenced Accuracy vs. Honor System

Labor is the biggest cost on most projects. Knowing exactly where those hours go determines whether you price jobs accurately and whether your crews are as productive as you think.

Projul includes geo-fenced time tracking that confirms your crew is physically at the jobsite when they clock in. GPS verification happens automatically. No manual check-ins, no trust-based punch cards, no buddy punching. Hours log to the correct project automatically, which feeds directly into job costing so you see labor costs in real time against budget.

The time tracking system also works offline. Your crew clocks in at a rural jobsite with no cell signal, and the hours sync when they reconnect. No lost time entries. No “I forgot to clock in this morning” conversations.

CoConstruct did not include geo-fenced time tracking. Time tracking in CoConstruct was basic and depended on manual entries. For custom home builders running a tight crew of trusted employees, that might work. For contractors managing multiple crews across multiple sites, the lack of GPS verification and automated project assignment means you’re guessing at labor allocation.

Accurate time tracking does more than prevent payroll fraud. It builds a historical database of how long tasks actually take. After a year of tracking, you know that a typical 2,000 sq ft framing job takes your crew 6.2 days, not the 5 days you’ve been estimating. That data makes your next bid more accurate, which means better margins. Our guide on time tracking software for construction companies digs into why this data matters for long-term profitability.

Payment Processing: Getting Paid Faster

Cash flow keeps construction companies alive. The faster you can invoice and collect, the healthier your business runs. Every day between “work completed” and “payment received” is a day you’re financing your client’s project with your own money.

Projul includes payment processing through JustiFi, built directly into the platform. Clients receive an invoice and pay online through the client portal. Credit card, ACH, or bank transfer. The payment records automatically in both Projul and QuickBooks (if connected). No chasing checks, no “the check is in the mail,” no driving to the bank.

For progress billing, this matters even more. When you invoice at each milestone and the client can pay immediately through the portal, your cash cycle shortens dramatically. Instead of waiting 30-60 days for a check after project completion, you collect at each phase. That money funds the next phase of construction instead of coming out of your line of credit.

CoConstruct supported online payments through its platform, and the experience was functional. But without active development, the payment processing will not evolve. Payment technology moves fast: new payment methods, better fraud prevention, faster settlement times. A frozen platform can’t keep up with those changes.

Projul’s payment processing continues to improve alongside the rest of the platform. As new payment options and faster processing methods become available, they roll into the product. That’s the advantage of choosing software that’s still being built.

CRM and Lead Management: Growing Your Pipeline

Construction software should help you win work, not just manage it. A built-in CRM means your sales pipeline and project management live in the same system. No jumping between tools, no leads falling through cracks.

Projul includes lead management that tracks prospects from first contact through closed deal. You can embed a lead capture form on your website that feeds directly into the CRM. When a lead becomes a project, all the contact information, notes, and communication history carry forward. Your PM doesn’t start from scratch.

CoConstruct had client management features but was not built as a CRM. It assumed you already won the job and needed to manage the build. For custom home builders who get most work through referrals and repeat clients, that was fine. For contractors who need to actively manage a sales pipeline with multiple leads at various stages, CoConstruct left a gap that usually got filled by spreadsheets or a separate CRM tool.

Running your CRM and project management in one platform eliminates the handoff problem. When your sales rep closes a deal and hands it to the PM, everything is already in the system: the client’s preferences, the estimate, the communication history. No lost context, no “what did we promise them?” conversations. Read our full guide on CRM for construction to understand how an integrated approach saves time and wins more work.

Why contractors are moving from CoConstruct

Contractors who switch from CoConstruct to Projul consistently cite the same reasons:

Future-proofing. Betting on a legacy product means eventually facing a forced migration. Projul is independently run with transparent pricing and a customer-driven roadmap.

Broader toolset. Projul includes CRM, estimating, scheduling, job costing, invoicing, change orders, progress billing, and in-platform payments through JustiFi. CoConstruct covered the custom home workflow well but didn’t go as wide.

Crew adoption. Projul’s 9.8 G2 ease-of-use rating means your whole team actually uses it. Spanish-language support, a simple mobile interface, and automatic reminders get everyone on board. Your crew is using Projul by lunch on day one.

Templates, Cloning, and Working Smarter

Contractors who run similar projects over and over need a way to reuse their work. Building a schedule from scratch for every kitchen remodel when they all follow the same basic pattern is a waste of time.

Projul offers templates for projects, estimates, and task lists. Set up your kitchen remodel template once with the standard tasks, phases, and budget categories. Clone it for the next job and adjust. Clone projects, estimates, and tasks with a few clicks. Your PM saves hours on setup for each new job and your estimates stay consistent.

CoConstruct had template functionality for specs and selections, which worked well within the custom home builder workflow. Spec templates let builders reuse standard specifications across projects. But the template system was limited to the CoConstruct way of doing things, and it will never expand to cover new use cases.

For growing contractors who want to standardize their operations and reduce setup time, templates and cloning become more valuable with every project. The time saved compounds. A PM who spends 30 minutes less setting up each project saves 50+ hours per year on a 100-project workload. That’s a full work week recovered.

Already using CoConstruct and ready to make the switch? Check out our step-by-step guide to switching from CoConstruct to Projul.