Built By The Trades vs. Raise the Trades
If you've come across Built By The Trades and Raise the Trades, you might assume they're the same company.
They're not.
Both serve independent home-service contractors. Both believe the trades deserve better than generic solutions built by people who don't understand the industry.
But they do different things.
Built By The Trades sells operations software. Raise the Trades provides marketing, growth strategy, and hands-on implementation.
Here's how they differ, when each makes sense, and which approach might be right for your business.
What Built By The Trades is
Built By The Trades is an operations platform for trade businesses. It launched in April 2026, built by Paul Wiese, who grew Door Serv Pro, a garage door company, into a multi-state operation before starting this one.
The platform is a set of modules:
ProfitWizard, for pricing and estimating based on actual job costs
Live Job Costing, tracking labor, materials, and change orders in real time
TradeGames, a gamified system for crew accountability
TradeRated, which captures customer reviews on-site, right after the job
BudgetGenius and an AI coaching layer called Goose AI
It's built to sit on top of tools you may already run. ServiceTitan, Jobber, Housecall Pro, Workiz, AccuLynx, and QuickBooks are all listed as compatible. There's no public pricing for the core platform; you book a demo to get it. Its review tool, TradeRated, does publish its own pricing separately: $349 to $829 a month depending on tier.
Built By The Trades' own message is consistent across the site: contractors have been sold "recycled enterprise garbage" and "Silicon Valley guesswork" for years, and this was built by people who actually ran a crew.
That's a fair pitch for what it is. It's software for a business that already knows its estimates are wrong, its job costs are invisible, or its reviews aren't showing up.
What Raise the Trades is
Raise the Trades helps independent home-service contractors find and fix the problems costing them revenue.
I bring more than 15 years of home-services experience to that work, including nearly a decade at Angie's List and firsthand family experience building and selling an HVAC company.
We look at the entire customer journey. Can people find you? Does someone answer the phone? Are estimates followed up on? Are happy customers leaving reviews and coming back?
Sometimes the answer is better marketing. Sometimes it's software, AI, or a change in how your team works. Sometimes you really do need more leads.
The point is to find the problem before spending money on the solution.
Built By The Trades vs. Raise the Trades, side by side
| Comparison | Built By The Trades | Raise the Trades |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Operations software | Marketing, growth strategy and implementation |
| Primary focus | Estimating, job costing, crew accountability and reviews | Finding and fixing revenue leaks |
| AI | AI features within its platform | Evaluating and implementing AI tools across the business |
| Best fit | Contractors evaluating tools for specific operational needs | Contractors ready to grow revenue by improving marketing, sales and processes, whatever their starting point. |
When Built By The Trades makes sense
If you already know your problem, a platform like this can be exactly right. Some real signals:
Your bids never seem to match what the job actually cost
You have no real-time view of labor and material costs while a job is running
Your crews aren't accountable for time or materials, and you know it
You're doing good work but reviews aren't showing up online
Those are known, specific, operational problems, and Built By The Trades built specific tools to run each one.
When Raise the Trades makes sense
Sometimes you know something isn't working, but you can't pinpoint the problem.
Revenue is up, but profit isn't. Leads come in, but don't close. Marketing spend increases every year, yet the phone rings about the same.
Other times, you know exactly what's wrong. You just don't have the time, team, or expertise to fix it.
Raise the Trades helps in both situations. We diagnose and address problems across marketing, search visibility, call handling, estimate follow-up, and customer retention. We also evaluate and implement AI tools where they can do useful work. We’ve seen in all!
The goal isn't to sell you a particular solution. It's to identify the problem and help you fix it.
Can you use both?
Yes. There's no conflict here, and treating this as a rivalry would misrepresent both companies.
A contractor could go through a Revenue Leak diagnosis with Raise the Trades, learn that estimating and job costing are the actual leak, and go evaluate Built By The Trades as the fix.
Just as easily, a contractor already running Built By The Trades could have solved estimating and reviews and still be losing money on missed calls, slow follow-up, or a website nobody finds. That's where Raise the Trades comes in.
The Revenue Leak Framework
Raise the Trades' approach is built around ten stages every customer moves through: Found, Called, Booked, Quoted, Closed, Served, Paid, Reviewed, Rebooked, Referred.
Each one is a place revenue can leak. A slow callback loses a Booked. A quote nobody follows up on loses a Closed. A great job with no ask loses a Reviewed. Software can reveal problems and help solve them. The question is whether you're evaluating the right part of the business in the first place, before you spend money fixing it.
FAQ
What is Built By The Trades?
An operations platform for trade businesses covering estimating, job costing, crew accountability, and review capture. Launched April 2026.
What does Built By The Trades cost?
There's no public price for the core platform as of September 2026; pricing is disclosed during a demo. Its review-capture tool, TradeRated, publishes standalone pricing from $349 to $829 a month.
Is Built By The Trades worth it?
That depends on your business's needs, existing software, budget, and the results you expect. If estimating accuracy, job costing, crew accountability, or review capture are priorities, evaluate its features, integrations, pricing, and customer references before making a decision.
What is Raise the Trades?
A consulting and implementation practice for independent home service businesses, built around finding where revenue leaks across the customer journey before recommending a fix.
What's the actual difference between Built By The Trades and Raise the Trades?
One is software built for specific, known operational problems. The other figures out which problem is actually costing you money, then implements whatever fixes it, technology or not.
Is contractor software a substitute for a marketing or growth strategy?
Not by itself. Software can reveal problems and help solve them within the areas it covers. The bigger question is whether pricing, marketing, call handling, or something else entirely is where the money is actually leaking.
Can I use Built By The Trades and Raise the Trades together?
Yes. They solve different layers of the same business.
Before you buy another lead, or another piece of software, find out where the last one went.
That's where Raise the Trades starts. Find your next revenue opportunity.
