PinMy vs Trowel
Trowel and PinMy solve different halves of the same day. Trowel is management software for running the construction business — budgets, planning, the paperwork around a project. PinMy is what happens in the twenty minutes you spend walking the floor with a phone.
At a glance
| PinMy | Trowel | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Mobile field capture for AECO teams | Construction management software for running the business |
| Where an issue lives | A pin on an exact point of a PDF plan, photo, video frame, map or 3D IFC model | A record inside the project management structure |
| Capture on site | Voice, photo, video or text, transcribed automatically; works with gloves on | Structured entry, typically continued back at the office |
| Reporting | Item Report (PDF) from any single file — every pin and comment, no assignment needed (beta) | Management and progress reporting across the project |
| Pricing | Free forever plan; Premium €8.99/month + VAT; Teams custom | Published on their site |
We state our own price exactly and do not state theirs. Check their site for current figures. Trowel ↗
What they are good at
- Covers budgeting, planning and project administration that PinMy does not touch
- Gives a company one place for the commercial side of a job
- A genuine step up from running a construction business out of spreadsheets
When to choose them instead
- Your actual problem is budgets, certifications and planning rather than capturing what you saw on site.
- You want one system for the commercial administration of your projects.
- You are trying to leave Excel behind for the management layer, not for the field layer.
Where PinMy is different
- PinMy assumes you are standing in the building with one hand free. Capture takes seconds and works by voice.
- Everything anchors to a coordinate on a plan, photo, video frame, map or 3D IFC model.
- There is nothing to configure first. Upload a file, pin an issue, export the PDF — the free plan covers that whole loop.
Questions people ask
Do PinMy and Trowel overlap?
Only at the edges. Both let you record that something happened on a project. Trowel's centre of gravity is the commercial administration of the job; PinMy's is the moment of capture on site, located on a drawing or a model.
Could a team use both?
Yes, and some do — the field record is captured in PinMy and exported as a PDF that goes into whatever system the office runs. There is no integration between the two products; the handover is a file.
Try it on one file
The fastest way to settle a comparison is to upload one plan you are already arguing about and pin three issues on it. The free plan needs no card.