Houzz Pro vs CoConstruct for Design-Build in 2026

Key Takeaways

• CoConstruct is not a fresh subscription in this search. Buildertrend's comparison page says it is no longer a separate platform, and the 2021 line that nothing would shut down does not describe the current handoff.

• Existing CoConstruct accounts still have a published window for adding projects. After that commitment, new work is directed to Buildertrend, and the migration page says historical jobs stay readable.

• Houzz Pro is the name in this pair that still prints plan names, monthly prices, an added-user fee, and a separate advertising price on its own pricing page. CoConstruct's pricing address does not print a dollar amount.

• The books connection Houzz documents runs one way into QuickBooks Online. The same help page says QuickBooks Desktop is not supported, and edits made in the books can be overwritten by a later sync.

• Directory scores are not prices. A 4.3 score from 1,088 Houzz Pro reviews is a review-pool figure, and CoConstruct's G2 profile is a small, inactive listing. Neither number tells you the invoice.

• A layer that watches invoices, permit status, or client wording only helps after the export exists and a person approves exceptions. It does not replace the project system, and it is not evidence that a firm has already deployed it.

CoConstruct is already inside a handoff

Houzz Pro is the business system Houzz sells to remodelers, builders, and designers for estimates, selections, schedules, and client billing. CoConstruct is the residential project system Buildertrend acquired, and it is no longer a separate product you can treat as a normal 2026 shortlist. TL;DR: if you do not already have a CoConstruct account, this comparison is about whether Houzz Pro fits the remodel, not about buying CoConstruct.

New-project cutoff: March 31, 2027 according to CoConstruct (2026). That migration page splits the move into months 1 through 3, when the firm keeps running active CoConstruct jobs, verifies a card to open a Buildertrend account with no charge at that point, and trains with an account manager, and months 4 onward, when new projects start in Buildertrend. Once the firm commits, new projects can no longer be added in CoConstruct. The page says no project data will be lost and that historical project information stays readable.

On February 24, 2021, CoConstruct announced that Buildertrend had acquired it and told customers there were no plans to shut either product down, according to CoConstruct (2021). That sentence is the original promise. The migration page above is the later operating rule. Read them together: the acquisition was real in 2021, and the "nothing shuts down" line is not the rule a buyer should plan around now.

Claimed user base: over 1 million according to Buildertrend (2026). The same page says CoConstruct is now fully part of Buildertrend and is no longer a separate platform, describes CoConstruct in the past tense as all-in-one software for home building and remodeling, and still answers "what is CoConstruct used for" in the present tense as project management from budgeting through team collaboration. Those lines are the vendor's own wording, not a measured market share. A firm that wants the successor product is shopping Buildertrend, which is a different contract from Houzz Pro. The practical differences after the acquisition are covered in Buildertrend versus CoConstruct and in CoConstruct versus Buildertrend for remodelers.

Opening the CoConstruct pricing address on the research date returned the same Buildertrend transition pitch as the CoConstruct home page: feature language for the move, demo requests, and no dollar figure. This guide therefore marks CoConstruct as quote-based and closed to a normal new purchase. It does not invent a leftover list price from older directory rows.

Who this is for

This comparison is for an owner or operations manager at a remodeling or design-build firm who already knows the two names and needs a buy-or-leave answer. You are deciding where selections, estimates, change orders, the schedule, and the client conversation will live for the next jobs, and you need to know whether one of the names is even still for sale. Interior-design studios that only need drawings, mood boards, and invoices are in scope because the entry paid plan is built for that work. Commercial general contractors shopping submittals, heavy RFIs, and multi-tier pay apps are outside the evidence these pages actually publish.

Red flags: you need a brand-new CoConstruct subscription; your books are QuickBooks Desktop; you need edits made in the accounting file to flow back into the project system.

Directory rating: 4.3 out of 5 from 1,088 reviews according to Software Advice (2026). The same page shows 59% five-star, 25% four-star, 8% three-star, 1% two-star, and 6% one-star, a value-for-money score of 4.0, and a QuickBooks Online integration rating of 4.0 from 40 reviews. Its written summary of those reviews clusters praise around a single client workspace and criticism around fee confusion, scarce leads, and slow support. Treat that as a review pool, not as a test this article ran. The same directory still prints a starting price and a plan count that do not match the three paid prices on the vendor pricing page, so this guide ignores the directory's dollars.

How we evaluated these tools

The weights below are buying weights for a remodeler who is close to a decision, not a lab score. A closed product fails the search before a feature grid matters, so availability is the heaviest line. Selections, takeoffs, change orders, and the field log are next because that is the weekly work on a kitchen, bath, or whole-home remodel. A published added-user fee and a documented path into the books are smaller lines, but they change the bill and the month-end close. Each weight is the share of the decision, and the shares add to 100%.

The counts in the Houzz column are how many of the three paid plans on the current pricing page include that item, or the published fee, or the count of documented sync directions. They are not star ratings. The CoConstruct column is what a new buyer can find on the pages opened for this article. A zero is a count of published new plans or published sync directions, not a claim that an old account lacks a screen. "Not published" means the current public pages did not itemize it. "Quote-based" means no dollar amount was on those pages.

A firm should walk away from CoConstruct as a new buy when the only checkout on the current sites points at Buildertrend. A firm should walk away from the entry Houzz plan when the job needs takeoffs, change orders, a schedule, and daily logs, because those items sit on the higher paid plans. A firm should walk away from both names when the accounting file is QuickBooks Desktop or when someone on the team must correct bills inside the accounting file and have those corrections show up in the project system. Neither public page documents that return path.

The job each product still covers

The matrix separates what the pricing page and the help page name from what the CoConstruct and Buildertrend pages still describe. It is not a scoreboard. Where a cell says the item is on two Houzz plans, that means the Pro plan lists it and the Teams plan includes everything on the Pro plan. The Design plan is the third paid plan, and it does not list takeoffs, change orders, budget management, contracts, the project schedule, or daily logs.

Houzz Pro's best fit is a remodeler or design-build office that sells with drawings and finish boards, then has to turn those choices into an estimate, a change order, and a client-visible schedule. The pricing page puts 3D floor plans, selections, the product clipper, mood boards, CRM, estimates, proposals, invoices, and online payments on every paid plan. It puts takeoffs, bid management, change orders, budget management, contracts, the project schedule, daily logs, and a Gusto integration marked beta on the Pro plan, and it adds AI note-taking, a premium profile, email marketing, a custom website, front desk in beta, verified caller in beta, and dedicated support on the Teams plan. The pricing FAQ says clients can pay by credit card, debit card, or ACH, that the firm can invite employees and subcontractors and limit what they see, and that a client dashboard can be previewed before the client sees it. Limitations that sit on the same public record: advertising is a separate purchase, the Teams price is a starting price rather than a ceiling, credit memos are marked beta, and directory reviews summarized by Software Advice complain about lead quality and support speed. Those complaints are reviews, not a count of leads this article measured.

Implementation on Houzz Pro starts with the plan, not with every module. Design and Pro list a 30-day trial before an annual subscription starts. The Teams plan is sold from a quote and, on the pricing page, includes a dedicated success manager, a dedicated onboarding expert, and a white-glove migration team. The help page, cited in the books section below, says the first QuickBooks connection is a four-step setup plus account mapping, that a tax start date has to precede the first synced transaction, and that draft documents and image-only documents without line items do not sync. Budget a person, not a slogan, for the first month of templates, cost codes, and a sample invoice the bookkeeper accepts before clients are billed from the new file.

CoConstruct's best fit, on the evidence now public, is an existing account with jobs already in the file and a plan to finish them while Buildertrend onboarding runs beside it. The Buildertrend comparison page still describes that work as budgeting through team collaboration for home builders and remodelers. It is a poor fit for any firm that found the name in a search and expects a new contract, a price sheet, and a roadmap of its own. Review score: 4.1 out of 5 from 21 reviews, on a profile G2 marks inactive because nobody has managed it for over a year, with a listed split of 57% five-star, 28% four-star, 0% three-star, 4% two-star, and 9% one-star, according to G2 (2026). Twenty-one reviews on an unmanaged profile is a thin signal. Do not treat older directory prices attached to that profile as a current invoice. This article does not repeat them.

CoConstruct implementation, for a firm that already pays for it, follows the migration page rather than a feature tour. Months 1 through 3 are parallel running: current jobs stay put, a card is verified with no charge at that step, and an account manager handles Buildertrend training. The published add-project deadline is the last day to open a new CoConstruct job during that window. After the firm commits, new jobs start in Buildertrend, and the page says the old file remains available for history. What the pages do not publish is a dollar price, a seat fee, a sync direction into QuickBooks, or a date when read access ends. Ask for those in writing before you promise a client that the old portal will still answer next year. If the books have to follow the firm onto Buildertrend, that is a separate close, covered in moving Buildertrend records into QuickBooks.

Pricing checked against the public pages

Picture a design-build office with 1 owner and 2 coordinators pricing a first subscription. The figures are the public list, and the scene is illustrative math, not a result from a live job. Pro plan: $199 per month according to Houzz (2026), which also lists the Design plan at $99 per month, the Teams plan starting at $399 per month, an added user at $50 per month on Design and Pro, advertising starting at $499 per month, 5 product-to-3D conversions a month on Design and Pro, a fair-use cap of 415 conversions a month on Teams, a 30-day trial on Design and Pro before an annual subscription starts, and a free starter with a 3D floor planner, estimates, and invoicing. For this office the Pro plan math is $199 for the included user plus 2 added users at $50 each, written as $199 + (2 × $50) per month, set beside the Teams starting price of $399 per month so the seat gap is visible before anyone asks for a Teams quote above that start. When that office later sends an invoice or records a payment, the document is pushed one way into QuickBooks Online, and the books record carries Invoice.Balance, where a balance of 0 means the invoice is fully paid, according to Intuit (2026).

The table repeats only those listed monthly prices, the included-user facts, the conversion caps, and whether a dollar figure exists. It does not multiply them into a yearly total, because the pricing page does not publish a yearly dollar amount or a discount. CoConstruct stays quote-based. Pricing checked October 9, 2026.

What that means for the bill is narrower than a total-cost slogan. On Design and Pro, every person past the included user adds the published per-user fee, so a five-person office should compare that seat math with the Teams starting price before it assumes the higher plan costs more. Teams can still quote above the starting price; the page says "starting at," and it does not publish the top of the range. Advertising is not included in any of the three software prices. A firm that wants Houzz ads is taking a second monthly figure, and the review summary above says lead quality is a common complaint, so buy the ads only after you know how a lead is defined. CoConstruct has no public figure to put in the same row. Any number a salesperson offers an existing account is a quote, and it should name what happens after the firm commits to Buildertrend.

Two cost traps sit outside the sticker. First, the trial language says the annual subscription starts when the trial ends, so a firm that needs month-to-month terms will not find them on the page. Second, the books sync can create cleanup work even when the software price is clear: documents without line items do not sync, and a change made in QuickBooks Online does not flow back. Budget bookkeeper hours for the first close. This article does not invent an hour count for that work.

The week the books and the client drift apart

The painful week on a remodel is not the software tour. A client approves a tile change on a selection board, the field logs a delay, a change order goes out, and the bookkeeper later finds the deposit in one system and the open balance in another. Houzz's pricing page is built around that loop: selections and a client dashboard on the broad plans, change orders and daily logs on the Pro plan and above, and a one-way push of financial documents into QuickBooks Online. CoConstruct's current pages do not publish an equivalent loop for a new buyer. They publish a handoff. The operational risk for an existing CoConstruct firm is running two project files during months 1 through 3 and telling a client the wrong portal is current.

A proposed workflow for that books gap starts when Houzz sends an invoice or records a payment and the one-way sync creates or updates the QuickBooks invoice. US Tech Automations can be configured to read the QuickBooks invoice on a schedule, compare the recorded payment with Invoice.Balance, and write a review row when they disagree. The output is a list a bookkeeper accepts or rejects before anyone edits the accounting file. Prerequisites are the Houzz-to-QuickBooks connection already turned on, a QuickBooks Online company the firm is allowed to read, and mapped accounts. Nothing in this design posts a client message, and nothing here is a measured saving from a live deployment.

A second proposed US Tech Automations workflow covers the permit and the client note that usually lag the selection. The trigger is a permit-status export the office already receives, or a change-order status the project system can export. The action drafts an internal task and a client-dashboard note that says what changed. The output waits for a named person to approve the wording before it is posted. The permit side of that handoff is the same problem described in permit status tracking for construction firms. Prerequisites are a real export, a place to store the run, and a reviewer who is on the job that week. If the export is missing, the workflow does not guess the permit status.

Zapier, Make, and n8n can carry the same idea when someone configures them. Those tools can keep run histories, retries, error branches, and an audit trail. The buyer then owns observability, idempotency so a repeated event does not bill twice, escalation when a run fails, access control, and the maintenance when either vendor changes a field. A proposed US Tech Automations design can instead pin the review to the QuickBooks balance field, hold client wording until a person approves it, and keep the project system as the place where the document is edited, which matches the one-way sync rule. That is a configuration difference with the same prerequisites and the same human checkpoint. It is not a claim that a connector product cannot be made careful.

Sync setup: 4 steps according to Houzz (2026). The help page names those steps as the tax agency, turning off QuickBooks automations, turning on purchase orders, and connecting, then says account mapping comes next. It also says the sync is one-way from Houzz into QuickBooks Online, that QuickBooks Desktop is not supported, that a one-time complimentary setup call is offered, that purchase-order sync needs QuickBooks Online Plus or above with purchase orders turned on, and that item-category changes apply to projects created after January 1, 2025. Proposals, estimates, invoices, retainers, change orders, and payments are in the sync list, with drafts excluded. The same article still says change orders sync only on a Build package, which does not match the three plan names on the current pricing page, so confirm change-order sync on the account you actually buy. Firms comparing a larger commercial stack can use Procore versus Buildertrend for that different scope, not as a price for either product here.

Mistakes that waste the first month

Most of the bad outcomes in this decision are timing and direction errors, not missing icons.

• Treating CoConstruct as a product a new firm can still subscribe to, because the current sites route that buyer to Buildertrend.

• Using a 2021 "no shutdown" sentence, or a directory plan grid, as if it were the current price list.

• Assuming the QuickBooks connection is two-way, or that QuickBooks Desktop will sync, because the help page says the opposite.

• Buying the advertising add-on because the software was purchased. It is a separate price, and review summaries do not promise lead volume.

• Letting a client into the dashboard before someone has checked which documents and budget figures that view exposes.

• Adding new CoConstruct projects after the firm has committed to the move, or promising that read access lasts forever when no end date is published.

• Building client emails by hand in a connector without a reviewer, then discovering a repeated run sent the same change twice.

Glossary for the handoff

• Selection. A finish, fixture, or material the client is asked to approve, tracked on a board rather than in a loose email thread.

• Allowance. A placeholder amount in the estimate for a choice the client has not made yet. It is not the same thing as the final selection price.

• Change order. A priced change after the original agreement. On the Houzz pricing page it is listed from the Pro plan upward, not on the Design plan card.

• One-way sync. Documents move from Houzz into QuickBooks Online. Changes made in QuickBooks Online stay there and can be overwritten by a later sync.

• Quote-based. The vendor does not print a dollar price. CoConstruct is in that category on the pages opened for this article.

• Client dashboard. The view the pricing FAQ says a firm can preview so the client sees documents and updates without seeing the whole job file.

• Historical access. The migration page's promise that old CoConstruct project information remains readable after new work moves. It is not a promise of new projects.

• Fair-use cap. The pricing page's limit of 415 product-to-3D conversions a month on the Teams plan, even where the plan is described as unlimited conversions.

A short list before you commit

Use this list in one sitting with the owner and the bookkeeper. Stop on the first line you cannot answer.

1. Are we a new buyer, or do we already have CoConstruct jobs to finish?

2. Do the next jobs need takeoffs, change orders, a schedule, and daily logs, or only drawings, selections, and invoices?

3. How many people will log in, and does the published added-user fee push us toward the Teams starting price?

4. Are the books on QuickBooks Online, with purchase orders available if we need them, or are they on Desktop?

5. Who will accept the first synced invoice before a client is asked to pay from the new file?

6. If we stay on CoConstruct for a while, what is the last date we will add a project, and who tells the client which portal is current?

7. Are we buying advertising as a separate decision, with our own definition of a useful lead?

8. If a connector will watch balances or permit status, who reviews the exception list each week?

Questions from owners who are ready to choose

Is CoConstruct still for sale?

No. A new firm is not offered a CoConstruct subscription on the current Buildertrend comparison page or on the CoConstruct migration page. Both point the next step at Buildertrend. Existing customers can keep working the jobs already in CoConstruct and, through the published add-project deadline, can still add projects while they train. After they commit, new projects go to Buildertrend and the old file is described as history.

How much does Houzz Pro cost?

Houzz Pro publishes three paid monthly prices, an added-user fee on the two lower plans, and a separate advertising price, and CoConstruct publishes none. The pricing section cites each of those Houzz figures from the vendor pricing page and shows the three-user seat math as a formula beside the Teams starting price. Do not replace those figures with a directory "starting at" line. The Teams figure is a start, not a guaranteed ceiling, and the trial on Design and Pro converts to an annual subscription.

What happens to old CoConstruct jobs after the move?

The migration page says no project data will be lost and that the firm keeps access to historical project information. It does not publish a calendar end for that read access, and it does say that new projects stop in CoConstruct once the firm commits. Finish active client portals on purpose, export what you may need outside the old login, and do not assume a salesperson's verbal date unless it is written next to the account.

Does the Houzz books connection run both ways?

No. The help page says the sync sends documents from Houzz into QuickBooks Online and does not bring edits back, and it says QuickBooks Desktop is not supported. Invoices sync when they are sent or when a payment is recorded. Drafts wait. Image-only documents without line items do not sync. A balance of 0 on the QuickBooks invoice is the paid state Intuit documents, which is why a reviewer should compare that field with the payment logged in Houzz before the month is closed.

When NOT to use US Tech Automations?

Skip that layer when the built-in one-way sync plus a bookkeeper checking the QuickBooks dashboard each week is enough. Skip it when you are only finishing a few CoConstruct jobs before the add-project deadline and you are not connecting a new system. Skip it when you will not grant a QuickBooks or export connection, or when nobody is assigned to approve client wording and balance exceptions. In those cases the simpler tool you already have is the better choice, and adding another product only creates a second place for the same document to drift.

Can Zapier, Make, or n8n cover the exception list instead?

Yes, if you are willing to design and own them. Those products can store run history, retry a failed step, branch on an error, and keep an audit trail when you configure that behavior. You still have to decide what "duplicate" means, who gets the alert, who can see client files, and who fixes the scenario when a field name changes. The managed design described above is different only in that the review points and the one-way books rule are set up as the default path, with the same need for a real connection and a human approval. Neither approach is a finished install on the day you read about it.

The purchase, then the layer above it

Buy Houzz Pro if you are choosing a system now and you want published prices, selections, and, on the Pro plan and above, takeoffs, change orders, a schedule, and daily logs, with QuickBooks Online as a one-way downstream file. Stay on CoConstruct only long enough to finish jobs you already have, inside the window the migration page describes, and treat Buildertrend as the successor conversation rather than as a nickname for the old login. Do not pay a directory price, do not plan on Desktop sync, and do not promise a client two portals.

If the remaining pain is the exception list, the books mismatch, or the permit note that nobody wrote down, that is a configuration job above whichever project system you keep. You can see how US Tech Automations configures this as a proposed workflow with a named export, a review step, and no claim of a live result. The project system still holds the estimate, the selection, and the invoice. The layer only flags what the two files no longer agree on, and a person still decides what the client is allowed to see.