Built for builders.
Not back offices.
Enterprise construction software was designed for $50M+ general contractors with full-time finance teams. We built MAGE ID for the rest of you — the residential remodeler, the small-commercial GC, the design-build firm running 4–20 projects with the owner still on a ladder twice a week.
vs. legacy GC software.
The category leaders all share the same playbook — opaque pricing, web-first dashboards, sales-led signup, and AI that's bolted on rather than built in. Here's how phone-first, AI-first, App-Store-priced changes the math.
| Capability | MAGE ID | Typical legacy GC software |
|---|---|---|
| AI Drawing Analyzer (PDF → estimate) | Drop a PDF of plans → Gemini Vision returns priced line items with margin transparency in 30–60s | Manual takeoff or third-party plug-in only |
| AI Quantity Takeoff (LF / SF / EA / CY) | Reads dimensions and schedules off the sheet, returns editable quantities you can route into a buyout package | Manual measurement or a separate standalone tool |
| AI Spec-Match (callouts ↔ spec book) | Match takeoff callout codes against the architect's spec book in one tap | Trade does this manually, then re-checks before buyout |
| Schedule health, scored against the DCMA assessment | Ten of the fourteen federal DCMA checks run in full on your own schedule — logic, leads, lags, relationship types, hard constraints, negative float, high duration, invalid dates, resources and CPLI. Missed tasks runs as a labelled proxy; high float, the critical path test and BEI do not run. Which ten, which proxy, and which three we don’t run | Available only in P6 / Asta Powerproject (enterprise tier) |
| Voice-driven form fill (universal) | Tap mic → speak → AI fills RFI / CO / Punch / Invoice / Submittal / New Project / New Lead | Not offered — every record is a typed form |
| AI lead scoring + first-response timer | 1–10 fit score per lead, red flag when waiting >1h to reply | No fit scoring, no response-time KPI surfaced on the lead card |
| AIA-style G702/G703 pay app generator | One screen — schedule of values, retainage math, change-order roll-up, e-sign export | Available in mid-tier PM software (priced per seat) — usually a separate module |
| Field verification + correction loop | Mobile-only: walk the site, mark AI-takeoff rows verified or correct them — every correction trains the model | Not offered — corrections live in someone's notebook |
| Open-Book / GMP toggle per project | Flip Open Book on a project → owner sees actual cost vs commitment, not just billed | Client portal shows billed amounts only; "open book" is a manual exercise |
| Sign-up | Free plan is self-serve today — open app.mageid.app in a browser and run your first project, no download and no sales call. Paid plans are not self-serve yet: the iPhone app is in TestFlight rather than the App Store and our payment processor is still in sandbox, so you email us and we switch your plan on, usually the same day. We would rather tell you that than sell you a button that doesn't work. | Custom-quote sales process. Multi-step form, sales call, contract. |
| Pricing transparency | Free tier + Pro $29/mo + Business — published, in-app | No public pricing. Most quote $400–$900+/mo per third-party industry reports. |
| Mobile-first UX | iOS-first, native sign-in, offline-capable, voice everywhere | Web-first; mobile is a companion app |
| Open-Book / GMP homeowner portal | Toggle a project to Open Book — homeowner sees every commitment line vs. budget | Client portal is opaque — homeowner sees billed, not actual |
| Best-fit user | Owner-operator $1M–$30M residential GC who wears six hats | Established mid-size builder with back-office staff |
Legacy GC software is a great fit for builders who already have an estimator, an office manager, and someone whose job is reports. MAGE ID is for the GC who is all three.
Stop renting eight tools.
Most GCs end up paying for a stack of point-tools — a CRM here, an estimator there, a scheduler, a doc-storage app, a punch-list app — because no single legacy product handles it all without a five-figure sales cycle. Here's what that pile actually costs. This is the only stack total on the site; the pricing page and the other comparison pages link here rather than quoting a number of their own.
| What you're paying for | Typical category price | In MAGE ID | What MAGE ID does |
|---|---|---|---|
| CRM / lead pipeline | Priced per seat1 | Included | Voice intake + AI scoring + first-response timer |
| Estimating software | Several hundred $/mo, per seat1 | Included | Estimate wizard + AI quick-estimate from a sentence |
| Scheduling / Gantt | Priced per seat1 | Included | Phase Gantt + critical path + AI builder |
| Document & photo storage | Priced per seat1 | Included | Plans, photos, permits, contracts — per project |
| Daily reports & field ops | Priced per seat1 | Included | DFR / RFI / change orders by voice, offline-first |
| Punch list software | Priced per seat1 | Included | Voice-walk punch + auto trade routing + photos |
| Client portal software | Priced per seat1 | Included | Live portal, six languages, open-book mode |
| AIA-style pay app + invoicing | Priced per seat1 | Included | G702 / G703 + Stripe Connect, all built-in |
| Stack total | $396–$703/mo | $29–$79/mo | ↑ One subscription replaces all eight |
Or: skip the stack and buy a legacy all-in-one PM platform. Industry buyer guides2 place those at $400–$900/mo — same monthly hit, with a multi-step sales cycle, contract, and implementation fees on top.
The math, monthly and yearly.
Pick the tier that fits your operation. Both tiers replace the stack above.
| Setup | Per month | Per year | Savings vs stack3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Point-tool stack (8 apps, midpoint pricing) | $549 | $6,588 | — |
| Legacy all-in-one PM platform (midpoint) | $650 | $7,800 | — |
| MAGE ID Pro — owner-operator GC | $29 | $348 month-to-month less on the annual plan |
+$520/mo · +$6,240/yr |
| MAGE ID Business — small team, advanced AI | $79 | $948 month-to-month less on the annual plan |
+$470/mo · +$5,640/yr |
That's $5,640–$6,240 a year back in the truck.
A new mid-size compressor. Or 3 weeks of materials credit at your supply house. Or a Pro tier subscription that pays for itself the first time you avoid one missed change order.
Notes:
1 Category price ranges from publicly-listed pricing on the leading point-tool vendors as of Q2 2026. CRM (Pipedrive Pro / Salesforce Essentials), estimating (STACK / Buildxact), scheduling (Microsoft Project / Smartsheet), doc storage (Dropbox Business / Google Workspace), field ops + punch + portal + pay apps (various trade-specific tools).
2 Legacy all-in-one PM platform pricing reflects publicly-discussed quotes in industry buyer guides ($400 entry, $900+ for full financials with AR / WIP / pay app modules).
3 "Stack" baseline is the midpoint of the eight-category total ($549/mo). MAGE ID annual figures are the month-to-month price × 12 and are labelled as such; the annual plans are described on the pricing page, which withholds the yearly dollar figure until the store listing settles it — that page explains why. No contract, no annual hike. Add-on fees (implementation, training, premium support) are excluded from both columns; legacy platforms typically add $1,500–$5,000 in year 1.
Everyone bids. We learn.
The new wave of “AI estimating” apps price your job off a generic catalog — Home Depot, regional averages, a ZIP code. MAGE prices it off your own closed jobs, and warns you before a job loses money. No one else does either.
| Capability | MAGE ID | AI estimating apps |
|---|---|---|
| Where the price comes from | Your own job actuals — every closed job sharpens the next bid | Generic supplier / regional data — the same number for every contractor |
| Margin defense | Live margin, a risk score, and alerts before a job bleeds | None — you find out at the final invoice |
| Estimate confidence | Each line checked against your own history — underpriced, padded, or proven | “Trust the AI” — then proofread the hallucinations |
| Takeoff | Lasso an area on a plan → priced from your learned rates | Photo / plan → quantities, priced from the catalog |
| The whole job | Estimate → buyout → actuals → margin → next estimate, one app | Estimate-first; project management bolted on, priced off the same generic data |
The bid that learns from your last ten jobs.
Drop in a plan or describe the job, and the AI drafts a priced estimate against your own closed-job actuals — with live margin and a risk flag before you ever send it. This is the screen that replaces the blank spreadsheet most legacy software still hands you.
- Editable line items with quantity, unit, unit price, total
- Live margin and risk score as you tweak
- Prices learned from your history — not a generic catalog
Where we win.
A clean look at MAGE ID against typical enterprise construction-management software.
| Capability | MAGE ID | Typical enterprise PM |
|---|---|---|
| Annual price (single GC) | $348/yr month-to-month · less on the annual plan | $6,000 – $12,000 / yr1 |
| Implementation / onboarding fees | $0 — sign up, post your first project in 5 minutes | Common — separate "implementation" + "training" line items |
| Mobile-first UX | Native iOS + Android — built first, web is the secondary surface | Web-first — mobile is a companion, drawing downloads + PDF preview unreliable2 |
| AI for forecasting + diagnostics | Issue / cause / impact / fix breakdown across the portfolio. AI cash-flow projection. AI estimate from drawings. | Basic — auto-scheduling at most. Most financial tracking still manual2 |
| AIA-style G702 / G703 pay apps | Native — full SOV editing, retainage, prior-billings, owner e-sign via portal | Yes (often a separate add-on) |
| Bank-ready WIP report | PDF + CSV export, branded, three taps | Yes — but several clicks, often a separate financials tier |
| Profit / margin per project | Live, color-banded, exportable | Typically through accounting integration only |
| A/R aging | Built in — bucketed 0–30 / 31–60 / 61–90 / 90+ | Often via 3rd-party accounting tie-in |
| Open-book / GMP transparency | Toggle on any project — homeowner sees real cost vs. budget vs. cap by phase | Not designed for residential transparency |
| Live client portal | Schedule, photos, RFIs, AIA-style pay apps, CO approvals, messaging — one passcode-protected URL | Yes (often gated behind enterprise tier) |
| Edit a CO or PO after invoicing | Yes — you can fix what you typed wrong | Often locked — cascading edits required2 |
| Offline-first field ops | Daily reports, photos, RFIs, time-tracking all work without signal — sync flushes on reconnect | Spotty — most flows fail without connectivity |
| Homeowner project marketplace | Post a project, get bids from nearby verified contractors — included | Not offered |
| AI homeowner daily digest | Plain-language daily update written from your field log — "rough-in" becomes "wiring inside the walls." Six languages. | Not offered — homeowner sees the technical DFR or nothing |
| AI-curated selections / allowances | Three options per category (budget / on-target / premium) with brand, SKU, supplier. Homeowner picks from portal. | Spreadsheets back-and-forth; or a $40/mo selections-only tool |
| Contract e-signature | Built in. Sign on phone, send portal link, homeowner counter-signs. Real-time push when they do. | DocuSign / Adobe Sign add-on — priced per seat |
| Closeout binder | Auto-compiled at handover. Lives in homeowner portal forever. Branded PDF on tap. | Hand-built spreadsheet or PDF; no portal archive |
| Lien waivers | All 4 types (conditional / unconditional × partial / final). PDF generation with the state disclaimer, sent to the sub for signature through a link they do not need an account to open. Included on Pro at $29/mo. | Often a separate paid add-on (Levelset, etc.) |
| Handover checklist | Computes status live across selections, punch, warranties, binder, lien waivers, final invoice. One screen tells you what's blocking handover. | Not offered — GC improvises |
| Photo markup | Arrows, circles, freehand, text on any photo. Sub sees it. Homeowner sees it. | Plans-only markup typically; not on every photo |
| Multi-language portal | Six languages out of the box. AI summary lands in homeowner's language. Section labels translated. | English-only typically |
| Voice-to-daily-report | Tap to dictate. AI parses crew, weather, work, materials. Preview card shows what was extracted. | Type it manually or skip the report |
| Real-time client signals | Push + email when homeowner signs / picks tile / asks pre-bid Q. Per-event toggle. | Periodic email digests typically |
| Sub portal (no login) | Sub sees their punch items + schedule slice + commitments + invoice history. Submits invoices through same link. | Subs need accounts and seats — extra cost per sub |
| Hidden fees / contracts / annual lock-in | Monthly. Cancel any time. One transparent price. | Annual contracts, hidden line items reported by users1,2 |
1 Industry-typical pricing of enterprise construction PM software for a single GC, per published quotes and review aggregators. Actual quotes vary by project volume and add-on modules.
2 User-reported limitations from public reviews on G2, Capterra, and contractor community forums (2024–2026).
Open the book. Win on trust.
Flip a project to Open Book and the homeowner sees budget vs. committed vs. actual by phase — the transparency enterprise PM software never built for residential because it’s not who they sell to. Every tool the GC needs sits one tap from the project summary.
- Per-phase budget vs. actual, live
- GMP cap with a real-time delta
- Every project tool one tap away
Where they win — for now.
We're honest about what's not in the box yet. Most of these matter to GCs over $30M revenue running 100+ projects.
Deep accounting integrations
QuickBooks Desktop, Sage 300 CRE, Viewpoint Vista. We now have native 2-way sync with QuickBooks Online, and CSV export for Xero — but if your books live in Desktop, Sage or Vista, they still win here.
Certified payroll / prevailing wage
LCPtracker-style federal Davis-Bacon submissions. Not yet — coming when our public-bid customers ask for it.
Multi-approver CO routing
Sequential + parallel approver chains with delegation. Our CO approval today is single-approver; multi-approver is in design.
Standard 1099 / W-9 vendor compliance
Enterprise-grade vendor compliance hub with W-9 collection workflows and state-level filing. We track sub commitments and payments and generate the year-end 1099-NEC export (included on Free); the automated W-9 chase and multi-state filing is theirs.
Deeper subcontract administration
Two-tier sub-to-sub commitment chains, joint-check agreements, and automated retainage release schedules across a portfolio. We generate and route the waivers (see the table above — all four types shipped, on Pro) but the multi-tier commitment structure underneath is theirs.
Massive enterprise deployments
If you're a $500M+ GC running 200+ active projects with a 12-person finance team, enterprise PM is still the right call. We're built for everyone else.
Stop paying enterprise prices for back-office software.
Free to start. AIA-style pay apps, job costing, change orders, lien waivers, the client portal and cash flow are on Pro at $29/mo; the WIP schedule, the margin board and Cost X-Ray are on Business at $79/mo. The cheapest Knowify plan that includes a WIP schedule is $329/mo annual.
Start free