Frequently asked questions.

TrueGrade is a compliance and certification management platform built specifically for high-performance construction teams. It gives project managers, administrators, and field teams one place to track subcontractor compliance documents, manage certification milestones, monitor real-time cost performance, and capture field reports — without spreadsheets or disconnected tools.

TrueGrade is built for residential and commercial construction firms that work in high-performance or passive house construction. It is particularly valuable for project managers who chase compliance documents, administrators who need portfolio-level visibility, and field teams who need a fast way to log daily activity and submit documentation.

TrueGrade covers four primary areas: subcontractor compliance tracking (certificates of insurance, licenses, W-9s, expiry alerts), certification management (structured milestone tracking, document version control, certifying body reporting), cost intelligence (budget-vs-actual reporting with variance analysis), and field reporting (daily logs, drawing annotations, RFI tracking, and photo documentation).

Yes. TrueGrade is built for multi-project management. Administrators and owners get an organization-level dashboard that shows compliance status, certification progress, and cost performance across the entire active portfolio without switching between projects.

No. TrueGrade is purpose-built for the compliance, certification, and reporting workflows that define high-performance construction. It is not a generic PM tool retrofitted for construction. Features like the certification state machine, subcontractor compliance portal, and structured certification workflows for HERS, Energy Star, ZERH, Passive House, LEED, and NGBS reflect the specific operational reality of high-performance residential and commercial construction.

No. Subcontractors receive a portal link to upload their certificates of insurance, licenses, and other required documents. They do not need a paid TrueGrade account — document submission is included in your plan.

TrueGrade offers three plans: Starter ($199/month) for small teams managing up to 5 projects and 10 users; Professional ($499/month, most popular) for growing firms with up to 25 projects and 50 users; and Enterprise ($899/month) for large organizations requiring unlimited projects, unlimited users, API access, and SSO.

Yes. Annual billing saves 15% compared to monthly billing. Starter billed annually is $169/month ($2,028/year), Professional is $424/month ($5,088/year), and Enterprise is $764/month ($9,168/year).

A project is any active construction project in TrueGrade with at least one associated subcontractor, certification, or compliance workflow. Archived projects do not count against your plan limit.

Yes. You can upgrade or downgrade your plan at any time. Upgrades take effect immediately; downgrades take effect at the end of your current billing period.

Enterprise adds unlimited projects and users, API access for integrations, and single sign-on (SSO). Support is upgraded to priority email with faster response times. All plans use the same self-serve onboarding — no sales process required on any tier.

Sign up at app.truegrade.build to get started. Pricing and trial availability details are shown during account creation.

After creating an account at app.truegrade.build, you configure your organization name, invite your team members, and set up your first project. The platform walks you through each step. Full documentation is available at docs.truegrade.build.

Organization admins can invite users directly from the user management panel. Each user is assigned a role designed around construction team structures — covering project managers, field crews, accounting, and administrators — that controls exactly what they can see and do.

TrueGrade uses role-based access control with roles designed around actual construction team structures. Admins manage the organization and all projects; Project Managers handle compliance and subcontractor workflows; Field Teams capture daily logs and documentation; read-only stakeholders can view reports and dashboards without editing access.

SSO is available on the Enterprise plan. It allows your team to log in with your existing identity provider rather than managing separate TrueGrade credentials.

Most teams are actively using TrueGrade within the same session they sign up. The platform is self-serve — no sales call or implementation engagement required. Full documentation is available at docs.truegrade.build to support deeper feature adoption.

Each organization in TrueGrade is fully isolated at the data layer. One organization cannot access another organization's projects, documents, users, or compliance records. Tenant boundaries are enforced at every query.

TrueGrade enforces role-based access control (RBAC) across every feature. Users only see and interact with data appropriate for their assigned role. Admins control role assignments and can adjust permissions as team composition changes.

Yes. Every document action — upload, approval, rejection, expiry alert, compliance status change — is timestamped and recorded in an audit log. Audit-ready reports can be generated directly from the platform for project reviews, owner inspections, and certifying bodies.

Only users your organization has invited and assigned roles to can access your data. TrueGrade platform administrators operate the infrastructure but are not granted access to tenant project data as part of normal operations.

TrueGrade's certification tracking is designed around the documentation and milestone requirements of major high-performance construction certification programs — HERS, Energy Star, ZERH, Passive House (both PHI and Phius workflows), LEED, and NGBS. The platform uses a structured state machine approach to track every required document, inspection, and milestone from pre-design through final certification.

Each certification workflow is modeled as a series of required milestones. As your team completes documentation steps — energy models, blower door results, inspection records — the state machine updates the certification status and flags what is still required. You always know exactly where a project stands and what is blocking progress.

Yes. The platform can generate structured submission packages for certifying bodies and regulatory agencies directly from the document record. This reduces the manual work of assembling certification documentation from scattered sources.

Each subcontractor has a compliance record within a project. Required documents — certificates of insurance, licenses, W-9s — are tracked with their expiry dates. TrueGrade sends configurable advance warnings when a document is approaching expiration, and the compliance dashboard shows green, yellow, or red status for each sub on each active project.

Yes. Compliance frameworks can be configured per organization and applied to projects based on the certification type, project scope, or owner requirements. This allows firms managing both standard and high-performance work to maintain appropriate compliance checklists for each project type.