A free Joist alternative, if you only need the paperwork
Joist is an estimate-to-payment app for contractors: you write the estimate, the customer approves it, and you collect the money through the same tool. It is a real product with a real workflow behind it, and if getting paid inside the app is what you want, the rest of this page will tell you to use it. BidPaper is narrower on purpose — it makes the document and stops there.
What Joist costs
Joist has no free plan. Paid plans start at $12/month for Basics ($8.34/month billed annually), with Pro at $17, Elite at $32 and a newer Run plan at $100/month. There is a 14-day free trial that does not ask for a card.
Checked on Oct 3, 2026 against Joist's own pricing page. Prices change — if this is out of date, theirs is the number that counts, not ours.
What Joist does better
Taking this first, because it is the part a comparison page usually hides.
- Taking payment. Joist accepts card payments, requests deposits and chases the balance, which is the whole point of the product.
- Getting an estimate approved in the app, with the customer tapping accept rather than replying to an email.
- Running on a phone as the primary device, with an app built for someone standing in a driveway.
- Financing offers to the homeowner, which turn a declined price into a monthly one.
Where BidPaper is the better pick
- Costing nothing. The builder is free, with no trial and no card.
- Not capping documents. Write one estimate a year or forty a week.
- Working without an account. Nothing you type is uploaded, so there is no login to lose and no data to export if you stop.
Side by side
| Feature | Joist | BidPaper |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | None — 14-day trial, then paid | Free, with no trial period |
| Entry price | $12/month (Basics) | $0 |
| Document limit | Not capped on paid plans | Not capped |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Card payments | Yes, with processing fees | No — you get paid how you already do |
| Where documents live | Joist's servers | Your browser |
Joist figures as checked on Oct 3, 2026.
So which one
Use Joist
Pick Joist if you want the customer to pay you inside the app, or to accept an estimate with a tap. That is worth $12 a month and BidPaper does not do it.
Use BidPaper
Pick BidPaper if the paperwork is the problem and the payment is not — you already take checks, Zelle or cards through someone else, and you want a clean PDF without a subscription or a signup.
Switching questions
- Can I import my Joist estimates into BidPaper?
- No. There is no importer, and building one would mean sending your Joist data through a server, which is the thing this product is built not to do. In practice people switch at a natural break: new jobs go in BidPaper, old ones stay in Joist until the account lapses. Export anything you need as PDFs from Joist before you stop paying, because that access ends with the subscription.
- If BidPaper is free, how does it make money?
- Display ads on the content pages — the guides and template pages, never inside the builder — and a paid tier that is not available yet. When it is, it will gate features like your logo on the PDF and saved price books, never the number of documents you create. The builder stays free and uncapped.
- What happens to my documents if I stop using BidPaper?
- They stay in your browser, because that is where they always were. There is no account to close and nothing to cancel. You can export a JSON backup of everything at any time, and your PDFs are already files on your computer. The failure mode to know about is the opposite one: clearing your browser data deletes them, so take the backup.
Try it before you decide
The builder opens blank, with no account and nothing to install. If it is not better for you, the comparison above says so.
Open the builder