Construction projects are not transparent - they tend to run over time and budget, and don’t meet customer expectations. We built this site to help people find great contractors, and to help people avoid bad contractors. To do this, we gather and organize data from a variety of sources, including contractor licensing agencies, local building departments and consumers. We use our data to help property owners find and hire a qualified, relevant contracting professional for their project. We also provide every property owner with a project consultant, who walks them through each step of the process and makes sure they’re happy with results.
How much does BuildZoom cost?
BuildZoom is a free service for those interested in finding and hiring a contractor.
How does BuildZoom make money?
BuildZoom's business model is similar to a real estate agent's: if we are able to successfully help a project owner find and hire a contractor, we charge the contractor a small percentage of the project value as a commission.
The commission has been fixed to be significantly lower than the contracting industry's standard cost-of-acquisition to ensure it is not passed on to the homeowner.
How does hiring a contractor through BuildZoom work?
Hiring a contractor through BuildZoom makes the hiring process faster, safer, and easier. We will share your project with only the best contractors, and make sure the contractor you hire does great work for you. We eliminate the risk of hiring bad or untrustworthy contractors by focusing on licensed contractors who have done great work for us in the past.
The accountability we provide gives contractors a strong incentive to do their best work. Contractors know that if they don’t do a great job for you they will no longer receive business from BuildZoom.
Tell us about your project. We create a “project page” for you that we send to the best-reviewed contractors in your area who specialize in what you need done.
Contractors can message you through BuildZoom (or call you, if you prefer) to express interest in your project or to give you an estimate.
Your project page allows you to view the work history, previous project photographs, and reviews of the contractors who are interested in your job. There are no commitments; if you decide not to carry out the project or that you don’t like the contractors we recommend, you can close the project at any time.
Why should I trust BuildZoom?
We built this site to help people find great contractors, and to help people avoid bad contractors. We take this incredibly seriously, and we have a zero tolerance policy for contractors who don’t adhere to our standards. Our business depends on your trust, and you telling your friends about us. If a contractor does poor work, they will be blacklisted from getting future projects from us, and a negative review will be posted on their profile.
BuildZoom goes beyond just selecting the top performing contractors. We work to make sure the contractors perform even better once they are on our platform.
Once a contractor is part of BuildZoom, we require that the contractors adhere to a set of standards. This includes, among other requirements:
- Responding to all customer communication in a timely manner
- Showing up on time
- Maintaining a clean job site
- Providing a fair, up front estimate of all costs.
- And, of course, above all, doing great work.
BuildZoom property owners report a rate of satisfaction nearly 100% higher than the industry average. This isn’t only because we recommend great contractors. It’s because we provide accountability.
How does BuildZoom make recommendations?
First and foremost, we rely on the recommendations of our customers. 10 million people a year visit BuildZoom, and they give us a lot of information. If our property owner has a good experience with a contractor, we increase the contractor’s BuildZoom score. If our property owner has a bad experience with a contractor, we lower their score and will never recommend them again. In addition to feedback from our customers, we look at the contractor’s license history, their rating with other rating organizations, and their work history.
We’ve worked hard and spent years aggregating and analyzing data to figure out who the best contractors are. We’ve put in the time and done our homework. The end result is that BuildZoom is the world’s best source of information about contractors.
We collect data from thousands of government sources, and then use it to create comprehensive profiles for each contractor. In fact, there is a BuildZoom profile for every single licensed contractor in the United States. We’ve collected 125 million building permits, over a million customer reviews, and 6.9 million state license records. We combine all that data with project photos, government sanction records, and detailed profile information provided by the contractors themselves.
Once we have accumulated all of the data for a contractor in one place, we use it to learn more about the contractors’ performance. Here are some of the factors we consider:
1. Do we have evidence that this contractor has done a lot of good work, and little to no bad work? Looking at previous ratings is an excellent way to gauge expected productivity and success of a contractor.
2. Has a contractor worked several times in the same neighborhood? Repeat business in the same location indicates positive word of mouth recommendations from previous jobs!
3. Has a contractor filed multiple permits for the same property owner at different houses? If a property owner decides to rehire the same contractor for subsequent builds, this suggests strong loyalty likely built from months of quality work.
4. Do property owners consistently rate them with 5 stars? In knowing what type of homeowner project a potential contractor ranks highly, you can choose your services based on previous customer experiences.
5. Do other contractors endorse them? No one knows who the best (and worst) contractors are like the other contractors in their neighborhood.
6. Did a contractor do a big remodel, and then see a house increase in value more than was expected based on the cost of the remodel? Investing in big projects should pay off for the future!
How does BuildZoom provide accountability?
Accountability makes people do better work.
Think about the last time you rode in an Uber. The driver was probably courteous, took the fastest route, and your entire experience was likely pleasant.
The last time you took a cab, the opposite may have been true. The driver might not have been friendly. The car wasn’t as clean as it could be. Payment was a hassle. Maybe the driver was deceptive about accepting credit cards.
Believe it or not, a huge number of Uber drivers were previously cab drivers!
Only one thing changed: accountability for their actions. With Uber, if a driver is unpleasant, you will leave him a 1 star review and he’ll soon be out of a job. When the same person worked as a cab driver, he knew that how he treated you was unlikely to affect his future.
BuildZoom is bringing accountability into the world of home remodeling. Contractors are accountable to us now, and it makes a big difference. On a BuildZoom job, contractors won’t do anything but their best work because they can’t risk having a negative review making it hard for them to get future business.
If you aren’t happy with a contractor’s work, we’ll do everything in our power to make them perform. Contractors know that if they don’t make us happy, they won’t get any more projects from us in the future. And that is something they take very seriously. In fact, for a majority of the contractors on BuildZoom, we represent their largest source of business.
Analyzing 130 million building permits
We don’t just analyze property owner reviews to find great contractors. We need to know what type of work contractors do, and where they do it. To help with this, we’ve analyzed 130 million building permits to learn about the type of work contractors perform, how much repeat business they get within a neighborhood or at a specific house, the typical cost of one of their projects, and a lot more. We even look at the value of the houses they work on, and the income of their customers.
We know exactly what type of work contractors are doing, whether it’s a huge custom home build, bathroom remodeling, restaurant build out, office tenant improvement, or small plumbing job. Our algorithms have consistently been able to use this data to identify the right contractor for any type of job.
Why is my address on your site?
BuildZoom gathers public data available from regulatory organizations such as contractor license boards and local building departments, including building permits. These permits may show the address where work was completed by a given contractor, and we only use this information to assess a contractor’s experience in the area.