I'm Frank Templeton. I run Templeton Built — a residential construction company doing 50 homes a year out of South Australia. Before this, I built and sold Rapid Global for $4M. I'm not a tech founder pretending to understand construction.
I built ChangeOrdersPro because every contractor I know is using one of three workflows for change orders: a Word template downloaded from a generic legal site, a finger signature on someone's phone, or a verbal "yeah we'll sort that out" that gets denied four months later when it's time to bill.
None of those work. The Word template takes 15 minutes per change order — which means it gets postponed, which means it gets forgotten. The finger signature on the phone doesn't survive a real dispute. The verbal agreement is worth exactly nothing when someone's accountant asks for documentation.
So we built the digital version of the template you already use. Same fields, same professional output, but it sends in 30 seconds. The client signs from anywhere. The contract updates automatically. Done.
I spent years watching the construction software market chase the wrong customer. Every product is built for the top of the market — large GCs running 200+ projects, commercial builders, enterprise operations. The pricing reflects it: $200, $500, $1,000+ per month. The complexity reflects it: weeks of onboarding, full-time admin staff to maintain it, project management systems with 47 modules nobody uses.
The actual builders I know — the ones doing 20 to 200 homes a year — were stuck between two bad options. Software too big and expensive for them, or no software at all. Most chose no software. They built billion-dollar-a-year industries on Word templates and Excel spreadsheets.
"Every contractor is one undocumented change order away from a payment dispute. The fix is making proper documentation faster than skipping it."
So the wedge for ChangeOrdersPro is simple: we don't compete with the big platforms. We compete with the Word template. That's the actual default behaviour to displace. Make the digital version faster than filling out the template, more professional than the finger signature, more legally robust than the verbal agreement — and most contractors will switch.
Most "free" SaaS products are designed to push you toward paid as fast as possible. Limit you to 7 days, then auto-charge. Give you 1 contact, then upsell. Make the free experience deliberately broken so you upgrade out of frustration.
I hate that. So our free tier is the actual product. 3 change orders a month, forever. No card required, no trial expiry, no pop-ups. If you only do a few change orders a year, you'll genuinely never need to pay us. And that's the deal — you get the value, you tell other contractors, we earn paid customers from the people who actually need unlimited.
The Pro tier ($45/month) is for active builders sending 5, 10, 20+ change orders a month. They want unlimited, integrations with QuickBooks, custom branding. The free tier becomes a gift; Pro becomes an obvious upgrade. We make our money from active builders. Casual users help us grow.
ChangeOrdersPro is the first product in a larger system. Behind it, we're building BuildVO — a construction intelligence platform that turns every PM's phone call into a real-time programme update. Voice-driven scheduling, AI-driven sequencing, the whole construction process running on one operating layer.
ChangeOrdersPro is the wedge. It solves a single, specific, painful problem and gets traction. Once contractors trust the product, the rest of the platform follows. Same DNA, same operator-first philosophy, same commitment to making the digital version faster than skipping it.
If you're a builder who's tired of losing money on undocumented change orders, this is for you. Welcome.
This isn't a side project. Templeton Built is a fully operating residential construction company in South Australia. We build townhouses, custom homes, and remodels. Every change order in the demo is based on a real change order we've sent on a real Templeton Built project.
Every workflow ChangeOrdersPro automates was a workflow I lived with for years. The 15-minute Word template that took 45 minutes once you factored in the chase. The verbal change order that came back to bite me. The finger signature on a phone that didn't survive an audit. The whole product is built around making those problems go away — because I had to make them go away in my own business first.
If we ever stop doing these, call us out. They're how we know we're still building the right thing.
Contractors are smart, time-poor, and have seen every fake-software pitch in the book. We never talk down. We never overpromise. We never waste your attention.
Every feature has to make sense to a builder. If it doesn't make sense to me running Templeton Built, it doesn't ship. No exceptions for "investor demos" or "growth metrics".
The free tier is the product, not a teaser. If you only do a few change orders a year, never pay us. Tell your friends. That's the deal.
Most contractors skip proper documentation because it's too slow. Make the digital version faster than skipping it, and the right behaviour wins automatically.
Construction software lives or dies on reliability. We chase clarity, not novelty. Modern, clean, fast — but never trendy. The product should look as good in three years as it does today.
We don't compete with $500/month enterprise platforms. We compete with the Word template. That's the actual default behaviour to displace. Win there, the rest follows.
The same change order template you're already using — but it sends in 30 seconds and gets signed. Free for your first 3 a month, forever.