Client portal for builders and contractors
A client portal is one place your customer can log into to see their own job: the current drawings, the site photos, the documents they need to return, and the reports you hand over. Done properly it replaces the weekly phone call and the forwarded email chain, and it shows the client only their job and nothing else in your business.
What is a client portal for a building firm?
It is a login for the people you work for. Your client opens it and sees the jobs that belong to them: the documents you have shared, the photos from site, the reports you have published, and the conversation about that work. They do not see your other clients, your margins, your other projects, or anything you have not deliberately shared.
The distinction that matters is between a portal and a file share. A file share gives someone a folder. A portal gives them the job in context, with the history attached, so when a question comes up six months later the answer is already recorded rather than sitting in somebody’s sent items.
Why do builders end up using WhatsApp and email instead?
Because both are free, instant, and already on everyone’s phone. The problem is not that they are bad tools, it is that they keep no structure. A drawing revision sent on WhatsApp is indistinguishable from the superseded one sent three weeks earlier, and neither is attached to the job. When somebody builds off the wrong revision, there is no record of what was current when.
The second problem is that the information only exists where it was sent. The client rings you because the answer lives in your phone, not because they enjoy ringing you. Every one of those calls is a small tax on the person least able to afford the interruption, which is usually the person running the job.
What should a client be able to see, and what should they not?
The useful rule is that access should be per item rather than per person. A client is not a permission level, they are an audience for specific things. Some documents are for them, some are internal, and the split changes job by job.
Watch for tools where sharing is all or nothing at project level. That forces you into a choice between over-sharing and keeping a second set of files outside the system, and the second set is always the one that goes stale.
- Only the jobs they are on, never your wider workspace
- Only the document categories and photo folders you shared with them
- Only the conversations you added them to
- Never your other clients, and never each other
How does Portal Worx handle it?
Every document category, photo folder, report and message thread carries its own audience, so a client sees exactly what you shared and nothing adjacent to it. Clients and collaborators are two separate external roles, both default-deny, and they cannot see each other, which matters when a supplier and a customer are on the same job.
You can also send a document, a photo or a report by magic link to someone who never sets up an account. That covers the building-control officer who needs one certificate and will never log in again. You invite them once; they never create a password. And the Email Delivery Centre shows whether what you sent was actually delivered, so "did they get it" stops being a phone call.
What does it cost?
Portal Worx is £29, £59 or £99 a month depending on the plan, with 20% off annually, and every plan includes unlimited users. There are no seats and no per-user fees, so putting your client, your site team and your collaborators in costs nothing extra.
That matters more than it sounds. Per-seat pricing quietly pushes firms back to email, because someone gets left off the system to save a few pounds and the job stops being visible. The trial is 14 days on the Professional plan with no card required.
Where is Portal Worx not the right fit?
It is a client-facing project workspace, not a construction operations suite. There is no scheduling or Gantt chart, no task lists or snagging, no timesheets, no estimating or takeoff, no job costing, and no invoicing. If what you actually need is to price work and track cost against budget, a tool built for that will serve you better and we would rather say so here than after a demo.
There is also no native mobile app and no offline mode: it runs in a phone browser, which is fine on site with signal and not fine without it. If your crews work in places with no coverage, test that before committing.
Common questions
- Do clients pay for their own access?
- No. Every plan includes unlimited users, and that covers your team, your clients and your collaborators. There are no seats and no per-user fees.
- Can a client see my other jobs?
- No. Clients are invited to specific projects and see only what you share on those projects. They never see your wider workspace, and clients and collaborators cannot see each other.
- Can I send something to someone without an account?
- Yes. Invite them once and they never have to set up an account: documents, photos and reports go by magic link, which suits one-off recipients like a building-control officer.
- Does it do scheduling or job costing?
- No. Portal Worx has no scheduling, Gantt, task lists, timesheets, estimating or job costing. It covers documents, site photos, reports, messaging and an activity trail.
- Is there an audit trail if a job goes wrong?
- Yes. Every upload, edit, comment and deletion is logged automatically and kept for a year, filtered so nobody sees an entry for something they cannot access.
Related
What else Portal Worx does
This page covers one part of it. Portal Worx is a full project workspace: projects holding your documents and site photos, reports with conditional logic and captioned photos that export to a logo-stamped PDF, threaded messaging where being in the thread is what grants access, a year-long activity trail, and AI that catches you up on where a job stands without ever seeing more than you can.
See everything it does, or check the plans. Unlimited users on all of them.
See it on one of your own jobs.
14 days on the Professional plan, no card required. Unlimited users on every plan, so your team, your clients and your collaborators are all included.