eSUB is a SaaS platform for commercial subcontractors running large, complex, long duration projects to proactively track and manage their costs, deadlines, deliverables and correspondence; the vendor says this can result in operational efficiencies and improved profits. eSUB is a cloud and mobile-based solution enabling real-time field updates from connected smartphones, tables and mobile PC users.
$39
per month per user
PlanGrid
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
PlanGrid is construction productivity software. The company provides tools to collaborate, collect, and manage project information throughout the project’s construction and operations lifespan. It enables document centralization and tracking.
$39
user per month
Pricing
eSUB Construction Software
PlanGrid
Editions & Modules
Base
$39
per month (annually) per user
Advanced
$59
per month (annually) per user
Premium
Contact
Nailgun
$39
user per month
Dozer
$59
user per month
Crane
$139
user per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
eSUB Construction Software
PlanGrid
Free Trial
Yes
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
Yes
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
—
—
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
eSUB Construction Software
PlanGrid
Considered Both Products
eSUB Construction Software
Verified User
C-Level Executive
Chose eSUB Construction Software
eSUB is not even close when it comes to the offerings that the others have. eSUB is a happy medium for the functionality it provides and is at an affordable price point that it doesn't break the bank. Other solutions are a lot more integrated into the company processes and …
If you are doing any sort of new construction, eSUB is a budget friendly option for managing the process. It's helpful for keeping track of submittals, RFI's and for foreman doing Daily Work Reports. It is not suited really well for plan management and scheduling. The modules for these are not well thought through. Also if you specialize in service work or projects that have short durations (i.e. 1-2 weeks or less), eSUB isn't the best option for you. It would take too long to set up a job vs the time it takes to do the job.
PlanGrid performs really well in all aspects of construction from the general to the sub/trade. The platform distributes and communicates project documentation in an extremely user-friendly manner. As with most software, it is cheaper the larger the scale of the project. In situations where the project is relatively small, and the trade contracts are also of relatively low dollar value, the product can be cost-prohibitive.
It is built with subcontractors in mind. There are many PM software available but this one aims at the commercial subcontractor.
It does a great job covering the basics of typical commercial work. There are areas that allow you to customize such as adding reservations of rights to documents.
It can integrate with Microsoft quite a bit, we use this in our work every day and being able to export or sync data/calendars has been helpful.
Plangrid is the best SaaS I have seen for ease of uploading construction plans and automated organization of those plans.
For companies that are not using other products for mobile access, the Plangrid mobile apps are perfect to allow people on and off site to share and collaborate in many phases of construction project documentation.
Plangrid has a very responsive technical support team (although it is pretty much email only).
Plangrid's website layout is easy to use and understand and allows new users to jump right in and do basic to moderate tasks without little training.
The photo attachment process is a bit complicated. In ProCore (another similar software I've used), you can upload photos directly into RFIs for your reference, or into e-mails. For PlanGrid, you have to first upload the photo into the documents tab, then link them into the RFI. It's not intuitive and can add confusion to the documents tab.
Photos can't be directly uploaded. Between different devices and colleagues, it's possible you'll get an important photo outside of the PlanGrid photo capture feature within its app. Again, it's complicated for users to use.
In their new drawings viewer, the icons for actions do not have icons available. I had to use them all in order to understand what they meant, and I'm fairly tech savvy. I'm not sure if a new person to PlanGrid will pick up on each icon's abilities very easily.
There's no all-in-one solution in CM, but PlanGrid is fairly barebones, and I don't believe it has any ability to connect to other software. There's no ability to take meeting munites; you can hack the field reports feature to accomplish this, but it's clear that was not the intent of the designers.
We are at the point where we have shown our teams what is possible with this software. We cannot take it away and go back to the way we used to do things. I think that they would push back on us to give them access to something electronic. It is a good program that we will continue to use
Very well thought app, easy to use and provides fast access to the project's plans (your own and your team's), improvements in the annotation posibilities and on-site report generator will be appreciatted. The punch-list report generator and the current/previous plan version compare tools works flawlessly. Haven't used the RFI's nor field report options yet
It has been helpful whenever I've called. They have been able to walk me through solutions and even direct me to the right answer. There was only 1hr difference between time zones so this was manageable. If we experienced bugs, their IT department was helpful at remedying and they were always rolling out updates.
Online chat during business hours is extremely helpful. The Plangrid staff has gone above and beyond many times to help us. One time they even offered to completely rebuild our 900+ sheet project so I could slip sheet a few old drawing revisions! This undoubtedly would have taken hours on Plangrid's end. They are always responsive and are continually improving, listening to user feedback.
eSUB is not even close when it comes to the offerings that the others have. eSUB is a happy medium for the functionality it provides and is at an affordable price point that it doesn't break the bank. Other solutions are a lot more integrated into the company processes and procedures, which means more upfront investment to get the platform to go live. eSUB's simplicity makes it easier to roll out because it doesn't integrate with as many aspects of the business.
Plangrid, while not serving the external document distribution function, is unrivaled for internal document distribution and sharing in the construction industry. The speed at which documents are navigatable, the ability to download your projects for viewing without an internet connection, and the document mark-up and photo tools place it head and shoulders above the competition.
It helped us "wow" a joint commission survey in 2016 and have a successful survey because he loved how we could access plans on an iPad, check suite sizes, and didn't have to carry around huge, heavy sets of life safety plans.
