Keel vs Joist: Contractor Quotes or On-Device Books?

Short answer: Joist is an estimating and invoicing app built for contractors, with an estimate-to-invoice workflow, eSignatures, job photos, deposits, and the ability to offer homeowners financing on a bid. Keel is an iPhone app that keeps invoices, receipts, and mileage on the device with no account and a one-time price for Pro. If you win work by handing over a written quote, Joist covers a step Keel does not have yet. If you invoice after the work and want private records, Keel is the lighter tool.

This is a comparison where the honest answer turns on one question: does your job start with a quote?

For a remodeler bidding a $14,000 bathroom, the quote is the sales process. For a repair tech who diagnoses, fixes, and invoices in one visit, it barely exists. Those two people should buy different software, and no amount of feature-listing changes that. If you are still working out which tools a one-person operation needs, apps built for 1099 workers is a better place to start than a head-to-head.

What does Joist actually do?

Joist is built around the contractor’s document chain: estimate, approval, invoice, payment.

You build an estimate on your phone in the driveway, with line items, markups, photos of the job, and attached contract documents. The client signs it digitally. The approved estimate becomes an invoice. You collect a deposit up front and the balance on completion, and the client can pay online from the invoice itself.

Around that core, Joist carries client management with notes and past work, expense tracking with receipt capture, business and sales tax reporting, change orders, QuickBooks Online sync on the higher tiers, automated review requests, and — the piece that matters most on big jobs — homeowner financing offers attached to an estimate, sourced through a multi-lender marketplace. It runs on the web and on both iOS and Android.

One correction to what you may have read elsewhere: Joist is sold as tiered subscriptions today, with the entry tier capping documents per month and higher tiers adding unlimited documents, reports, and change orders. There is a free trial, but a permanently free plan is not currently part of the lineup. Check Joist’s pricing page for current tiers rather than trusting a number in an article.

Where is Joist genuinely better?

Three things, and the first one is not close.

Estimates. Keel does not produce estimates. The feature is in development, but today it does not exist, and Joist’s entire product is organized around the estimate-to-invoice flow. If you write quotes, this is not a matter of Joist being somewhat stronger — it is Joist doing the job and Keel not doing it. Anyone comparing these two apps who buries that fact is not helping you.

Customer financing. Joist can put financing options on a bid, drawing on a multi-lender marketplace, so a homeowner staring at a five-figure number has a monthly payment to consider instead of a wall. That closes jobs. It is a revenue feature rather than a convenience, and it can pay for a subscription several times over in one approved bid. Keel has nothing like it and never will — no account, no lender relationship, no third party in the transaction, by design.

The approval workflow itself. Digital signatures, job photos embedded in the document, contracts attached, change orders when the scope moves, deposits collected before the first truck rolls. For a trade where the disagreement is usually about what was agreed to, having the signed document and the photos in one record is worth real money. Keel produces a clean invoice; it does not run an approval process.

Where is Keel better?

Keel’s advantage is architectural rather than featural.

It runs entirely on your iPhone: no account, no login, no bank connection, no cloud sync. Its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected,” which is a claim about how the app is built rather than a policy promise — there is no server holding your books, so there is nothing to leak or lose in a vendor’s breach. If you have not weighed that against the convenience of a synced account, on-device vs cloud bookkeeping makes the case in full.

Inside that boundary Keel covers the year rather than the job: invoices as PDFs with your own numbering, logo, brand color, and a payment-link QR code; receipt capture read on-device with Apple Intelligence; a mileage log; a Freeboard view of where the year stands; reports; an Accountant Pack; an append-only hash-chained ledger; and a one-file export of the whole year.

Joist tracks expenses too, so that is not the dividing line. What Joist does not advertise is a mileage log, and for a contractor covering a service area, mileage is often the largest deduction on the return — provided the log meets the IRS record-keeping standard, which is stricter than memory.

And the money is a different shape. Keel Free is $0 with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage entries. Keel Pro is a one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase, not a subscription.

How do Keel and Joist compare side by side?

	Joist	Keel
Estimates and quotes	Yes — the core of the product	Not yet — in development
Estimate-to-invoice flow	Yes	No
Digital signatures	Yes	No
Job photos on documents	Yes	No
Deposits	Yes	No
Line-item markups	Higher tiers	No
Change orders	Higher tiers	No
Customer financing offers	Yes	No
Invoicing	Yes	Yes (PDF, custom numbering, logo, brand color, QR payment link)
Online card payments	Integrated	Payment link and QR on the PDF
Expense tracking	Yes	Yes, with on-device receipt reading
Mileage log	Not advertised — check current plans	Yes
QuickBooks sync	Higher tiers	No
Platforms	Web, iOS, Android	iPhone only
Account required	Yes	No
Where data lives	Vendor’s cloud	On your device
Pricing model	Tiered subscription, free trial	Free; Pro $249.99 one-time

Rows reading “higher tiers” or “check current plans” move whenever Joist repackages its plans. Read them off Joist’s site rather than off this table.

What can Keel not do?

Said plainly, because a comparison that only lists strengths is a brochure.

Keel does not create estimates or quotes yet. It does not import transactions from a bank feed, so nothing appears on its own. It does not file your taxes or calculate what you owe. It does not manage a team or dispatch anyone. It has no web interface, so a desktop workflow is out. And it does not sync to QuickBooks — the year leaves as an export file, not as a live connection.

For a contractor whose bidding volume is the business, that first item alone is disqualifying today, and it should be.

Who is Joist the right tool for?

Buy Joist if you bid.

Concretely: you do kitchen and bath remodels, every job starts with a walkthrough and a written proposal, and a third of the proposals you send never come back. You need the document to look serious, the client to sign it, a deposit before you order materials, and on bigger numbers financing on the table or the job dies at the price. That is Joist’s exact shape.

The same holds for roofing, fencing, concrete, HVAC replacement — anything where the customer is choosing between you and two other bids on a number large enough to hurt. In those trades the quote is the sale, not paperwork, and a private ledger on your phone does nothing for it. Recommending Keel there would be bad advice, and you should distrust any comparison that does.

Who is Keel the right tool for?

Keel fits the operator whose work does not run through a bidding process, or who quotes verbally and invoices when the job is done. Repair techs, mobile detailers, cleaners on a route, photographers, freelance trades doing time-and-materials for builders who already know the rate.

Your admin problem is not winning the bid — it is that invoices go out three weeks late, receipts live in the truck door, and January is an archaeology project. Late invoicing is a cash flow problem disguised as an administrative one, and getting clients to pay starts with the invoice existing on the day the work ended. It also fits if you object to the account-and-cloud model on principle, or have simply had enough of monthly software.

If that is you, Keel: Invoice Maker & Receipts is on the App Store. Start on the free tier — there is no account to create, so there is nothing to undo.

Can you use both?

Some people do, and it is defensible while Keel’s estimates are still in development: quote and close in Joist, keep the year’s receipts and mileage in Keel.

It is not free, though. Two systems means two places the truth lives and a reconciliation step you will resent by March. If your bidding volume justifies Joist, the simpler answer is usually to let Joist invoice too and revisit when Keel’s estimates ship. If you bid twice a year, the reverse is true.

Frequently asked questions

Can Keel replace Joist?

Not for a contractor who quotes. Joist’s estimate-to-invoice workflow, digital signatures, deposits, change orders, and financing offers have no equivalent in Keel today, and estimates are still in development. For someone who invoices after the fact and never sends a formal bid, Keel covers the ground that person actually uses — but that is a narrower job than Joist is built for.

Does Joist track mileage the way Keel does?

Joist tracks expenses and produces revenue and tax reports, but a mileage log is not something it advertises, so verify on their site before assuming either way. Keel keeps a mileage log alongside invoices and receipts on the same device. For anyone driving a service area, that gap is worth checking rather than guessing at.

Which one costs less?

Different shapes. Joist is a tiered subscription with a free trial, where the entry tier caps documents per month and higher tiers unlock unlimited documents and reporting. Keel is free with unlimited invoices, receipts, and mileage, plus an optional one-time $249.99 Lifetime purchase. Over several years a single payment wins the arithmetic — unless the quoting you skipped cost you a job.

Does Keel offer financing to my customers?

No, and it will not. Keel has no account, no vendor relationship with lenders, and no third party in the payment path — that is the whole design. Keel can put a payment link and QR code on the invoice, but the money moves through whatever processor you already use. If financing closes your bids, that is a real reason to buy Joist.

Can I use Keel on a laptop or an Android phone?

No. Keel is iPhone-only with no web interface, because keeping everything on one device is the point rather than a limitation to route around. Joist runs on the web and on both mobile platforms. If you do office work at a desk or carry Android, that alone rules Keel out and there is no workaround worth recommending.

Does Keel sync with QuickBooks?

No. There is no bank feed and no accounting integration, because there is no account and no server to sync from. What Keel gives your accountant instead is an Accountant Pack and a single export file covering the year. That works well for a one-person business and poorly for anyone whose bookkeeper wants live access.

---

This article is general information. Feature sets and pricing change — check both vendors’ current pages before deciding.