ContractShield vs Joist

Joist is a free mobile-first app for solo contractors. The core flow is: take a photo of the job site, build a line-itemed quote in the mobile app, send it as a PDF, accept a signed approval, generate an invoice, and collect payment via Joist Payments (a Stripe-backed add-on with a ~3% processing fee).

Joist is intentionally narrow. There's no scheduling, no project management, no team workflow, no marketplace, no lead acquisition — just quoting and invoicing on the phone. That's its strength and its ceiling. Solo contractors who only need to professionalize their estimate-to-invoice flow can run Joist forever and never need anything more.

Joist was acquired by EverCommerce in 2021 and continues to be free for core use, with Joist Pro (advanced features) and Joist Payments (payment processing) as paid layers.

Joist is a quoting + invoicing tool. ContractShield is a quoting + invoicing tool plus four other things:

1. Work Order Marketplace. Clients post jobs publicly; contractors bid; the winning bid creates a managed project. Joist has no equivalent — you bring your own clients.

2. AI-generated quotes. ContractShield's AI takes scope notes and outputs a line-itemed quote with markup, terms, and a PDF in under 5 minutes (median 4 min 12 sec). Joist's quote builder is a manual line-item editor — fast on mobile, but every line is hand-entered.

3. Project management. Once a quote is accepted on ContractShield, the project workspace opens: milestone schedule, change-order flow, lien waivers, photo timeline, time tracking, materials log, 5-dimension review. Joist stops at the invoice.

4. Contractor verification. Every ContractShield contractor's license + insurance is verified against state databases. Joist is contractor-facing software, not a marketplace, so verification isn't part of the product.

Joist core (quoting + PDF invoicing) is free. Joist Pro adds advanced features at around $19/month (price varies). Joist Payments charges ~3% per transaction processed.

ContractShield is $14.99/month base + 1% platform fee per side at payment. Stripe processing is included.

For a $10,000 accepted project paid through the platform: - Joist Pro + Joist Payments: $19 (monthly) + ~$300 (3% processing) = $319 in the month the project closes. - ContractShield: $14.99 (monthly) + $100 (1% platform fee) = $114.99 in the month the project closes.

For jobs you bring yourself (no marketplace involvement), ContractShield is consistently cheaper at the project-revenue level. For solo contractors who don't process payment through the platform, both are similarly priced — the question is whether the project management, marketplace, and AI quoting are worth the $14.99/month difference.

• Joist core: free.
• Joist Pro: ~$19/month (advanced features, varies).
• Joist Payments: ~3% per transaction.
• ContractShield: $14.99/month + 1% platform fee per side at payment.
• Stripe processing is included on ContractShield (no double-stacked fees).

Joist is the right tool if all you need is a clean PDF quote and a clean PDF invoice on your phone. The mobile-first design is genuinely good. The free tier is generous enough that a brand-new solo contractor can run their entire administrative side on Joist for the first year of the business at zero cost.

The absence of marketplace and project management is a feature for contractors who already have steady work via word-of-mouth and don't want a heavier tool. The simpler the workflow, the harder it is to lose track of an invoice or a quote.

If you process less than $20,000/year through Joist Payments, the ~3% fee is roughly $600/year — manageable. The break-even where ContractShield's 1% becomes cheaper sits around $30K-$40K/year of platform-paid revenue.

ContractShield is the right tool when one or more of these is true:

You want bid-based job acquisition. The Work Order Marketplace replaces lead-buying. Posting a contractor profile is free; bidding on work orders is free; you only pay the 1% on jobs you close. Joist has no equivalent.

You're losing project work to faster-quoting competitors. The AI quote generator compresses 60-90 minutes of manual estimating into 4 minutes. That's the difference between sending a quote that night vs the next afternoon — often the difference between winning and losing the bid.

You're managing multi-week or multi-payment projects. Milestone schedules, change-order flow, lien waivers, and the project workspace are all native. With Joist, you're managing those manually in text threads or a separate tool.

You want client-side quote review and approval inside one platform. ContractShield clients see all bids on a job side-by-side in one workspace. Joist sends a PDF to the client's email and waits for them to e-sign it back.

If you're processing under $20K/year through Joist Payments, generating fewer than 5 quotes a week, and don't need a marketplace, stay on Joist. The free tier is fine. Migrate the day you start losing bids on speed, the day you start needing project management, or the day your platform-paid revenue crosses $30K-$40K/year (where the 3% vs 1% fee gap starts mattering).

Migration is straightforward — no proprietary data lock-in. Customer profiles, past quotes, and invoice history can be exported from Joist as PDFs and CSVs. Keep Joist installed on your phone for the first 30 days as a fallback during cutover.