What general contractor software actually has to do
A general contractor's job is coordination. You aren't swinging every hammer — you're sequencing a framer, an electrician, a plumber, a drywall sub, and a tile sub across a job that has to stay on schedule and on budget while a homeowner watches. That is a fundamentally different problem from a single-trade service business closing one-visit tickets, and it is why service-dispatch tools so often disappoint GCs. The software has to hold the whole project, not a stream of jobs.
Strip away the marketing and a GC platform has to do five things well: turn a scope into a signed, itemized estimate; schedule your own crew and multiple subcontractors against phases that depend on each other; document the job daily so you have evidence when something is disputed; keep the homeowner informed without drowning them; and — once you're billing — invoice against progress with change orders that don't leak margin. Everything else is nice-to-have. If a tool is weak on any of these five, no amount of extra modules will fix the gap.
The trap is buying on feature count. A GC tool with a hundred features you'll never touch is worse than a focused one that does the five core jobs and gets adopted by the crew. Adoption — will your foreman actually open it on site, will your subs actually use it — beats capability on paper every time. The most expensive software is the one you paid for and abandoned.
The decision criteria that matter for a GC
These are the criteria that actually predict whether a tool will work for a general contractor, in rough order of how often they're the thing that breaks. Score each candidate honestly against them rather than against the demo highlight reel.
- Subcontractor management — You run a job with five trades. Can each sub be invited, see only their scope, upload photos, mark work complete, and message you in-app — without you buying them a seat? If sub coordination still lives in a group text, the tool hasn't solved your actual problem. This is the single most under-served capability in GC software, and the first thing to test.
- Phased scheduling — Demo Monday, rough-in Tuesday, inspection Wednesday, drywall Friday, each depending on the one before. GC scheduling is about phases and dependencies across multiple crews and subs on the same job — not a flat calendar of appointments. Make sure the tool schedules your own crew and your subs against the same job, and handles a slip without you rebuilding the whole plan.
- Progress billing — You don't bill a remodel in one invoice at the end. You bill against milestones or percent-complete, hold retainage, and every change order has to hit the invoice. A tool that only does one-shot invoicing will quietly cost you margin on every job that changes scope — and they all change scope.
- Client portal — A homeowner living through a remodel wants to see progress without calling you daily, and without seeing every internal problem. A real portal shows status, curated progress photos, approved change orders, and daily updates from a private link — with control over what stays internal. This is the feature that most reduces the 'when will it be done' phone calls.
- Daily logs — When a customer disputes work three months later, the daily log is your evidence: weather, who was on site, what got done, what blocked you. Most GCs don't keep them because paper logs are friction. The tool has to make a log a 60-second mobile entry attached to the job, or it won't happen — and the one time it matters, you'll wish it had.
- Budget tracking — Estimated vs. actual, per job, with change orders folded in. You need to know mid-project whether you're bleeding on labor or a trade before the job closes, not discover it at reconciliation. Look for cost visibility tied to the actual job, not a separate accounting exercise you do after the fact.
Red flags that predict buyer's remorse
The demo is designed to show strengths. Your job is to surface the flaws before you sign. These are the patterns that most reliably lead GCs to abandon a tool six months in — treat any one of them as a reason to dig harder, and a stack of them as a reason to walk.
- Per-seat pricing — A GC that has to pay per user is a GC that keeps subs and half the crew off the platform to control cost. That defeats the entire point: the coordination you bought the tool for only works if everyone's on it. Per-seat billing structurally fights subcontractor adoption. Prefer flat pricing where subs and crew are unlimited.
- Quote-only pricing tiers — 'Contact us for a quote' with no public number usually means enterprise pricing, per-tech seat fees, and a sales process built to maximize contract size. It's a fine model for a 200-tech commercial operation; for a residential GC it typically means paying enterprise money for capacity you'll never use. If a vendor won't show you a price, assume it's high and built for someone bigger than you.
- Weeks-long onboarding — If getting the crew productive requires a multi-week implementation, paid onboarding, or a dedicated admin, factor that in as real cost and real risk. Complex rollouts stall; the tool gets shelved before it's ever fully live. You should be able to quote a job and schedule a crew the same day you sign up.
- Service-only tools sold to project trades — A lot of well-known field-service software was built for one-visit dispatch work (an HVAC repair, a plumbing call) and is now marketed to GCs. It'll do a work order fine and fall apart on phased scheduling, progress billing, sub coordination, and daily logs — the things a project GC actually lives on. Ask specifically how it handles a five-trade remodel over eight weeks, not a service ticket.
- No offline capability — Job sites have dead zones. If the crew can't sign a JSA, log the day, or add photos without signal — and have it sync later — the field simply won't use it. Test this deliberately; it's rarely in the demo.
- Everything gated behind the top tier — Watch for the core things you need (invoicing, portal, permissions) being locked behind the most expensive plan while the cheap tier is a hollow teaser. Map the features you actually need to the price you'll actually pay, not the headline number.
Where Vexor fits — honestly
Vexor is field-service and crew-management software for residential and light-commercial trade contractors, and it was built around exactly the five core GC jobs above: itemized quoting with e-signature, phased multi-trade scheduling for your crew and subs, daily logs, a client portal, and — on the Operations plan — progress-aware invoicing with change orders. Pricing is two flat plans: Field at $99/mo and Operations at $199/mo, both with unlimited office users and unlimited field crew and subcontractors. There is no per-seat fee, so putting all five of your subs on the platform costs nothing extra — which directly answers the biggest red flag on this list.
It's deliberately right-sized. Vexor handles the residential remodeler and custom-home GC workflow without the price tag or six-week rollout of enterprise commercial platforms. You can quote a job, schedule a crew, and invite a sub the same day. Subcontractor portals, phased scheduling, daily logs, JSA across trades, and the homeowner portal are all there; QuickBooks Online sync, invoicing, profit-per-job dashboards, branded portal, and custom permissions come on Operations.
Now the honest limits, because a buyer's guide that pretends there aren't any is useless. Vexor is not built to replace enterprise commercial project management — if RFIs, submittals, and formal AIA G702/G703 billing are core to your contracts, that's Procore's lane, not Vexor's. It supports progress billing with retainage and change-order impact, which covers residential GC work, but it doesn't generate AIA-specific forms natively. It does not produce CAD or takeoff drawings, file permits, or do EPA/refrigerant compliance reporting. If those are central to your business, pair Vexor with the dedicated tool for that job. If your business is coordinating multi-trade residential and light-commercial jobs at a fair flat price, it's built for exactly that.
In Vexor
For a general contractor, the setup that matters: invite every sub to a free scoped portal (unlimited, no per-seat fee), schedule your crew and subs against job phases, capture a 60-second daily log with auto weather and photos, and give the homeowner a private portal with curated progress. On Operations ($199/mo) you add progress invoicing with change orders, profit-per-job dashboards, custom permissions, and QuickBooks Online sync. Two flat plans, 30-day trial, no card.
Step by step
- 1
Write down your real workflow first
Before you look at a single tool, map how one actual job flows: scope to signed estimate, phase schedule with which subs, how you document days, how you bill and handle change orders. Buy against your workflow, not the vendor's demo.
- 2
Score each tool on the six GC criteria
Rate every candidate on subcontractor management, phased scheduling, progress billing, client portal, daily logs, and budget tracking. A tool weak on any of the six will show that weakness on your very first real job.
- 3
Get the real total price with your headcount
Multiply out per-seat fees for your crew AND your subs, add onboarding or implementation costs, and confirm which features are gated to the top tier. Compare that true number to a flat-price plan, not the headline rate.
- 4
Run a real job through the free trial
Don't just click around. Build an actual estimate, schedule a real phase, invite one real sub, and log a real day on site — including in a signal dead zone. If the crew won't touch it in a trial, they won't touch it after you pay.
- 5
Confirm the honest scope fit
Ask directly what the tool does NOT do — AIA billing, RFIs/submittals, CAD/takeoff, permits. Make sure its gaps are things you genuinely don't need, and that you have a plan for any you do.