Leads keep slipping through the cracks, right?
If you’re dealing with scattered spreadsheets and missed follow-ups, choosing a new sales platform can feel overwhelming. That’s probably why you’re digging into TopBuilder now.
What I found during my analysis: Missed follow-ups mean lost revenue and wasted bids. After evaluating TopBuilder’s platform inside out, I focused on how it fixes these real sales pains.
TopBuilder takes a different angle by zeroing in on pre-construction sales—from capturing every lead in one view to automating follow-ups that directly raise your win rate. My research shows its dashboard makes sales activity visible without overcomplicating the process.
So in this review, I’ll break down how TopBuilder helps your team win more bids before a single shovel hits the dirt.
In this TopBuilder review, you’ll get hands-on insights about features, pricing, ease of use, and how it compares to other options you might be exploring.
You’ll walk away knowing the features you need to drive more deals—with my honest take on if TopBuilder is the fit for you.
Let’s dive into the analysis.
Quick Summary
- TopBuilder is a construction-focused CRM platform that streamlines lead management, automated follow-ups, and bid tracking before project start.
- Best for small to mid-sized home builders and contractors needing better sales and bid management without full project software.
- You’ll appreciate its automated follow-up plans that ensure consistent engagement and increase your bid-win ratio without extra manual work.
- TopBuilder offers custom pricing starting around $295/month, includes no free trial but provides personalized demos and hands-on setup support.
TopBuilder Overview
TopBuilder has been supporting contractors since its 2008 founding. Based in St. Louis, I found their core mission is helping you systemize the entire pre-construction process.
My research shows they are laser-focused on residential builders, remodelers, and commercial contractors. What truly impressed me is their unwavering commitment to improving pre-construction sales efficiency, avoiding the bloat of all-in-one project management suites.
For this TopBuilder review, I noted significant platform developments. Their smart integrations with popular estimating tools show a tangible commitment to streamlining your complete bidding workflow.
Unlike generic CRMs that require expensive, time-consuming customization, TopBuilder is purpose-built for the construction pre-sale phase. My analysis shows this specific focus means you can get started winning jobs faster, not configuring software.
I was impressed to learn they work with hundreds of small to mid-market home builders and specialty contractors who use the platform to finally escape spreadsheet chaos.
From my evaluation, TopBuilder’s entire business strategy centers on making your sales process repeatable and predictable. They achieve this by automating critical follow-ups and bid tracking, turning chaos into your distinct competitive advantage.
Now, let’s examine their capabilities.
TopBuilder Features
Sales process a disorganized mess?
TopBuilder offers specialized solutions designed to streamline your entire pre-construction sales and bidding process. These are the five core TopBuilder solutions that truly transform how contractors manage leads and win bids.
1. Construction CRM & Lead Management
Lost leads costing you deals?
Disorganized lead tracking scatters opportunities across various spreadsheets. You might miss crucial follow-ups or forget where important prospects stand.
The CRM solution centralizes all contacts and leads, automatically capturing web inquiries. From my testing, having all interactions in one place truly eliminates reliance on disparate spreadsheets and forgotten notes. This feature ensures your sales team always sees the full history.
This means you gain a crystal-clear sales pipeline, making it easy to identify next actions and significantly boost your conversion rates.
2. Automated Follow-Up Plans
Forgetting to follow up on bids?
Manual follow-ups are unreliable and often missed, directly lowering your bid-win ratio. This can cost you significant revenue from lost opportunities.
This TopBuilder solution allows automated, multi-step communication sequences triggered by events like sending a bid. What I love is how it consistently ensures every lead gets attention with automated emails, texts, and internal task reminders. It takes the guesswork out of nurturing.
Your team saves countless hours while consistently engaging prospects, dramatically improving your chances of winning the job and securing more contracts.
3. Bid & Proposal Management
Bids scattered and hard to track?
Without central tracking, it’s tough to know which bids are live, their potential value, or your overall win rate. This creates financial uncertainty.
TopBuilder lets you create, send, and monitor all bids and proposals from one centralized place, integrating with popular estimating software. From my evaluation, the high-level dashboard provides instant clarity on bid status. This feature helps you analyze your success rates.
You gain a clear, centralized view of your bidding pipeline, enabling better revenue forecasting and helping you identify your most profitable types of work.
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4. Email Marketing & Newsletters
Struggling to stay top-of-mind?
Sporadic communication with past clients or prospects means lost opportunities for repeat business and referrals. Your brand can fade from memory.
TopBuilder includes a built-in email marketing solution to design professional campaigns using construction-specific templates. Here’s what I found: segmenting contact lists for targeted messages works really well. This feature helps you consistently nurture valuable relationships with your entire database.
You can consistently engage your entire contact database, fostering long-term relationships that generate steady repeat business and valuable referrals.
5. Reporting & Dashboards
Blind to your sales performance?
Lack of data visibility makes it impossible to make informed decisions about sales strategies, marketing spend, or team performance. You’re flying blind.
TopBuilder provides visual dashboards with key performance indicators like pipeline value and win/loss ratios. This is where TopBuilder shines; the customizable reports offer actionable insights into lead conversion and source effectiveness. This powerful solution empowers you.
You get the data needed to optimize sales strategies, allocate marketing budgets wisely, and ultimately drive sustainable business growth and profitability.
Pros & Cons
- ✅ Automates lead follow-up, significantly boosting bid-win ratios.
- ✅ Centralizes all pre-construction lead and bid information effectively.
- ✅ Offers exceptional, responsive customer support and implementation.
- ⚠️ User interface design appears somewhat dated compared to modern tools.
- ⚠️ Requires time to fully learn and leverage the system’s capabilities.
What I love about these TopBuilder solutions is how they seamlessly work together, creating a powerful, integrated pre-construction system. This cohesion ensures your sales and marketing efforts are unified for maximum impact, preparing you for the next steps in your project lifecycle.
TopBuilder Pricing
TopBuilder’s pricing demands a direct conversation.
TopBuilder pricing operates on a custom quote model, which means you’ll need to contact their sales team directly. This approach allows them to tailor solutions and costs specifically to your business needs.
Cost Breakdown
- Base Platform: Starting around $295 per month
- User Licenses: Includes 3 users; additional users $50-$75 per user per month
- Implementation: One-time fee, several hundred to a few thousand dollars
- Integrations: Quote-based, often tied to API access
- Key Factors: Number of users, data migration complexity, “Done-For-You” setup
1. Pricing Model & Cost Factors
Understand their cost drivers first.
TopBuilder’s pricing structure is built on a base monthly fee, starting around $295, that typically includes three users. Additional users incur a per-user charge, often between $50-$75 monthly. This ensures your initial investment is scalable based on team size, letting your budget grow with your business.
Budget-wise, this means your monthly costs directly reflect your team size and tailored features, giving you control over what you pay.
2. Value Assessment & ROI
Evaluate TopBuilder’s value proposition.
From my cost analysis, TopBuilder’s value lies in its specialized pre-construction focus. Their pricing helps you automate follow-ups and track bids, leading to higher win rates. This specialized approach drives tangible ROI by converting more leads, reducing manual effort, and improving pipeline visibility for your business.
This means your investment yields direct improvements in sales efficiency, helping you win more jobs versus manual processes, significantly boosting your bottom line.
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3. Budget Planning & Implementation
Factor in total cost.
Beyond the monthly subscription, remember to factor in the one-time implementation fee, which can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. This covers critical setup like data migration and custom follow-up plans. This upfront investment ensures smooth onboarding and maximizes your system’s effectiveness from day one, impacting overall TopBuilder pricing.
So for your business, budget for both recurring monthly costs and a significant one-time setup fee. This ensures smooth setup and long-term ROI.
My Take: TopBuilder’s pricing strategy, while requiring a custom quote, targets small to mid-market contractors needing specialized sales and bid management. This approach ensures your investment directly matches your operational scale and unique pre-construction needs.
Overall, TopBuilder pricing reflects its specialized value for construction businesses. While you’ll need to contact sales, this ensures your investment is precisely tailored to your needs, offering strong ROI for streamlined pre-construction processes.
TopBuilder Reviews
What do real TopBuilder customers truly experience?
Analyzing numerous TopBuilder reviews reveals consistent themes from actual users. I’ve distilled user feedback into balanced insights to help you understand real-world experiences and make an informed decision for your business.
1. Overall User Satisfaction
High satisfaction shines through.
From my review analysis, TopBuilder consistently earns high satisfaction, averaging 4.5/5 stars on platforms like Capterra and G2. What I found in user feedback is how the ‘Done-For-You’ implementation stands out, significantly contributing to initial user happiness. This suggests a smooth onboarding experience.
This strong initial support and continued assistance drives high user retention and positive sentiment, reducing typical software adoption headaches for you, making implementation easier.
2. Common Praise Points
Support and automation wow users.
Users consistently praise TopBuilder’s exceptional customer support, often describing the team as responsive and deeply invested. Review-wise, the automated follow-up plans are a game-changer, frequently cited for increasing won bids and saving significant time. Centralized info is also highly valued.
These strengths mean you can expect improved sales efficiency and better organization, directly impacting your bottom line and saving valuable time daily.
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3. Frequent Complaints
Some areas need improvement.
Common critiques among TopBuilder reviews include a somewhat dated user interface, feeling less modern than newer competitors. What stood out in customer feedback is also a notable learning curve for new users, though company training mitigates this. The mobile app lacks desktop polish too.
These complaints are generally not deal-breakers, as core functionality is strong. With some patience and utilizing provided training, you can overcome most initial hurdles here.
What Customers Say
- Positive: “The best part of TopBuilder is the follow-up plans. It automates a process that was almost non-existent before. Proposals won dramatically increased.”
- Constructive: “The UI could use a modern refresh. It functions perfectly, but looks a bit dated and can be difficult to navigate initially compared to other software.”
- Bottom Line: “TopBuilder is powerful for sales automation and bid management, with fantastic support, though the interface could use an update for modern users.”
Overall, TopBuilder reviews showcase powerful sales automation and exceptional support outweighing minor UI complaints. My analysis indicates reliable performance with strong user backing for contractors aiming to boost their sales.
Best TopBuilder Alternatives
Choosing the right construction software can be tricky.
The best TopBuilder alternatives include several strong options, each better suited for different business situations, budget constraints, and project management needs you might have.
1. Followup CRM
Seeking a very similar pre-construction focus?
Followup CRM is TopBuilder’s closest alternative, mirroring its strength in sales and bid tracking for commercial contractors. The choice often hinges on specific UI preference during a demo. Minor feature differences are key for your final decision, as both offer robust pre-sales capabilities.
Choose Followup CRM if your team prefers its interface or finds a subtle workflow advantage during your direct comparison.
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2. Buildertrend
Need an all-in-one project management solution?
Buildertrend is a more expansive alternative, covering the entire project lifecycle from pre-sales CRM to financial tools and client portals. What I found comparing options is that it handles full project management, which TopBuilder doesn’t, though it typically comes at a higher price point due to its breadth.
Consider Buildertrend if you aim to consolidate your tech stack into one comprehensive platform for sales, operations, and financials.
3. Jobber
Managing smaller service-based jobs primarily?
Jobber positions itself as a simpler, mobile-first alternative specifically for home service businesses like plumbers or HVAC contractors. It excels at quoting, scheduling, and invoicing for high-volume, smaller jobs. Alternative-wise, Jobber offers simplified mobile operations, unlike TopBuilder’s general contractor focus, and is generally more affordable.
You’ll want to consider Jobber if you’re a small service contractor needing quick, efficient tools for numerous, often recurring, jobs.
4. AccuLynx
Specializing in roofing or exterior contracting?
AccuLynx is a highly specialized business management system tailored for roofing and exterior contractors. It combines CRM with specific features for material ordering and production management unique to those trades. From my competitive analysis, AccuLynx provides industry-specific functionalities that a more general construction CRM like TopBuilder wouldn’t offer, ensuring a precise fit.
Choose AccuLynx when your business needs deep, niche-specific tools for roofing or exterior work beyond what a general construction CRM provides.
Quick Decision Guide
- Choose TopBuilder: Streamlining pre-construction sales, lead management, and automated follow-ups.
- Choose Followup CRM: Very similar pre-construction focus with UI preference as differentiator.
- Choose Buildertrend: Full project lifecycle management from sales to financials.
- Choose Jobber: Simple, mobile-first solution for home service and small jobs.
- Choose AccuLynx: Niche-specific tools for roofing and exterior specialty contractors.
The best TopBuilder alternatives depend on your specific business requirements, budget, and desired breadth of functionality. Ultimately, your operational needs define the ideal choice, not just feature checklists alone.
Setup & Implementation
Navigating new software deployment can be tricky.
Understanding the TopBuilder review implementation process is crucial for a smooth transition. This section offers practical guidance on what to expect, from initial setup to full team adoption, setting realistic expectations.
1. Setup Complexity & Timeline
Don’t underestimate initial setup time.
TopBuilder stands out with its hands-on, “done-for-you” setup, where their team helps import data and build initial follow-up plans. What I found about deployment is that while they handle much of the heavy lifting, you still need to dedicate internal time for data readiness and approvals.
Prepare your existing data for migration and ensure your team is available for collaborative design sessions. This proactive engagement streamlines the process.
2. Technical Requirements & Integration
Minimal IT involvement for cloud software.
As a cloud-based platform, TopBuilder requires no special hardware, accessed via a web browser. From my implementation analysis, integration with your existing tools like Outlook or estimating software is straightforward, simplifying workflow integration. No complex server setups are needed.
Ensure stable internet access and compatible web browsers. Plan which existing systems, like estimating tools, you’ll integrate for seamless data flow.
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3. Training & Change Management
User training is personalized, not generic.
TopBuilder provides personalized one-on-one web sessions for thorough training, mitigating the initial learning curve. Implementation-wise, tailored training minimizes user resistance and accelerates your team’s proficiency. This approach helps unlock the system’s full potential.
Encourage active participation in training and designate internal champions to support ongoing adoption. Consistent use drives proficiency and long-term benefits.
4. Support & Success Factors
Exceptional support makes implementation easier.
User feedback highlights exceptional support, critical during implementation. Their responsive team helps design automated follow-up plans, a game-changer for sales. Implementation-wise, this ongoing vendor partnership is a major success factor for leveraging the software effectively.
Actively engage with their support team to fine-tune your automation and follow-up plans. Dedicated effort in this area maximizes your ROI.
Implementation Checklist
- Timeline: Typically 3-6 weeks for active usage
- Team Size: Your core team for training; vendor handles setup
- Budget: Included professional setup; allocate staff time
- Technical: Standard web browser; integrations with Outlook, estimating
- Success Factor: Active collaboration with vendor; strong focus on automation
Overall, TopBuilder implementation offers practical, hands-on support, making the transition manageable. Expect quick active usage with dedicated vendor assistance, streamlining your pre-construction processes for better results.
Who’s TopBuilder For
Who exactly benefits from TopBuilder?
This TopBuilder review analyzes who the software serves best, providing clear guidance on business profiles, team sizes, and use cases to help you quickly determine if it’s the right fit for your operation.
1. Ideal User Profile
Perfect for growing construction sales.
TopBuilder is a strong fit for small to mid-sized residential home builders, remodelers, and specialty/commercial contractors. If your sales process currently relies on spreadsheets and manual follow-ups, your business development representatives will find it transformative. From my user analysis, this software is ideal if your primary bottleneck is converting leads into signed contracts.
You’ll see success if your main goal is to systemize sales and bidding, leveraging automation to boost your bid-win ratio and streamline follow-ups.
2. Business Size & Scale
Optimal scale for construction businesses.
TopBuilder best serves small to mid-market construction companies that need to enhance their pre-construction and sales efforts. If your team manages a consistent flow of bids and leads without needing enterprise-level project management, your current operational scale aligns well. What I found about target users is that this solution perfectly supplements existing project management systems.
Assess your fit by considering if your growth bottleneck is in sales conversion rather than needing a full all-in-one construction suite.
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3. Use Case Scenarios
Specific sales and bidding workflows.
This software excels when your primary use case involves systemizing your sales pipeline, automating lead follow-up, and centralizing bid management. User-wise, if you’re looking to eliminate manual lead tracking and enhance client communication, the powerful automation features will be game-changing. It streamlines the entire pre-construction process, from initial contact to winning proposals.
You’ll determine alignment if you aim to increase bid-win rates through efficient, automated follow-ups and better lead organization.
4. Who Should Look Elsewhere
When TopBuilder isn’t your fit.
TopBuilder might not be ideal if you require an all-in-one platform covering project scheduling, financials, and field operations. If your business is a very small service operation needing simple job scheduling or you have an extremely limited budget, you’ll find more suitable, less comprehensive options. Your situation calls for a broader or simpler tool.
Consider comprehensive construction management suites like Buildertrend for all-in-one needs, or simpler apps like Jobber for basic scheduling and invoicing.
Best Fit Assessment
- Perfect For: Small to mid-sized residential/commercial contractors focused on lead conversion
- Business Size: Small to mid-market construction businesses
- Primary Use Case: Automating lead follow-up, systematizing sales/bidding process
- Budget Range: Mid-range investment for specialized construction sales CRM
- Skip If: Need full project management suite or very basic, low-cost scheduling
Ultimately, this TopBuilder review shows who benefits most comes down to your pre-construction sales priorities. If you fit the profile, you’ll find it an invaluable sales engine.
Bottom Line
TopBuilder delivers significant value for pre-construction needs.
My TopBuilder review reveals a robust solution for construction businesses, uniquely combining CRM with potent marketing and bid management tools. This comprehensive assessment provides my final recommendation.
1. Overall Strengths
TopBuilder excels at pre-construction optimization.
The platform provides exceptional customer support and powerful automation for lead management and follow-ups. Users consistently praise the “Done-For-You” implementation and centralized information, which dramatically improves sales efficiency and increases won bids.
These strengths directly translate into improved productivity, more successful bids, and a streamlined pre-construction process for your business.
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2. Key Limitations
Some aspects require thoughtful consideration.
The software’s user interface is frequently described as dated, and some users note a significant learning curve to master its full potential. Based on this review, the mobile app lacks the polish of its desktop counterpart, which might impact on-the-go usability for field teams.
These limitations are largely manageable trade-offs for the powerful functionality offered, but they do require initial patience and adaptation.
3. Final Recommendation
TopBuilder earns a strong recommendation.
You should choose this software if your small to mid-market construction business prioritizes pre-construction process improvement and robust sales automation. From my analysis, it truly empowers you to win more bids through systematic lead nurturing and bid tracking.
My recommendation comes with high confidence for businesses focused on enhancing their front-end sales and bid management operations.
Bottom Line
- Verdict: Recommended for pre-construction optimization
- Best For: Small to mid-market residential and commercial contractors
- Biggest Strength: Automated lead follow-up and exceptional customer support
- Main Concern: User interface feels dated compared to modern tools
- Next Step: Contact sales for a personalized demo based on your needs
This TopBuilder review confidently shows it’s a valuable investment for construction sales growth, despite minor interface considerations.