Small UK contractors live on thin margins while job costs live in a spreadsheet, drawings live in email threads and site photos live in WhatsApp. The industry platforms know it: Procore is quote-priced on annual contract value, with third parties reporting floors around £15,000 to £30,000 a year for a small general contractor before implementation (reported quotes, not list prices); simPRO is likewise quote-based, with reported pricing around £100 to £200+ per month plus setup and training. Neither number is published, which tells you who the pricing is designed for.
What the construction stack costs
| Capability | Typical stack | On Node (flat) |
|---|---|---|
| Project management & job costing | Procore: reported ~£15-30k/yr floors; simPRO: reported ~£100-200+/mo + setup | ERPNext (Large): £75 |
| Drawings, RAMS & site photos | Dropbox Business at ~£12-15/user (reported) | Nextcloud (Large): £75 |
| Site timesheets | Per-user timesheet apps | Kimai (Small): £25 |
| Subcontractor agreements | Per-envelope e-signing | Documenso (Medium): £45 |
| Applications for payment & invoicing | Bolted onto accounts | Invoice Ninja (Medium): £39 |
| Identity, SSO, audit | Spread across the above | Included with your apps: £0 |
Against per-user tools at £30 to £60 a head, the flat Node column wins from about three to five users. Against Procore-class platforms, it wins at any size. These are reported quotes and list prices, not your quote; ask for a like-for-like figure.
One thing this stack does not do, stated plainly: ERPNext does not handle CIS deductions or HMRC CIS returns, and there is no estimating or take-off tooling. Keep Xero or Sage for CIS and payroll, keep your estimating tool for bids; Node runs everything between winning the job and the final account.
What your firm runs on Node
Nextcloud, DocuSeal and n8n deploy self-serve, in minutes, from the signup portal; ERPNext and the rest are managed setup, deployed and connected by our engineers.
Projects and job costing - ERPNext (managed setup): budgets, purchase orders, actual costs against estimate per job, and stock for the yard. We implement it with you; job costing only works if the cost codes are set up with discipline. Frappe's published case studies include construction-materials firms such as BND Concrete; other companies using ERPNext include Zerodha, India's largest stockbroker.
Drawings, RAMS and site photos - Nextcloud (self-serve): one folder per job, current-revision drawings, RAMS where the site can find them, and photos uploaded from the mobile app instead of a WhatsApp group nobody can search.
Site timesheets - Kimai (managed setup): hours against jobs from a phone browser, exportable for payroll, at a flat £25 per month equivalent rather than per operative.
Subcontractor agreements - Documenso (managed setup): signed sub agreements and orders with the executed copies in the job folder, not a vendor's cloud. DocuSeal is the self-serve alternative.
Applications for payment - Invoice Ninja (managed setup): applications, invoices and retentions tracked per job. Snagging - Zammad (managed setup): defects as tickets with photos, assigned and closed with a record.
Who can see the job files, and can you prove it
Main contractors and clients increasingly ask where project data is held, and disputes are won on records. Your Node tenant is an isolated private network on hardware we own in UK data centres, under UK jurisdiction; access runs through your own single sign-on realm, so a leaver loses drawings, costs and email in one action, and sign-ins and admin actions are fully audited. A UK GDPR Article 28 DPA is standard: generate a completed copy now. Infrastructure that supports your obligations; your H&S and quality systems remain yours.
AI on site paperwork, kept in the UK
Drafting RAMS from a template, summarising site diaries, turning photos and notes into a snag report: the AI gateway labels every model UK-hosted or partner-routed. UK-hosted models run on GPUs we own, so project data in prompts never leaves our infrastructure, metered per token in GBP on the same invoice. See the model catalogue.
Start with the job folder
Deploy Nextcloud yourself in minutes with £25 of free credit and get one live job's drawings and photos into it, or tell an engineer how you run jobs today.
Frequently asked questions
Where do our project files, drawings and costs actually live?
On hardware Node owns and operates in UK data centres, under UK jurisdiction, inside a tenant network-isolated from every other customer. Drawings, RAMS, subcontractor details and job costs sit on our metal under a UK GDPR Article 28 data processing agreement, not scattered across WhatsApp, Dropbox and a quoting tool's cloud.
How does the billing work?
Everything is billed hourly against a published rate card with no minimum term and no contract; the monthly figures on this page are equivalents. Stop an app between jobs and the meter stops. Compare that with quote-priced platforms where the number depends on who is negotiating.
Does ERPNext handle CIS?
No, and this matters: ERPNext does not handle UK Construction Industry Scheme deductions or HMRC CIS returns out of the box. Firms keep Xero or Sage for CIS and payroll, and that is what we recommend. Node runs the job costing, documents, timesheets and operations around them, and n8n can pass invoices and costs across so nothing is rekeyed.
Can the site team actually use it?
The site-facing pieces are deliberately simple: Kimai timesheets work from a phone browser, Nextcloud's mobile app uploads site photos straight into the job folder, and snagging lands in Zammad as a ticket with a photo attached. The office sees costs against budget in ERPNext without chasing paper.
What does it cost for a small firm?
From the published rate card, with no platform fee: ERPNext for projects and job costing (Large) is 75 pounds per month equivalent, Nextcloud for drawings (Large) 75 pounds and Kimai timesheets (Small) 25 pounds. That is 175 pounds per month equivalent plus VAT, billed hourly, whether five people or fifty use it; the workspace, single sign-on and audit come free with the apps.
Does it do estimating and take-off?
No. There is no estimating or take-off tooling in the stack, and we will not pretend otherwise; firms keep their estimating tool or spreadsheet for bids. Where Node picks up is the moment a job is won: budgets, purchase orders, actual costs, timesheets, drawings and snagging through to final account.