Looking at Buildxact for your building business? Here's a straight-up comparison. With NextMinute the whole toolkit's included from NZ$299/month + GST for up to 5 users, and it's built right here in New Zealand.
In short: if you're after an estimating and takeoffs powerhouse for the office, Buildxact stacks up. If you want one Kiwi-built system the whole crew runs the job on, NextMinute's the better fit.
Buildxact cut its teeth on detailed takeoffs and estimating, and it's genuinely good at the office end of the build. The catch for a lot of Kiwi builders is that the day-to-day stuff (running the crew, tracking time, keeping tabs on costs) sits behind its dearer plans.
NextMinute comes at it from the other direction. It's built for builders, landscapers and renovators who are forever moving between the ute, the site and the office, and it puts the whole job in one place: win the work, book in the crew, log the hours, manage variations, send progress claims, and watch your margin the whole way through. Simple enough that everyone from the boss to the apprentice actually uses it.
Both apps let the crew look at jobs, update the site diary, tick off tasks and log time on iOS and Android. NextMinute just goes a bit further for whoever's running the show. Knock up and send quotes, invoices and POs, shuffle the schedule, and keep everyone in the loop, all from your phone or tablet without heading back to the office
Two-way sync — including MYOB, which Buildxact doesn't do. Bills, invoices and timesheets flow through without you keying it twice.
Track actual vs estimate on framing, fit-out, whatever the stage — so you protect your margin before the job's done, not after.
Set buy/sell rates for machinery and have the crew log the hours. A ripper for earthworks, landscaping and pool builds.
Month-to-month, scale up or down as the crew changes. No annual contract, and a 10-day free trial to kick things off.
Full app on iOS and Android — quotes, POs, timesheets, photos, site notes and invoices, straight from the ute.
An Auckland-based team who get tradie life. One-on-one onboarding, then ongoing support from real people, no overseas call centre.
Import your price books and use templates to save hours on quoting. Send to clients and get approval with one click.
Use your takeoff software or QS of choice, and quickly import takeoffs to NextMinute to start planning the job.
Easy-to-use Gantt chart for planning jobs. Assign jobs and tasks to crew to reduce confusion and get on with the job.
No more chasing timesheets or payroll errors. Talk-to-text notes, attach photos, and log time + expenses.
Your team can easily view plans on site. Ditch the paperwork and have less mistakes and confused tradies.
Crew can save photos to jobs so you have a leg to stand on and can keep the customer up-to-date.
Crew can easily log notes and photos against jobs and tasks to keep you & your client informed.
Manage your jobs from on-site or in the ute with ease. Plus, your crew can view jobs and tasks, and log time with ease.
With all your job costs in one system, you can easily send accurate progress or final invoices with a few clicks.
No more handshake agreements and client disputes. NextMinute makes managing and tracking variations a breeze.
Report on actuals vs estimates in real-time by job and stage. Spot blow outs early to protect your profit.
Set custom buy/sell rates for machinery and have your crew log the hours.
Easily add in job expenses to keep track of your actuals vs. estimates.
Easily send SMS, email, and in-app messages straight from NextMinute.
"The Reno Guys and Fervour Construction have been using NextMinute for over six years, and it continues to be the most flexible and user-friendly software we've ever come across! From managing leads and generating quotes to project management and invoicing, NextMinute handles it all seamlessly."
Alison Williams
The Reno Guys
Reviews
Rated 4.9/5 with 100+ reviews on Google and Facebook, with local NZ support that actually helps.
From $299 a month plus GST for up to 5 users, then $30 a month for each extra user.
Talk to a Real Person
Have a quick chat with our local team. We’ll walk through how you run jobs and show you how NextMinute fits.
Anna-Kate
Sales Manager
From the land of Guinness, she’ll help you work out if NextMinute’s a good fit. Straight talk, no sales BS, and a good sense of humour.
Mat
Former Plumber & NextMinute Pro
Mat’s a plumber, not a software guy. He’s been on the tools and shows you how to run jobs without the admin headaches.
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Let us know your requirements and how you run your jobs
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We’ve answered the ones we hear most from builders and tradies.
While Buildxact is a heavyweight when it comes to detailed office-based estimating and takeoffs, NextMinute is built for the tradie who's splitting time between the office and the building site. It focuses on the day-to-day grind—scheduling the crew, tracking live costs, and handling variations—making it a more practical fit for teams out on the tools.
NextMinute focuses on what happens after the takeoff is done. You can easily import your takeoffs from your preferred software or your Quantity Surveyor, and from there, turn them into live jobs, purchase orders, and track your actual costs against those estimates.
They sure can. Unlike some apps that only let you see notes on mobile, NextMinute’s app lets you run the whole show from your phone. You can fire out quotes, sort invoices, and update project schedules while you're parked up in the ute or grabbed a minute on site.
It is. The scheduler handles bigger residential builds with multiple stages — slab, framing, lock-up, fix-out, roofing — and lets you shift the dates on one task and have everything dependent move with it. The crew sees the change on their phones automatically, so you're not having to ring around to let everyone know the program's slipped.
NextMinute is NZ$299 a month plus GST for up to 5 users, then NZ$30 a month for each extra user, so a team of five is NZ$299 and a team of ten is NZ$449, with all features included from the jump. You don't have to worry about paying for extra 'tiers' or add-ons just to unlock job management tools, making it a fair bit easier on the cashflow as your team grows.
We provide one-on-one onboarding to help you import your data, connect up your Xero or MYOB, and get the crew trained up. You’ll be chatting with people who actually understand the NZ building industry, not an overseas call centre.
Managing variations is a breeze. When a client changes their mind mid-build, you can track the extra labour and materials immediately in the app. This ensures everything is recorded for the final invoice so you aren't left out of pocket for 'extra' hard yakka.
It certainly does. For those long-term projects like new builds or major renovations, you can send out professional progress payment invoices based on the work completed. It keeps the cash flowing and makes sure you're paid on time at every stage.
We've made the mobile app simple. Even the greenest apprentice can log their timesheets, snap progress photos, and check the site diary without a headache. If they can use Instagram, they can use NextMinute.
You get real-time back costing reports that show your actual costs versus your original estimates. You can see your margins for the whole project or break it down by stage, so you know exactly where you're making a profit and where the budget is getting tight.
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