Free Field Worker Seats
By Phazahn Odom | Founder of Phixmo | Former bookkeeper for residential GCs | Former NFL tight end, Pittsburgh Steelers
Every major construction PM platform charges per user. Procore, Buildertrend, JobTread. Your laborer who clocks in at 7am and clocks out at 3pm is billed at the same rate as your project manager running the entire job. That math doesn't make sense.
Phixmo charges for the people running jobs: owners, project managers, supervisors. Your field crew clocks in with GPS, submits receipts, logs daily photos, and checks their schedule. All free. A company with 3 managers and 20 field workers pays the same as 3 managers and 2 field workers.
The math
A look at what the major platforms charge per field worker and what that adds up to over a year for a real residential crew.
Buildertrend
Per user
$39/user/mo
10 workers
$390/mo ($4,680/yr)
20 workers
$780/mo ($9,360/yr)
JobTread
Per user
$50/user/mo
10 workers
$500/mo ($6,000/yr)
20 workers
$1,000/mo ($12,000/yr)
Procore
Per user
Volume-based
10 workers
$$$$
20 workers
$$$$
Phixmo
Per user
$0
10 workers
$0
20 workers
$0
A residential GC with 15 field workers on Buildertrend is paying $585/month just for crew seats. That's $7,020/year. On JobTread, it's $750/month or $9,000/year. On Phixmo, it's zero.
Every feature a field worker actually needs to do their job, with zero added to your bill.
Workers clock in from their phone at the start of the day. GPS verification confirms they're on the right jobsite. Time is automatically tracked against the project they're assigned to, so labor hours flow into job costing without anyone retyping them.
Snap a photo of a receipt at the supply house. AI extracts the vendor, amount, date, and tax. It maps the receipt to the project the worker is clocked into. No more paper receipts piling up in the truck waiting to be entered at the end of the week.
Field workers can upload progress photos to a project with a quick caption. Daily log entries capture weather, crew count, materials delivered, and anything noteworthy. This becomes the project history that protects you in a dispute and gives the homeowner visibility through the customer portal.
Workers see which jobsite they're on for the day, the start time, and any notes from the PM. They check it from their phone. This cuts down on the morning round of texts about where the crew is supposed to be.
At the end of the day, a worker can submit a short log of what got done, what got installed, what materials were used, and any issues that came up. The PM reviews and the log becomes part of the project record.
Free field worker accounts are scoped to what they need to do their job. Sensitive business and financial information is hidden by default.
Promoting a field worker into a billable role (PM, supervisor, secretary, admin) takes one click and unlocks the full set of management screens.
It's a revenue model, not a cost model. The marginal cost of a field worker seat is essentially zero. The bill is.
Field workers don't generate more server load than office staff. A clock-in event and a receipt photo cost the platform fractions of a cent to process. The reason every major PM platform charges $30 to $50 per field worker per month is not because the seat is expensive to provide. It's because per-seat pricing is the cleanest way to scale revenue with the customer's headcount.
Platforms know that a small fraction of users (the owners, PMs, and admins) drive every meaningful decision. The rest of the seats exist to feed data into the system. But charging the same rate for both pushes the customer's bill up as their crew grows, even though the platform's actual cost to serve the extra seats barely moves.
Phixmo took the opposite approach. Charge for the seats where the work happens (managers, PMs, supervisors, admins) and give field workers free access. Crew size becomes a non-issue. Hire 5 more people next month and your bill stays the same.
A worked example for a typical residential GC. The numbers add up faster than most people expect.
The setup
Buildertrend field worker bill
Phixmo field worker bill
That's $28,080 over 5 years that stays in your business instead of going to a per-seat line item. Add per-user price increases on top of that (other platforms have raised rates 5 to 14% per renewal cycle) and the gap grows faster.
Field workers are always free, on every plan. You only pay for office seats: owners, PMs, supervisors, admins, secretaries.
Free
$0/mo
Free forever. Unlimited projects, field workers free.
2 office seats
+ unlimited free field workers
Pro
$169/mo
Growing GCs with active teams.
5 office seats
+ unlimited free field workers
Growth
$299/mo
Larger operations.
10 office seats + $25/extra
+ unlimited free field workers
Anyone whose main job is doing work on the jobsite rather than managing projects. Carpenters, laborers, apprentices, framers, finishers, painters, anyone clocking in to swing a hammer or run a tool. If their role is to execute the work and not to plan budgets, send invoices, or approve change orders, they're a field worker. On Phixmo, those seats are always free.
No. Field worker accounts are scoped to what they need to do their job: clock in/out, submit receipts, log photos, see their schedule, and submit daily log entries on the projects they're assigned to. They cannot see budgets, estimated costs, invoice amounts, contract values, or other workers' pay. That separation is by design and applies to every free field worker seat.
No. Free field worker seats are unlimited on every Phixmo plan, including Free. Add 5 or add 50. Your bill stays the same.
Yes. Each field worker has their own account so GPS-verified clock-ins, receipts, and daily log entries are tied to a real person. You don't share logins or use a generic crew account. Adding a field worker takes about 30 seconds: name, email or phone, project assignment.
Phixmo is a progressive web app, so field workers use it on any phone browser. No app store install required. They open phixmo.com on their phone, log in, and clock in. The interface is built mobile-first because that's where field workers actually use it.