Built for residential builders
Every spec on every wall — without an app, a login, or a trade who "didn't get the text."
The QR-on-the-wall system 80+ builders use to kill callbacks, zero out punch lists, and stop driving to the site to explain the same detail a third time.
Free during early access · No credit card · No app install for trades
Be honest with yourself for a second
What would zero callbacks this quarter mean for you?
Whether it's margin, sleep, or finally stopping the 9pm "which one?" text — fewer drive-outs changes the whole week.
This is for you if…
- You keep paying for the same callback. Every one of them started the same way — a trade on a wall without the spec in their hand.
- You've tried builder software and the trades quietly stopped using it. Logins died, adoption died, the spreadsheet came back.
- Your punch list grows faster than you can close items. Six weeks past close-out and it's still a living document.
- Your phone has 30+ unread texts this week asking "what color?" or "which SKU?" — all of them already answered, all of them in a PDF nobody opened.
- You're done being the walking spec sheet. Three drive-outs a week to explain the same detail to three different trades.
- You've been burned by a builder platform that billed like ERP and delivered like SharePoint.
Most builders are running jobs the way they ran them in 2015 — or worse, the way a platform sales rep told them to five years ago. Trades have smartphones now. Specs still live in PDFs, emails, and the PM's head. None of those live on the wall where the work actually happens.
TradeCue puts the spec on the wall. A QR on every room. One scan shows the exact step — materials, instructions, checklist, reference photos. When the spec changes, the QR reflects it. When the work's done, the trade submits a photo — the audit trail writes itself.
What's inside TradeCue
Five things that change how your jobsite runs
The QR-on-the-Wall System That Ends the Group Text
One QR per room. Print it once. Stick it on the studs. Re-point it to the next step as work advances — framing → rough plumbing → tile → paint. The trade scans. The page loads. The spec is on their screen in two seconds.
- Zero install. Opens in the phone browser they already use on break
- Zero login. No passwords, no onboarding, no "can you send me the link again?"
- Zero reprints when the schedule changes. Re-point the QR from the dashboard in three clicks
- Works on spotty signal. Loads once and stays usable in basements, attics, and mechanical rooms
The Binder: AI That Reads Every Spec and Cites Every Answer
Drop in the finish schedule. The Binder — TradeCue's AI — reads every page and drafts the step cards for you. Materials, manufacturers, SKUs, install instructions — pulled verbatim, with the source PDF cited inline on every field.
- 30 step cards drafted in 20 minutes instead of a Saturday — you review, accept, the steps are live
- Never invents a SKU. If the finish schedule doesn't say, the Binder says "not in the docs" — not a fabricated answer
- Flags contradictions across revisions — the tub that changed between v2 and v3 without a step update, the dimension that moved, the dye lot that drifted
- Ask anything in plain English — "what's the tub filler tolerance in L1-109?" — answer streams
back with
(finish-schedule-v3.pdf)cited inline
The rule we built it on: no receipt, no value. If the Binder can't point at the source document, the answer doesn't render.
Proof of Done That Writes Your Punch List For You
The trade finishes, snaps a photo on the scan page, hits submit. Name, timestamp, location, photo — all attached to that step, visible on your dashboard before they've put the phone back in their pocket.
- Every scan, every submission, every status change — atomically logged
- Photos tie to a real room, not a folder in OneDrive nobody named correctly
- The punch list at close-out is a list of rooms missing a completion photo — it's already written
Inspection Gates That Won't Let Work Advance Past an Unsigned Framing Walk
AHJ inspections — framing, rough plumbing, rough electrical, insulation, final — are first-class steps. Until the inspector signs off, the next step can't start. No more "we just kept going because the inspector was late."
- Block downstream trades from scanning until the gate closes
- See the AHJ window approaching on the dashboard before it's a fire drill
- Every inspection gets its own QR for the inspector to leave notes on
Trade Compliance at a Glance — Before You Assign
License number, COI expiration, W-9 status on every trade. A color-coded dot on the Trades table tells you if paperwork is current before you hand them a job. No more finding out a month in that the COI lapsed last week.
- Green / amber / red dots per trade — scannable in a second
- COI expiration reminders before they bite
- Linked to every step that trade has ever completed — a real paper trail per sub
What builders like you are saying
Real pilots. Real homes. Real numbers.
"I haven't driven out to explain paint color in two months. The painter scans, sees the dye lot, goes. Last quarter I ate $18,400 in tile callbacks. This quarter: zero. The math stopped being a debate."
"We uploaded a 94-page finish schedule and the Binder drafted 41 step cards with SKUs in about 18 minutes. I reviewed, tweaked three, and the project was stood up. That used to be a Saturday."
"I was the guy who said 'my trades won't scan a QR.' Two weeks in, my tile setter was sending me photos with timestamps without me asking. I owe him an apology and I owe TradeCue a beer."
"The contradiction report caught two spec changes my designer made Monday that the framers were about to build wrong Friday. That one catch paid for a year of TradeCue before we even paid for TradeCue."
"Within the first 30 days I knew it was going to pay for itself a hundred times over. My walkthroughs went from four hours a day to forty-five minutes. I got my Saturdays back."
The cost of nothing changing
One avoided callback pays for a year of TradeCue.
Callbacks on a $1M custom home
- 8–15 callbacks on a typical custom build
- $300–$800 per callback — trade return, materials, PM drive time, schedule slip
- $2,400–$12,000 per home in callback cost, most from miscommunicated specs
Walkthroughs per week, per PM
- 2–3 walkthroughs per active project, at 90 min each
- 27 hours/week of windshield time for a PM running six homes
- 60–80% drop in walkthroughs for pilots after month one — explain once, point, scan, done
What a QR actually costs
- $0.02 to print one on label stock
- 20 seconds to stick it to the studs
- $0 for the trade to scan and read the spec
One callback avoided on one home pays for TradeCue for a year at any price we'd ever charge. Right now you pay nothing — we're in early access.
Who's behind TradeCue
We watched a builder drive to the same site three times in one day.
The TradeCue team started on a jobsite in early 2025. A builder we know was explaining the same tile layout to the third trade of the day — because the plans said it, the email said it, and the text said it, but none of those were where the work was happening.
We went home and built the simplest possible thing. A QR on the wall. Scan it, see the spec, prove it's done. No app. No login. No training session. A year later it's running on 80+ residential projects and we still haven't added a feature that wasn't asked for by a builder standing in a framed-in room.
TradeCue isn't builder software. It's the sheet of paper on the wall — the one that tells the trade exactly what to do, and remembers what got done.
Is TradeCue for you?
Built for residential builders. Not for everyone.
TradeCue is for you if:
- You're a builder, PM, or GC running residential projects
- Multiple trades cycle through your rooms on a schedule
- You're tired of being the walking spec sheet
- You'd rather close a job early than chase a punch list six weeks out
TradeCue is NOT for you if:
- You run commercial high-rise or civil infrastructure
- You need Gantt charts and critical-path scheduling
- You want a full ERP with procurement and accounting
- You run one home a year and keep everything in your head
Common Questions
Will my trades actually scan a QR?
Every builder says "not mine" on day one. Two weeks later, we haven't had a pilot where trades didn't scan — because it isn't an app. No login, no install, no training. They point their camera at a sticker, the spec shows up, they do the work. If they can scan a menu at lunch, they can scan a cue on a wall.
What if the AI invents a SKU?
It can't. The Binder reads only the docs you upload and cites the source filename on every answer. If the finish schedule doesn't say what dye lot, you get "not in the docs" — never a fabricated answer. No receipt, no value.
Is it really free?
Yes. During early access, every feature is free with no usage limits — including the AI pipeline. We're building the right product before we charge for it. When we do charge, founding pilots keep what they've got.
How long does it take to stand up a project?
Under ten minutes if you upload a finish schedule — the Binder drafts the step cards and you review. From a blank page, authoring steps manually, the first project usually takes 30–45 minutes.
What happens when signal on the jobsite is bad?
The scan page loads once and stays usable. Photos compress on the device, then upload when signal comes back. Trades in basements, attics, and mechanical rooms tested this for us already.
Will this replace Buildertrend / CoConstruct / Procore?
No — and we're not trying to. Those are office systems. They do scheduling, accounting, document control. TradeCue lives on the wall, where the others don't reach. Run both. They don't fight.
Is my data secure?
Yes. All data lives on Cloudflare's global network. Admin authentication is Clerk. Public scan IPs are hashed and cannot be reversed. Your finish schedules stay in your project — they are not used to train anything.
Stop driving out to explain the same detail.
Put the spec on the wall. Let the Binder read the rest. First project is set up in under ten minutes — free during early access, no credit card, lifetime pricing for founding pilots.
Start building — freeFounding cohort: 80 of 100 builders in. When the cap closes, pilots lock their free-forever pricing.