Obra vs Houzz Pro: the client-facing suite, or the ledger

Houzz Pro sells the client experience and leads: proposals, selections, a client dashboard. Obra tracks the job's money from receipts. Often you want both.

The short version

Houzz Pro is a business suite for remodelers and designers whose clients found them on Houzz: estimates and proposals, project management, a client dashboard, invoicing and QuickBooks integration, on published plans from free to about $199 a month for Pro, with the marketplace's lead generation sold separately. Obra is the money on each job, captured from the crew's receipts over WhatsApp, email or photo, with a reviewed forecast, for $12 a seat. If your leads come from Houzz and the client-facing side is where you win work, Houzz Pro earns its price; run Obra beside it for the cost side the crew never types into a portal.

Obra is the better fit when

  • The problem is knowing what each job is costing, from receipts the crew sends
  • Your crew works in Spanish or English and shouldn't need a seat on a client platform
  • You want a reviewed expected final cost on every plan, at a known price
  • You already have proposals and selections handled and don't want to move them

Houzz Pro is the better fit when

  • Your leads come from the Houzz marketplace and the profile matters to your pipeline
  • Proposals, selections boards and a polished client dashboard win you work
  • Design-build or interiors work where the client experience is the product
  • You want QuickBooks integration and online payment in the same tool as the proposal

Side by side

What you're comparing Obra Houzz Pro
Starting price Free for one active project; Pro is $12 per user per month or $120 per year. A free Basic plan; Design is about $99 a month and Pro about $199 for one user, about $50 per extra user; Teams from about $399 after a demo. Same prices for contractors and designers.
What it is A per-project ledger: income, expenses, receipts, change orders, budgets, forecast, close. A business suite for remodelers and designers with marketing and lead generation sold alongside.
Proposals and selections Estimates priced from your own costs, sent as a PDF or link and accepted from it. No proposals with selections and no client dashboard. Estimates, proposals, selections and a client dashboard are the core.
Receipts from the job site WhatsApp, email or photo, read into a draft and confirmed by a person. Expenses logged in the app by users; lighter than the proposal side.
Who can capture a cost Anyone you invite as a submitter, without seeing the project's finances. Users on the plan: one included on Design and Pro, about $50 a month per extra user; unlimited on Teams.
Forecasting a job's final cost Built in: recorded cost plus a reviewed remaining to spend, never below what's recorded. Budget and expense views; forecasting the finish is not the product's focus.
Leads and marketing None; public project pages exist to share photos and updates, not to sell leads. Houzz profile, reviews and lead generation are part of the pitch; the leads package is sold separately, from about $499 a month.
Languages English and Spanish, in the app and on WhatsApp. Each user can switch their own interface to Spanish; what clients and subs see stays in English.
Accounting handoff CSV exports of anything, or the whole organization as a ZIP. QuickBooks Online integration, from the Design plan.

Facts about Houzz Pro checked on October 20, 2026. Prices and plan names change; check the vendor's own site before you buy, and tell us at support@tryobra.com if something here is out of date.

Houzz Pro and Obra get compared because both say "for remodelers." They're for different halves of the remodeler. Houzz Pro is the half that wins work: the profile, the reviews, the proposal, the selections board, the client dashboard, the invoice. Obra is the half that keeps the work profitable: what the job cost, what's still coming, what's been invoiced and collected, where it lands.

Where the two products actually differ

Houzz Pro is a business suite sold with a marketplace attached. Its strengths are client-facing: estimates and proposals, selections, a dashboard the homeowner logs into, invoicing, and the lead generation that comes from a Houzz profile. Expense tracking exists, but it isn't the center of the product. Obra is only the ledger: receipts from the crew over WhatsApp, email or photo, confirmed to a project that carries the contract, change orders and a reviewed expected final cost, with exports for the accountant.

The receipts problem

The client dashboard never sees the foreman's receipt from the tile shop. Somebody with a seat has to enter it, and on most crews that's the owner, on Sunday, from a pocket. Obra's submitter role and WhatsApp channel let the crew send receipts in Spanish or English from the app they already use, without a login to anything client-facing, and the job's cost moves that afternoon. For a design-build firm, the change order guide is where the two products meet: selections over allowance become change orders on Obra's contract side.

What Houzz Pro does that Obra doesn't

Win work. Selections, the client portal, marketing and leads are not things Obra does or will do; Obra's estimate is a priced document the client accepts from a link, not a designed proposal. If those are where your business is won, Houzz Pro or a designer's platform has them; the Buildertrend alternatives guide lists it among the suites.

Price, plainly

Houzz Pro publishes every plan: Basic is free, Design about $99 a month and Pro about $199 for one user, each extra user about $50 a month, and Teams from about $399; leads cost extra. Obra is free for one active project and $12 per user per month; a crew of three pays $36. Prices checked October 20, 2026.

Questions people ask

How much does Houzz Pro actually cost?
Every plan is now published, at the same prices for contractors and designers: a free Basic plan, Design at about $99 a month and Pro at about $199 for one user, about $50 a month per extra user, and Teams from about $399 with unlimited users after a demo. Annual billing takes about 20% off. The 30-day trial of Design or Pro turns into an annual subscription unless you cancel, and leads are a separate advertising package from about $499 a month.
Can I run Obra and Houzz Pro together?
Yes, and it's a natural pairing for design-build firms: Houzz Pro for proposals, selections and the client side, Obra for the receipts the crew sends and the job's cost forecast. The two barely overlap.
Does Obra generate leads?
No. Obra's public project pages let you share photos and milestones with clients and prospects, but there is no marketplace and no paid lead product.
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