Types of Construction Contracts: What You Need to Know
Learn about the different kinds of construction contracts and the pros and cons of each for risk assignment, incentives, flexibility, and oversight.
In short:
ConstructConnect® and Procore® are two different tools built for two different stages of the construction process. While ConstructConnect focuses on preconstruction, up to when bids are submitted for projects, Procore focuses on everything after a project is awarded through active construction. Knowing which stage is your biggest bottleneck will tell you which platform will work best for your business.
ConstructConnect is a preconstruction platform and project database built for commercial construction contractors of all sizes, from small specialty trades to large general contractors (GCs) and building product manufacturers (BPMs).
Key benefits include:
Put simply: ConstructConnect helps you find the work and win it.
Procore is a construction management platform built for what happens after a project is awarded.
Key capabilities include:
Put simply: Procore helps you manage the work once construction begins.
| ConstructConnect | Procore | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Preconstruction: finding, evaluating, and winning commercial projects | Project execution: running jobs after they're awarded |
| Project data | Researcher-curated database with 825,000+ active public and private projects | Relies on GCs and owners in its network to upload and share projects |
| Network size | 575,000+ construction professionals across North America | ~23,000 GCs and owners in the Procore network |
| Takeoff and estimating | Integrated suite: On-Screen Takeoff, PlanSwift, AI-powered Takeoff Boost™, QuickBid, QuoteSoft | Supports preconstruction coordination and document management; less depth in native takeoff tools |
| Bid management | Strategic decision tool: bid invites, researcher-verified project details, bidder lists, award history | Bid tools oriented around managing existing invites and project communication |
| Spec analytics | Identify product mentions, substitution opportunities, and competitor specs before submitting a bid | Predictive analytics on project costs; no specification reporting |
| Pricing | Transparent, flexible plans starting at $129/month with no hidden fees. Plans can vary based on the number of seats and regions included in subscriptions. | Pricing varies by modules, contract terms, and company profile; provided directly by Procore |
| Ease of adoption | Built around preconstruction teams' daily workflows | Rich feature set that may require more onboarding for teams new to construction management software |
| Best suited for | GCs, subcontractors, and manufacturers focused on finding and winning more of the right work | Owners, GCs, and project teams focused on coordinating and controlling active projects |
For contractors whose top priority is finding and bidding on new commercial construction projects, ConstructConnect is generally the better fit.
It combines North America's largest commercial project database with researcher-verified details, bidder lists, and award history, so you can focus on the right opportunities and bid with confidence.
Procore is optimized for managing projects once they've already been awarded, not for sourcing new work. There is no project discovery database inside Procore. You cannot search for new leads or find projects before they're awarded through the platform.
This is where the two platforms diverge most clearly in their philosophy.
ConstructConnect approaches bid management as a strategic decision tool. It combines bid invitations with curated project details, bidder lists, and award history. The goal isn't just to manage invites. It's to help you decide which opportunities are worth pursuing in the first place, which raises win rates over time.
Procore includes bid management tools, but they're built around managing projects already in motion, not optimizing what's in your pipeline. Its bid features are oriented toward managing existing invites and project communication rather than building and filtering a list of new opportunities.
This comes down to where you are in the construction process:
Use ConstructConnect when you need to:
Use Procore when you need to:
The tools serve consecutive phases of the same process, not the same phase twice.
ConstructConnect has a network of 575,000+ construction professionals, including 100,000+ general contractors and owners across North America.
Procore's network includes approximately 23,000 contacts, primarily GCs and owners, within its platform.
For contractors using bid management tools, network size matters because it determines how many qualified subcontractors you can reach with an invitation to bid and how many projects your team is visible to. A smaller network means fewer touchpoints, regardless of how well the bid management tool is built.
Procore has preconstruction modules, including bid management, estimating, and prequalification.
However, Procore is not designed as a project discovery or market intelligence platform. It does not include a researcher-curated database of public and private projects. Its preconstruction capabilities are built around managing bids on jobs that have already come to your attention, not helping you find and evaluate new opportunities before they're widely posted.
ConstructConnect's core strength is helping teams find and evaluate opportunities before a project is even awarded, using a researcher-verified database of 825,000+ public and private projects across 400+ markets.
Yes, and many construction teams do. The two platforms cover different parts of the process, which makes them complementary rather than competitive for most contractors.
A common workflow looks like this:
Neither platform replaces the other in this workflow. They each do one part well.
No. While Procore has bid management modules, it does not function as a project discovery and leads database the way ConstructConnect does.
If your primary need is finding, prioritizing, and winning more of the right commercial projects, ConstructConnect is the more direct fit. Procore's value is in the execution phase, managing the project once the work has been awarded.
A contractor using Procore but not ConstructConnect still needs a way to build their project pipeline. That's the gap ConstructConnect fills.
These two tools are built for adjacent problems at different points in the construction timeline.
Choose ConstructConnect if your biggest challenge is finding the right commercial projects, building a reliable bid pipeline, or getting more out of your preconstruction process.
Choose Procore if your biggest challenge is coordinating and managing projects that are already underway.
Many teams use both, and for those that do, the two platforms can work together across the full lifecycle of a construction project.
For a deeper side-by-side breakdown of features, pricing signals, and capabilities, visit the ConstructConnect vs. Procore comparison page.
Request your personalized demo of ConstructConnect today.
"With ConstructConnect we have managed to go from a small company with little to no leads and very little contacts to having a vast network to grow our company."
- John Praetzel, Owner/President, Big John Earthworks & Septic Systems
Deirdre Pearson is a Content Marketing Manager at ConstructConnect®, specializing in customer communications, product documentation, content strategy, and user-centered writing. She focuses on showcasing ConstructConnect’s project data and analytics solutions, including Project Intelligence, Bid Management, and Insight. With her experience crafting diverse content for the preconstruction industry, Deirdre delivers well-researched and insightful perspectives on every topic she covers.
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