Joist app review:
What 1,400 real reviews revealed

Directly tested: sign-in, the welcome screen and guided tour, the Milestone Checklist, company and document settings, adding a client, a two-line $500 estimate, the document display options, converting the estimate to an invoice, Estimate with AI, the item library, the deposit and payment schedule controls, the contract and change order editors, the manual Record Payment form, a job with a linked estimate and a scheduled visit, the client profile, the reports and CSV controls, and the iOS app's menus and lists.

Seen but not tested in depth: the QuickBooks Online sync, Joist Payments, Joist Reviews, AI Receptionist, Joist Lending, and license and insurance uploads. We did not send a document to a real customer, connect Stripe or PayPal, take a payment, deposit a check, or test the app without signal.

Where we rely on Joist's Help Center or pricing page rather than our test, we say so.

Signing in took us straight to Estimates, a sensible first screen for a contractor about to price a job. The iOS app offers email and password, Google, and Apple sign-in. The welcome screen gave three choices: take a guided tour, explore on our own, or subscribe.

The guided tour is built around the first quote. It walked us through creating an estimate and adding a client, and it could be skipped. A seven-task Milestone Checklist covers sending and converting documents, taking a payment, attaching a photo, and uploading a logo. Converting our estimate moved it to 1 of 7. Two of the seven tasks, attaching a photo and uploading a logo, carry a Pro badge.

Settings were easy to find. The company profile holds contact details, address, tax number, website, and industry, and document defaults cover payment terms, footer text, item grouping, and templates. Adding a logo is a Pro feature, so branding your quotes is not part of the cheapest plan.

The welcome message promised access to every feature, but some screens still sent us to pricing. Creating a new markup opened the plan paywall instead of a form, and customer reporting, the client Customer Snapshot, and QuickBooks sync all showed upgrade prompts. That happened in our account. It doesn't prove every Joist trial is gated the same way, but it is worth expecting.

The paywall laid out the plans clearly: Basics with "Up to 5 documents per month," Pro with unlimited documents and a logo, Elite with change orders, license and insurance, and business reports, and Run at an introductory $70 against a $100 regular price, labeled "30% off for 12 months." Annual billing showed "Save 17%."

One detail to check before you subscribe on a phone: the US App Store lists Run at $99.99 a month, so the web promotion may not apply to an Apple subscription.

A name was enough to save our demo client, with billing and service addresses and private notes available for a fuller record. The form was titled Edit Client even though we were adding someone new, which was confusing at first but didn't stop us.

For the quote, we priced two drywall repair areas at $250 each for a $500 total, with a customer note saying patching and sanding were included and painting was not. The estimate had fields for dates, an expiry date, a PO number, rates and quantities, taxes, markup, descriptions, and up to four photos per line item and 20 per document. Joist's Help Center says a customer can't approve an expired estimate until you update the date and resend it.

Converting the estimate carried the $500 total and the scope note into an invoice with due-upon-receipt terms, with no second round of typing and a draft left to check before sending. That is the moment Joist is built for, and it worked cleanly.

Check one setting before you send anything. Our first preview showed the description and total but hid the $250 rate and the quantity of two. Separate checkboxes control whether rate, quantity, and line totals appear. If you quote by the hour or by material quantity, turn them on so the customer can see how you reached the price.

To compare AI with the manual quote, we described the same client and the same two drywall areas at $250 each, with patching and sanding included and painting excluded. The draft matched our saved client and entered a drywall patch-and-sand item at $250, quantity two, for a $500 total. For a simple quote, that saved typing each line.

Then we noticed the draft said "Joist review completed," which our prompt never mentioned. We didn't save it. The math was right, but the wording added a claim we wouldn't want on a customer document, so read every AI draft before it goes out.

Joist's Help Center lists Estimate with AI as "limited availability on iOS and Web," with text and voice prompts on supported iOS accounts. Taxes, markups, deposits, payment schedules, discounts, and expiry dates still have to be added after the draft. Android isn't listed, so don't count on it there. Joist also offers tone rewrites (Professional, Friendly, Concise) for notes and descriptions; we opened them but didn't accept a rewrite.

The drywall line we had typed was already saved in Items, ready for the next quote. Items hold rates, taxes, markup, descriptions, and private notes, and some options carry Pro labels. Joist stores the prices you enter. It does not supply a construction cost database, so labor rates, material prices, and margin still come from you.

The estimate editor combines item-level tax and markup with document-level markup, discounts, deposits, and payment schedules. Joist's guides say a deposit can be a dollar amount or a percentage and shows as Deposit Due beneath the total, and a payment schedule can split a job into named stages, such as deposit, rough-in, and completion.

In our unsaved AI draft, the deposit and payment schedule buttons didn't open an editor, so we couldn't check their math. That doesn't show they fail on a saved estimate, but test them on a real quote during your trial.

Joist puts the agreement next to the scope. The contract form offers a Generic Contract, custom wording, and separate defaults for estimates and invoices, with signature options for the client and the contractor. Custom contracts sit on Pro and above.

The change order editor lets you describe and price extra work against an invoice, with tax, totals, and a signature option. That gives a scope change a paper trail beyond a text message. Change orders are an Elite feature. We didn't sign or send a contract or change order, so the customer side of approval stays untested.

Record Payment logs money you already received, by amount, percentage, or full balance, as cash, check, credit, or bank transfer. It doesn't move money. We canceled without saving, and the draft invoice stayed at $500 outstanding.

To collect inside Joist, you set up Joist Payments through Stripe or PayPal, with one active processor at a time (PayPal Tap to Pay can stay on alongside Stripe). The iOS Payments tab promises "Set up in 10 minutes" and shows card, PayPal, Venmo, bank, Apple Pay, and Google Pay icons. We didn't find a Payments section in the web trial and didn't connect a processor. Stripe payments are listed for the US, including Puerto Rico, and Canada.

Joist's Help Center lists US card fees of up to 3.49% plus $0.49 per transaction through Stripe or PayPal, ACH at 1% capped at $15, and PayPal Tap to Pay at 2.79% plus $0.49. Fees come out of the payout and aren't returned on refunds. Stripe's first payout can take up to seven business days, then card payments arrive in about two business days and ACH in about five. Payments came up in 52 of the 1,400 reviews we read, mostly payout holds and customers unable to pay.

Two mobile-only extras are worth knowing about. Express Invoice, marked beta, bills a single item and amount fast, and turns online payment on automatically. Mobile Check Deposit lets eligible US Stripe accounts photograph a paper check, with funds taking up to five business days and the check kept for 14 days.

Joist does schedule work now, on the Run plan. Our "Demo Drywall Repair" job grouped the linked estimate and a scheduled visit in one record, with Active and Complete views, dates, notes, and a completion control. Linking the client took an extra step: picking the customer wasn't enough until we saved the client panel.

A visit with a 9 a.m. start defaulted to a 10 a.m. end and, once saved, showed under Next Week with an Edit option. The visit still read Add Client even though the job was linked, so we weren't sure how much customer detail had carried across. In our test, upcoming and past visits showed as lists. We would have liked a calendar grid to see the week at a glance.

Joist's Help Center describes standalone appointments and a double-booking warning with an option to schedule anyway. It also says clients with an email on file can get reminder emails for a visit, plus an email if it's rescheduled or canceled. We didn't test them. What we didn't see was crew dispatch, timesheets, or labor budgets, and with one login per account, a crew can't see its own schedule in the app.

The mobile app is where Joist earns its reviews. The iOS bottom bar holds Estimates, Invoices, Jobs, and Payments, with Clients, Items, Expenses, AI Receptionist, Google Reviews, and settings under More. Estimates sort into Pending, Approved, and Declined tabs. Our converted demo estimate showed under Approved with an Invoiced badge, and a quote only moves to Declined when you mark it.

Plan labels show on mobile too: Company Logo and Document Templates are Pro, Document Setup and License and Insurance are Elite, and the Jobs screen says "This is a Joist Run Feature." Apple lists iOS 16 or later as the minimum. Joist is also on Google Play, though some features, like Estimate with AI, are documented for iOS and web only.

Plan for signal. Joist's Help Center says the app "requires an internet connection in order to function" because data is stored online. We didn't test it offline, but on a basement or rural job, you may not be able to open a record or finish a quote until you're back in range.

The client profile keeps contact and billing details next to quote and invoice history, tags, private notes, customer source, and contact preferences. It's handy for repeat work. Address-book imports weren't tested.

Revenue, invoice, estimate, and sales tax reports have client and date filters, selectable columns, and CSV export, with due dates, paid dates, totals, discounts, taxes, markup, and balances. Our Overview still showed zero after we created documents. Joist says report data refreshes overnight and the estimate report only counts estimates sent to a client, and ours never was. Detailed reporting is an Elite feature. Reports cover sales, not labor: there are no hours or labor costs by job.

QuickBooks sync was behind an "Upgrade to Joist Pro" prompt, so we couldn't test it. Joist's Help Center says QuickBooks Online sync comes with Pro and above, runs one way each night at 4 a.m. EST (with a Sync Now option), and syncs each document only once, so later edits won't update QuickBooks. Payments don't sync, and QuickBooks Desktop isn't supported. If you need hours flowing into QuickBooks too, that takes a separate tool, such as a <a href="https://www.workyard.com/integrations/time-tracking-app-for-quickbooks">time tracking app for QuickBooks</a>.

Expenses sit in the iOS More menu; we didn't find them on the web. Joist describes photographing receipts, entering expenses, and linking them to invoices, so purchases stay with the job's paperwork. It also says expense tracking doesn't replace bookkeeping software. We didn't test receipt capture.

Joist Reviews can email a satisfaction request once an invoice is fully paid, with an option to leave a Google review. It needs a Google Business Profile in the US or Canada and is part of Elite. AI Receptionist, run through ZyraTalk, answers missed or all calls and summarizes the caller and the work requested. It is a paid add-on, with plans starting at $49 a month. We opened both without switching them on.

Joist Lending offers Fundbox working capital, advertised as "up to $250K," and the Help Center also describes homeowner financing. License and insurance uploads plus website and social links can add credentials to your documents on Elite. We didn't apply for financing or upload credentials.

Help links and the chat button were easy to find. Joist lists email and live chat from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. EST, Monday to Friday, with an AI assistant or a message option on weekends, and says it does not offer phone support. Training is self-serve: the Help Center, how-to articles, templates, and YouTube videos, plus the in-app guided tour. We didn't test response times. Support came up as hard to reach in 70 of the reviews we read, and as a strength in 53.

Account access is the bigger limit for a growing business. Joist's Help Center says an account is built for "a single user with a single login email and password." That suits an owner who does all the quoting and invoicing. If office staff, estimators, or foremen each need their own access, test that limit before you subscribe.