How to choose home inspection software: a working inspector’s 12-point checklist

I have bought inspection software more than once in fifteen years and regretted it more than once. Every demo looked good. Every vendor said offline, autosave, unlimited, and integrated. The problems only showed up on a Saturday morning in a house with no signal and a client waiting in the kitchen. This checklist is what I wish I had walked into those demos with. It is written for inspection companies in Canada and the United States, and it applies to IntellectSpect as much as to anyone else — I note where we stand on each point.

The 12-point checklist

1. Does offline work where you actually inspect?

Cloud tools advertise offline. The question is what happens in a basement, under a metal roof, or on a rural road. Ask the vendor: where does the draft live when signal drops? Does the app say so? What happens to voice or AI features that need the network — do they queue or silently fail? On the demo, turn on airplane mode and keep working for ten minutes, then reconnect and check that everything arrived. IntellectSpect keeps a working draft on the phone, shows an Offline banner, queues voice fills, and syncs findings when the connection returns.

2. Can you see whether a save landed?

Silent autosave is the most expensive feature in inspection software, because you find out it failed when the client does. Look for a per-field or per-finding status — Saved, Saving, Not saved — on both web and phone, and for the ability to fix a finding in place rather than duplicating it.

3. Is there any limit on photos and video?

Ask three questions: is there a per-report photo cap, is there a per-photo or per-clip fee, and how are photos stored? Photos stuffed into the report record make big jobs slow and make a lost save catastrophic. Photos stored as files with a short URL on the report keep a two-hundred-photo house fast. Also ask whether clients can play a video clip on the finished report, or whether video stays on your phone.

4. Does your comment library come with you?

Your description, implication, and recommendation wording is the most valuable thing you own after your client list. Ask how you import it (paste, upload, from which formats), whether it lands in reusable templates or on a single report, and how you export it if you leave. If the answer is “our library is better than yours,” that is a lock-in strategy, not a feature.

5. How fast is the writing — and who has the final word?

Voice fill and photo analysis are now table stakes in this category. Check that speech maps to the section you are standing in rather than a single notes box, that photo or video analysis drafts description, implication, recommendation, and severity, and — most important — that you edit before anything is saved. You sign the report. The software should draft, not decide.

6. Can you customize the house without rebuilding the template?

Every house has the odd boiler or roof covering that is not in the dropdown. Ask whether you can add an option for this report only, save it on this device for next time, duplicate a section, or add a tab in the field. If every change is a company-wide template project or a vendor ticket, you will stop customizing and your reports will get vaguer.

7. How do clients and agents open the report?

Generated usernames get lost. Portals that need a second login for the repair list get abandoned. The standard to hold vendors to: the client or agent enters the email already on the job and gets a time-limited sign-in link, the repair request list prints from the same place, and agents have an inbox of the reports released to them. Ask how long the report stays available and what happens to old reports.

8. Are agreements and payment on the same link as the booking?

A client who books at night should review and sign the agreement and pay in the same sitting, from the same link, without three emails from three vendors. Ask which payment rails are supported: card to your own processor account, ACH or bank transfer for US clients, pay at close, and — in Canada — Interac e-Transfer, which is how many clients want to pay and which US-centric catalogs often skip entirely.

9. Who owns the client data, and are there ads?

Read the privacy policy, not the brochure. Does the vendor use your client names and addresses for its own marketing, partner lead funnels, or a competing referral network? Will your inspectors or your clients see ads inside the product? If a tool is cheap because it monetizes your book of business, price that in. IntellectSpect’s position is simple: we do not mine your clients, and you will never see an ad on any of our platforms.

10. What is the real monthly price?

Build a spreadsheet with your real volume. Add the seat price, any per-report fee, photo packages, AI or voice modules, mobile add-ons, finance or scheduling add-ons, website or SEO packages, and any technology fee taken from your clients’ card payments. IntellectSpect is $139 per inspector per month with 20 reports included and $2 per report after that; AI, photos, video, finance, contracts, payments, scheduling, and mobile are in the seat and card charges settle to your own Stripe account. Put our $2 in your math too — it matters at volume.

11. Does the phone app match the web app?

A companion app that only does photos means you finish reports at the kitchen table at 9 p.m. Ask whether the phone app has the same tabs, fields, conditions, and defect workflow as the browser, whether it runs on both iOS and Android, and whether two inspectors can work the same report at the same time.

12. What does switching actually take?

Ask for the migration steps in writing: comments, one agreement, fees and tax, your public booking link, and your inspection types. A weekend is reasonable. A thirty-day custom rebuild with a kickoff package is a red flag. Ask whether onboarding help is included or sold separately.

If you inspect in Canada, ask these first

• Interac e-Transfer on the client request link, not just card.
• WETT credential gating and the official WETT PDF checklists.
• Billing in CAD with GST/HST, QST, or PST for your province — and whether the sticker price is the same as the US price.
• Report and repair-list chrome in French for clients who read in French, with your typed findings left as written.
• Provincial standards of practice in the standards library, not only US-based SOPs.

Ten questions to ask on the demo

1. Turn on airplane mode. What did you just save, and how do I know?
2. Where do my photos live, and what does a two-hundred-photo report feel like?
3. Import ten of my comments right now. Where do they land, and how do I export them later?
4. Show me a client opening a released report without a username.
5. Show me the agent’s view and the repair list, printed.
6. Walk me through a client booking, signing, and paying from one link, including Interac or ACH.
7. Read me the sentence in your privacy policy about how you use my clients’ data.
8. Add a material option for this house only, then save it for next time.
9. Put two inspectors on one report and show me the second phone updating.
10. Give me the total monthly price for four inspectors doing thirty reports each — every fee included.

How to score it

Do not score on the demo alone. Run one real inspection on a trial — a house with a basement and a full photo set — and deliver the report to a friendly agent. Then score the twelve points as pass, fail, or “vendor says it is coming.” Anything in the third column counts as a fail; you are buying the product that exists today. If a tool passes ten or more, you have found software that will keep up with the job.

I built IntellectSpect to pass all twelve, and you should hold us to that. Start with the feature list and the pricing page, or read why I built it in the first place.