Verification methodology
How verification works
Every price report on this site goes through the same pipeline, and we publish it here in full because the process is the product. If you can't audit how a review site verifies its data, you can't trust its data.
- A contractor submits what they pay for a software product, along with their state and contractor license number.
- A human checks that license against the state contractor board's public lookup — for example CSLB in California, TDLR in Texas, DBPR in Florida, or L&I in Washington. We confirm the license exists and is active. Licenses that can't be found are rejected.
- On approval or rejection, the license number is discarded. We keep only an irreversible salted hash, which exists for one purpose: preventing the same license from submitting duplicate reports for the same product and contract year.
- The report goes live showing only: the cost data, company-size and volume bands, the state, and the license class. Never a name, company, license number, or email.
What the labels mean
- Researched estimate
- A price point we compiled from a cited public source (a published teardown, a forum thread, a vendor's own page). These exist so a page is useful before verified reports arrive. They are never mixed into verified statistics, and every one links to its source.
Why anonymous?
Software contracts often contain pricing-confidentiality language, and contractors have ongoing relationships with vendors. Anonymity is what makes honest numbers possible — the same reason salary-transparency sites work. Verification happens privately; publication happens anonymously.
What we will never do
- Take affiliate commissions or vendor payments of any kind.
- Let a vendor edit, suppress, or remove a verified report.
- Display or sell license numbers or emails.
- Publish AI-generated or unverifiable "reviews."
Pay for construction software? Share what you pay.