Joist Review (2026): Pricing, Features & Honest Verdict

TLDR

Joist is a mobile-first estimate, invoice, and payment app built specifically for contractors and trades businesses. It nails on-site quoting and getting paid faster, but the software itself is now paid-only. Best for: solo contractors and small trades crews. Price: From $10/mo (free plan: no, 14-day trial only). Rating: 6.7/10

What is Joist?

Joist is a field-service business app that lets contractors build professional estimates, send invoices, and collect payments from a phone, tablet, or the web. Instead of the generic accounting tools most tradespeople bolt onto their workflow, Joist is designed around the reality of the job site: you meet a homeowner, size up the work, and hand them a branded quote before you leave the driveway. That speed-to-quote is the whole pitch, and it is genuinely good at it.

The company was founded in Toronto and rebuilt over several years before being acquired by Denver-based EverCommerce in 2019, the same service-commerce roll-up that owns a portfolio of vertical SaaS tools for home services, health, and fitness businesses. That backing matters: Joist is no longer a scrappy indie app but a funded product with real infrastructure behind its payments stack. By its own numbers it has served over one million contractors and processed more than $85 billion in transactions, with an average app store rating around 4.1 across roughly 18,000 five-star reviews.

Who is it for? Painters, remodelers, electricians, plumbers, drywall and flooring crews, fencing and masonry contractors, and general handymen who run small operations and live on their phones. The problem Joist solves is the messy middle of a trades business: the estimate scribbled on a notepad, the invoice that never gets sent, the customer who “forgot” to pay, and the QuickBooks entry nobody has time to make. Joist collapses that into a few taps. It has evolved from a simple free invoicing app into a tiered, subscription-based platform with financing, work orders, and payment collection layered on top, which is both its biggest strength and the source of most user gripes.

What Are Joist’s Key Features?

On-Site Estimates and Quotes

The estimate builder is Joist’s flagship feature and the reason most contractors download it. You add line items with descriptions, quantities, and prices, attach up to 20 photos of the work area or materials, and generate a clean, branded PDF the client can review and sign on the spot. Reusable line items and templates mean a contractor who quotes similar jobs repeatedly can build a full estimate in a couple of minutes rather than typing it out fresh each time. Getting a signature on-site materially raises close rates, and that immediacy is where Joist earns its keep.

Invoicing and Payments

Once a job is won, an estimate converts to an invoice in one tap, so nothing gets re-keyed. Clients pay online by credit card, debit, ACH bank transfer, or PayPal directly from the invoice, and funds typically land in your Stripe or PayPal-connected bank account within about two business days, with optional automatic daily payouts. Card payments run 3.49% + $0.49 per transaction, ACH bank transfers are 1% capped at $15, Tap to Pay is 2.79% + $0.49, and mobile check deposit is 1% capped at $15. These are standard-to-slightly-high processing rates, and they apply on every paid plan.

Homeowner Financing

Joist can offer clients financing at the point of sale, letting a homeowner spread a large project cost over monthly payments while the contractor still gets paid up front. For remodelers and roofers quoting five-figure jobs, this is a real upsell lever: a customer who balks at a $12,000 lump sum often says yes to a monthly payment. It is available across plan tiers, which is a smart move on Joist’s part since financing drives payment volume.

Work Orders, Contracts, and Change Orders

On the Pro tier and above, Joist adds work orders you can generate from an existing estimate and share with subcontractors, plus contract attachments with e-signature collection so the legal side is handled in the same document flow. The Elite tier layers on change orders, which is the feature remodelers actually need when a job scope shifts mid-project and they have to document extra charges without re-quoting the whole thing. Elite also adds deposit and payment schedules, expense tracking, and license and insurance tracking.

QuickBooks Sync and Client Management

Joist stores all client information in one place, accessible on mobile and web, and Pro and Elite plans sync estimates, invoices, and clients automatically to QuickBooks Online. That eliminates the double data entry that plagues contractors who quote in one tool and do their books in another. Client activity tracking notifies you when a customer opens an email, views a document, or signs, so you know exactly when to follow up instead of guessing.

How Much Does Joist Cost?

Joist starts at $10/mo (or $100/yr) for the Basics plan, and there is no longer a free-forever tier despite Joist’s history as a free app. You get a 14-day trial of Pro or Elite after signup, then you must pick a paid plan to keep using it. Basics ($10/mo) covers up to five documents per month, unlimited clients, online payments, and homeowner financing, which suits a very part-time or occasional contractor. Pro ($17/mo, or $170/yr) is the plan most active contractors will want: it removes the document cap entirely and adds logo branding, photo attachments, work orders, custom contracts with signatures, client activity tracking, QuickBooks Online sync, and Joist Edge Rewards. Elite ($32/mo, or $320/yr) adds business reports, change orders, advanced line-item organization, expense tracking, deposit and payment schedules, and license and insurance tracking for contractors running a more structured operation.

Remember that the subscription is separate from payment processing: card transactions cost 3.49% + $0.49 and ACH is 1% (capped at $15) on top of your monthly fee. Compared to competitors, Joist is cheap on the software side. Jobber, a heavier field-service platform, starts around $29/mo and climbs fast, while Invoice Simple runs about $6.99/mo but does far less. Joist sits in the value sweet spot for contractors who want more than a bare invoice generator but less than a full CRM.

Who Is Joist Best For?

Joist is best for solo contractors and small trades crews who run their business from a phone and want to look professional without learning accounting software. If you are a painter, electrician, remodeler, or handyman who quotes a few jobs a week, needs on-site signatures, and wants clients to pay by card, Joist fits like a glove. It is also a strong pick if you rely on homeowner financing to close bigger projects.

Use Joist if you quote jobs in the field and want to close on the spot, you need branded estimates and invoices that make a one-person operation look established, you want card and ACH payments collected inside the invoice, or you use QuickBooks Online and hate double data entry.

Skip Joist if you expected a free plan (that era is over, and Basics caps you at five documents a month), you need scheduling, dispatching, and team management for a larger crew (Jobber or Housecall Pro do that better), you process high payment volume and want the lowest possible card rates, or you have had bad experiences with payment holds and want a processor you control directly.

Best Joist Alternatives

Joist is not the only estimate-and-invoice app for trades, and the right pick depends on how much operational software you actually need beyond quoting and getting paid.

Jobber

Jobber is the heavyweight alternative, adding scheduling, dispatching, a client hub, and job tracking on top of quoting and invoicing. It does far more than Joist but costs more, starting around $29/mo and rising into the hundreds for larger teams. Choose Jobber if you are managing a crew and a calendar; stick with Joist if you mainly need estimates, invoices, and payments.

Invoice Simple

Invoice Simple is the lighter, cheaper option at roughly $6.99/mo, focused purely on invoices and estimates without work orders, financing, or QuickBooks depth. It is a fine fit for a handyman who just needs to bill clients, but it lacks Joist’s contractor-specific features and payment financing. Pick it if simplicity and price are all that matter.

Housecall Pro

Housecall Pro is a full field-service management platform with scheduling, online booking, marketing tools, and payments, starting around $49/mo. It targets service businesses that book recurring work and want to automate the whole customer lifecycle. It is overkill for a solo estimator but the better long-term home if you plan to scale a team and a dispatch operation.

Final Verdict: Is Joist Worth It?

Joist is worth it for the contractor it was built for: the solo operator or small crew who wants to quote fast, look professional, and get paid without wrestling accounting software. The estimate-to-invoice-to-payment flow is genuinely slick, the mobile app is easy to learn, homeowner financing is a real revenue lever, and at $10 to $32 a month the software is cheap for what it does. The million-contractor user base and EverCommerce backing mean it is not going anywhere.

The honest caveats are real, though. Joist quietly dropped its free plan, so long-time users who came for a free invoice app now face a subscription and a five-document cap on the cheapest tier. Payment processing fees are on the higher side, and the most common complaints across review sites center on payment holds, processor changes made without much warning, and support that can be slow to respond when funds are tied up. Those issues hit hardest for contractors depending on Joist to move large sums quickly.

Our recommendation: if you are a small trades business that quotes in the field and wants an all-in-one estimate, invoice, and payment tool, Joist Pro at $17/mo is an easy yes and one of the best-value options in the category. If you run a larger crew that needs scheduling and dispatch, or you process serious payment volume and want tight control over your money, look at Jobber or Housecall Pro instead. For its intended user, Joist is a solid 7.3.