Frequently asked questions
Everything we get asked most often, organized by topic. Don't see your question? Email support@buildra.app or browse the rest of the help center.
Getting started
What is Buildra?
Buildra is an AI construction intelligence platform built for residential general contractors and subcontractors. It reads your plans, tracks decisions and RFIs, schedules trades, captures daily logs, and gives every team member instant answers grounded in the actual project documents. Think of it as a project manager who has read every page of your set and remembers every email.
Who is Buildra for?
Buildra is purpose-built for small-to-midsize residential general contractors (1-50 employees) and the subs who work with them. Custom-home builders, remodelers, ADU specialists, and design-build firms get the most value. If you live in PDF plans, group texts, and a spreadsheet schedule, Buildra was built for you. Commercial GCs and large enterprise builders are not our target — Procore and Autodesk Build cover that segment.
How do I get started?
Sign up at /sign-up with an email and password (or Google/Apple). Pick a plan or start a 14-day free trial. Create your first project, upload your plan set as PDFs, and within a few minutes Buildra has parsed sheets, extracted callouts, and is ready to answer questions. Most users complete onboarding in under 15 minutes.
Is there a free trial?
Yes — every paid plan starts with a 14-day free trial. No credit card required for Solo trials; Builder, Pro, and Business trials require a card on file but you can cancel any time before day 14 with zero charge. You get full access to every feature in your chosen tier during the trial, including AI plan reading and integrations.
How long does onboarding take?
Most teams are productive in under an hour. Uploading and indexing a typical residential plan set (40-80 sheets) takes 3-5 minutes. Adding team members, configuring trades, and importing an existing schedule (CSV or Excel) takes another 15-30 minutes. We also offer a free 30-minute onboarding call for Builder tier and above.
Do you offer training or onboarding help?
Yes. Solo users get our self-serve help center and email support. Builder and Pro include a free onboarding session and live chat support. Business tier gets a dedicated customer success manager, custom training for your team, and SLA-backed support. Every plan includes our full video library and searchable docs at /help.
Pricing & billing
How much does Buildra cost?
Solo starts at $29/month for one user and three active projects. Builder is $89/month for up to 5 users and unlimited projects. Pro is $199/month for 15 users with advanced scheduling and financial integrations. Business is $499/month for 50 users plus SSO, custom SLA, and a dedicated CSM. Annual plans save 20%. Full breakdown at /#pricing.
Do you offer monthly or annual billing?
Both. Monthly subscriptions are billed every month and you can cancel any time. Annual subscriptions are billed once up front for 12 months at a 20% discount versus the monthly rate. Annual plans also include priority support and an extended 30-day money-back window (versus 14 days on monthly).
What is your refund policy?
We offer a 14-day money-back guarantee on first-time monthly subscriptions and a 30-day money-back guarantee on first-time annual subscriptions. No questions asked, no retention calls. Request a refund directly from /settings/subscription or by emailing support@buildra.app. Most refunds process within 2 business days. Full details at /refund-policy.
What happens when I cancel?
You keep full access through the end of your current paid period — we never cut you off mid-cycle. After that the account moves to a read-only state where you can still log in and export data. We retain your project data for 90 days after cancellation in case you reactivate, then permanently delete it. You can export everything to CSV before the deletion window closes.
Can I upgrade or downgrade my plan?
Yes, any time, directly from /settings/subscription. Upgrades take effect immediately with a prorated charge for the remaining billing period. Downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period so you do not lose paid time. If a downgrade would put you over plan limits (users, projects), we will warn you and walk you through what to remove.
Do you accept purchase orders or invoicing?
Business tier and above can pay by ACH or wire on net-30 invoicing terms. Below that, all plans are charged to a credit or debit card via Stripe. We do not currently accept paper checks or PayPal. If you need a custom procurement process, contact sales@buildra.app and we will work with your AP team.
Are there any hidden fees or per-seat charges?
No hidden fees. The plan price covers everything: AI usage, storage, integrations, and support. We do not charge per-project or per-document. Seat counts are inclusive — Solo gets 1, Builder 5, Pro 15, Business 50. You can buy additional seats at any plan for $15/seat/month. Subcontractors invited to view-only project access are always free and unlimited.
Do you offer discounts for non-profits or startups?
We offer a 30% discount for registered 501(c)(3) non-profits and for habitat-and-housing organizations. Early-stage construction startups (under 5 employees, less than 12 months old) can apply for a 6-month builder credit. Email sales@buildra.app with your situation and we will get back to you within two business days.
AI features
How does AI plan reading work?
When you upload a plan set, Buildra extracts text, dimensions, callouts, and sheet metadata using a combination of OCR, computer-vision-based detail recognition, and large-language-model parsing. Sheets are indexed and the content is embedded into a vector database. When you ask a question, the system retrieves the most relevant sheet excerpts and answers using GPT-4 or Claude with direct citations back to the source sheet and location.
How accurate is the AI?
For typical residential plan-reading tasks — dimensions, room counts, sheet references, spec lookups — internal benchmarks show 92-96% accuracy on a held-out test set of 1,000 real residential projects. Accuracy drops on hand-sketched drawings, very low-resolution scans, or unusual layouts. Every answer includes citations so you can verify in seconds. We mark low-confidence responses with a yellow flag.
Does the AI hallucinate?
We have invested heavily in reducing hallucinations through retrieval-augmented generation: the model is only allowed to answer based on document content we retrieved, and is instructed to say "I cannot find that in the plans" rather than guess. Every answer cites the specific sheet and section it came from. You should still verify critical answers, especially structural or code-related questions — Buildra is a research assistant, not a licensed engineer.
Is my project data used to train AI models?
No. Buildra has zero-retention agreements with both OpenAI and Anthropic — your plans, photos, and messages are never used to train their models. We also do not train our own models on customer data. Embeddings (numerical representations) are stored in Pinecone for retrieval but cannot be reversed into the original document. Full details on /security.
Which AI models does Buildra use?
For chat and plan questions we default to GPT-4 Turbo via OpenAI and offer Claude (Anthropic) as an opt-in alternative on Pro and Business plans. For embeddings we use OpenAI text-embedding-3-large stored in Pinecone us-east-1. For OCR and computer-vision we use a combination of AWS Textract and an internal model trained on construction documents. Model versions are pinned per release.
Can I see the sources for an AI answer?
Yes — every answer includes inline citations. Click a citation and Buildra jumps to the exact sheet, page, and bounding box where the information was found. You can also see the full retrieval context (which sheet excerpts the model saw) by clicking "Why this answer?" beneath any response. This is the easiest way to spot-check accuracy before relying on an answer.
Integrations
What integrations does Buildra support?
Today Buildra integrates with QuickBooks Online, Stripe (for client payments and deposits), Google Calendar, Google Drive, Dropbox, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Resend for email. Two-way sync is supported for QBO invoices, calendar events, and Slack/Teams notifications. We are actively building Xero, Procore export, and a public REST API. Full list at /integrations.
How does the QuickBooks Online integration work?
Connect QBO once at /settings/integrations and Buildra will sync customers, vendors, items, and chart of accounts. From inside a project you can push budget categories, change orders, and approved invoices straight into QBO with one click. Bills and expenses flow back so you see real-time job costing. Sync runs every 15 minutes; manual sync is one click. Available on Builder tier and above.
Can I take client payments through Buildra?
Yes. The Stripe integration lets you send draws, deposits, and final invoices directly from a project. Clients pay by card, ACH, or bank transfer. Funds are deposited to your Stripe account on a 2-day rolling schedule (Stripe-controlled). You can also generate downloadable invoices for clients who prefer to pay outside Stripe. Standard Stripe fees apply (2.9% + $0.30 per card transaction); Buildra does not add a markup.
Does Buildra sync with Google Calendar?
Yes — two-way. Schedule a trade in Buildra and the event appears on the relevant team member or sub-vendor calendar. Move a calendar event and the schedule updates inside Buildra. Reschedule conflicts trigger an automatic warning. We support Google Calendar, Apple Calendar (via ICS feed), and Outlook Calendar (via Microsoft Graph) on Pro and Business plans.
How does the Slack and Teams integration work?
Connect a Slack or Microsoft Teams workspace and Buildra will post project updates — new RFIs, decisions, schedule changes, daily logs — into channels you choose. Subs and team members can reply directly in Slack/Teams and the response flows back into Buildra. Available on Builder and above. Setup takes about two minutes per workspace.
Security & data
Where is my data stored?
All data is stored in the US — MySQL on Railway (us-east-1), object storage on Cloudflare R2 (US region), and vector embeddings in Pinecone us-east-1. Backups are encrypted and retained for 7 days for point-in-time recovery. We have not yet enabled EU residency; this is planned as a Business-tier add-on. Full architecture detail at /security.
Is my data encrypted?
Yes — encrypted in transit and at rest. All traffic uses TLS 1.2 or higher. Database storage uses MySQL InnoDB encryption with AES-256. Object storage (R2) uses server-side AES-256 encryption. Customer-managed encryption keys are on the roadmap for Business tier. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt (cost factor 12).
Are you GDPR and CCPA compliant?
Yes. We honor all data-subject rights under GDPR (right to access, rectification, erasure, portability, restrict processing) and CCPA (right to know, delete, opt-out of sale). We do not sell personal data — period. To exercise a right, email privacy@buildra.app from your account email or use the self-service tools at /settings/privacy. Most requests are completed within 30 days; deletion within 7.
How do I delete my data?
From /settings/account you can delete individual projects, individual files, or your entire account. Account deletion permanently removes all your projects, files, decisions, and messages from production within 24 hours, and from backups within 35 days. Some audit-log records (login events, billing receipts) are retained for 2 years for legal compliance, but they contain no project content.
Do you support two-factor authentication?
Yes — TOTP-based 2FA is available on every plan and enabled on every account by default for admins on Business tier. Compatible with Google Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, and any standards-compliant TOTP app. SMS 2FA is intentionally not supported (it is the least secure widely-used option). SSO via SAML/OIDC is available on Business tier.
Is there an audit trail for project changes?
Yes. Every meaningful action — file uploads, decisions, RFI responses, schedule changes, budget edits, user invites — is recorded with timestamp, user, IP address, and user agent. Audit logs are retained for 2 years and are exportable to CSV by account admins. Tampering is prevented by append-only storage; no user (including Buildra staff) can edit historical entries.
Account & cancellation
How do I cancel my subscription?
Go to /settings/subscription and click Cancel. The change applies at the end of your current billing period — you keep access until then. No phone calls, no retention scripts. If you cannot reach the app for any reason, email support@buildra.app and we will cancel within one business day. Refunds are governed by our /refund-policy.
Can I export my data?
Yes. From /settings/account click Export. We package every project — files, messages, decisions, schedules, financials — into a single ZIP and email you a download link within an hour. Inside the ZIP you get the original PDFs, structured CSV exports of every list view, and a JSON file with all metadata. The download link is valid for 7 days.
How do I recover a deleted account?
If you deleted your account within the last 90 days, email support@buildra.app from the original account email and we can restore it. After 90 days the data is permanently destroyed and cannot be recovered. To prevent accidental deletion, account-deletion requires a confirmation email plus typing your account email into a confirmation field.
I forgot my password — how do I reset it?
Click "Forgot password" on /sign-in. We send a one-time reset link to your account email, valid for 30 minutes. If you do not receive it, check spam and confirm your email is correct. If 2FA is enabled, you will also need your TOTP code or one of the backup codes you saved at setup. Lost both? Email support@buildra.app with proof of account ownership for manual recovery.
How can I contact support?
For most questions: email support@buildra.app. We reply within 1 business day on Solo, within 4 hours on Builder, within 1 hour on Pro, and 30 minutes on Business. Live chat is available inside the app on Builder and above during US business hours (8am-6pm Pacific). Critical incidents are handled 24/7 for Business tier customers.
Still have questions?
Email support@buildra.app and a real human will reply, usually within a few hours. For security or compliance questions, write to security@buildra.app.