Free Deck Building Software,
Forever.

Yes, free forever. CRM, photo estimates with three-tier pricing, invoicing, online card and ACH payments, deposit and draw collection, automated Google review requests, tip collection, and two-way Google Calendar sync are all included on the free plan. The only thing you ever pay is standard payment processing on cards (~2.9% + 30¢, same as Stripe direct) and ACH (0.8%, capped at $5). No monthly fee, no per-seat fee, no credit card required to sign up.

Yes — three-tier pricing is core to how deck estimates close. Send a single estimate with pressure-treated at $30-45/sf, cedar at $40-60/sf, and composite at $50-80/sf side by side, with photos and warranty terms on each. The homeowner sees all three on one screen, taps the option they want, signs, and pays the deposit. Most deck builders report the mid-tier (cedar) and high-tier (composite) close at much higher rates when the homeowner can see them visually instead of hearing a salesperson list them. Add a Trex Transcend or TimberTech AZEK callout on the premium tier and the close rate climbs again.

Yes. Snap multi-angle shots from the backyard — existing patio, sight lines, grade, where the railing will land, where the stair stringer hits — drop them into the estimate, and the homeowner sees exactly what you saw. On a composite build the photos do double duty: they prove the existing site conditions to the HOA when style and color need approval, and they anchor the customer's expectations of what the new deck will look like. Photo upload is unlimited on the free plan.

Standard for decks is 33-50% deposit on contract, a draw at framing or material delivery, and the balance at final inspection. Menutize handles each as a separate payment link the homeowner taps from their phone — no chasing checks between phases. Card and ACH both work; ACH is the cheaper rail for big draws at 0.8% capped at $5, so on a $20K composite balance you're paying $5 instead of $580. Most builders educate their customers on the ACH option once and never go back to checks.

Yes — and on $20K-$60K composite estimates this matters more than on any other trade. Composite-deck homeowners deliberate for weeks, often loop in a spouse, and frequently get a second quote. The moment your estimate email is opened — and every time the live estimate page is viewed — Menutize logs the event and notifies you. You'll know whether the homeowner has actually seen the quote before you call to follow up, you'll see when they reopen it (a buying signal), and you'll stop chasing leads who already moved on. Same tracking on invoices through to the moment they pay. Most field-service tools either don't ship this or gate it behind a paid tier; we ship it free.

No, and we don't pretend to. Most deck builders use the free Trex or TimberTech designer tools (or SketchUp) to render the build, then upload screenshots into the Menutize estimate so the homeowner sees the design alongside the three pricing tiers. We're the CRM, estimate, payment, and review layer — not the CAD program. Building a decent 3D designer is a 10-engineer team's full-time job; the brand designers do it well already and they're free.

We don't integrate directly with city permit portals — every municipality has a different system and we'd lie if we said we could automate that today. What we do is give you a customer record where you store the permit number, the contractor of record, the inspection schedule (footing, framing, final), and date-stamped photos of each phase. When the inspector wants pre-pour pictures of the footing or wants to see joist hangers before decking, they're all in one place on your phone. Permit-portal automation isn't on the free plan because it isn't shipped — we don't sell vapor.

Yes. A multi-week deck build is the perfect moment to send the homeowner a couple of progress photos a week — footings poured, ledger flashed, frame stood up, decking down, railing in. Menutize stamps every photo with the date and the user who uploaded it on the customer's record. The homeowner stays calm during the long stretches when nothing visible is happening, and you build the social proof that drives neighbor-referral pipeline — the people walking by who watched the build.

Yes — two-way sync, included on the free plan. Multi-week build dates land on your Google Calendar. Block time on your phone (lumber pickup, footing inspection, vacation week) and Menutize won't let homeowners book over you. Most free CRMs in this space gate calendar sync behind a $29/mo upgrade. We don't.

The moment you mark a deck complete, the homeowner gets a one-tap text link straight to your Google Business Profile review screen. No copy-paste, no searching for your business. Decks are visible from the street and from the neighbor's yard — a steady cadence of 5-star reviews compounds with the social proof of the finished build itself. You connect your Google Business Profile once during onboarding (about 2 minutes). Most deck builders see their Google rating climb a half star and their monthly review volume 3-5x within 60 days of switching the auto-request on.

We take 0.5% on payments processed through Menutize, on top of standard Stripe rates. On a $40,000 composite deck that's $200 — about a third of what the $49/mo competitors would charge you in monthly fees alone over a year, even before you count the per-seat fees. We only earn when you earn, which keeps our incentives lined up with yours: if your build season is slow, we don't charge you for software you're not using.

That's actually who Menutize is built for. The big field-service tools charge per seat — $49 owner + $29/carpenter adds up fast — and bury the features a small build shop needs under enterprise complexity. Menutize Free is unlimited users on the free plan, no per-seat fees, and the workflows are designed for the owner who's also the salesperson, the framer, and the guy on the phone with the lumberyard. Outgrow it and we have paid tiers; most one-to-three crew shops never need to.

About 10-15 minutes to be ready to send your first deck estimate: sign up (no credit card), connect Stripe for payments and ACH draws, connect your Google Business Profile for the auto review request, hook up your Google Calendar for the two-way sync, and add your service menu (most deck shops start with three: deck consultation, repair / re-board, and full new build with three material tiers). Optional later: import your existing customer CSV, upload your standard warranty terms, and set the cadence on annual maintenance check-in reminders for composite decks.

You own your data. Export your customer list, jobs, photos, warranty terms, permit numbers, and invoice history to CSV at any time, no upgrade required, no waiting period. We've never made our exports clunky on purpose to lock people in — that's the kind of thing we built Menutize to get away from.