Househound vs Hive Inspect: features, price and terms (2026)

Hive Inspect costs $99 a month or $999 a year for the first inspector and $69 a month or $599 a year for each one after that, with every feature on every plan. Househound costs $99 a month or $990 a year for the first inspector and $69 a month or $690 a year for each one after that, also with every feature included. Paying monthly, they cost the same at every team size. Paying annually, Househound is $9 a year less for one inspector, and Hive is less from the second inspector on.

Assumptions: list prices checked October 27, 2026. Househound annual is $990 plus $690 per added inspector; Hive annual is $999 plus $599 per added inspector, so each added inspector costs $91 a year more on Househound. At 3 inspectors Hive's annual plan is $173 a year less; at 10 it's $810 less. Neither charges per report, so the totals hold at 25 or 100 inspections a month.

Hive also sells cheaper ways in:

• New-inspector ramp: $39 the first month, $59, $79, then $99 from month 4. Single-inspector businesses only.
• Part-time pack: 10 reports for $99, paid once ($9.90 a report). Single-inspector only.
• Year-end offer for new customers: $799 for the first year, or $49 a month (the pricing page says for 2 months). No end date is given.
• Horizon switchers: $500 for the first year or $50 a month for 6 months.

Househound has none of these: no ramp, no report pack and no first-year discount. Its entry offer is the first 3 reports free, with no card.

What's charged on top is where the two differ. Househound's card fee is 3.25% + $0.40 per payment, and it includes Stripe's processing, so it's the only deduction. Hive runs payments through your own Stripe account and doesn't publish its rates. Hive sells websites ($249 to $999 a year plus $299 setup); Househound doesn't build websites. For the rest of the category, see what home inspection software costs.

Hive Inspect is run by Synapse Mobility, Inc., a Delaware corporation at 550 W B St, San Diego, according to its subscription agreement. Hive's About page says it is independently owned and names Apoorv Singh as its builder; it doesn't publish a founding year or investors.

Hive's age is reported differently depending on who you ask. Hive says its iOS app went live on the App Store on January 15, 2025. G2's vendor profile lists it as founded in 2025. Spectora's comparison page says 2026, which Hive disputes. Hive says more than 2,500 inspectors use it; we haven't seen an independent count.

On data, Hive's Data Privacy Pledge says "Hive doesn't sell your client data," and there are no ads in its reports or client portal. Its agreement says you keep ownership of your data and gives Hive a license to process it "to provide and improve the Service."

Before you sign an annual plan, read three clauses in Hive's subscription agreement (effective January 3, 2026, updated October 19, 2026):

• Fees are non-refundable, with "No refunds for unused time." Cancelling takes effect at the end of the current term.
• Plans auto-renew at the then-current price. Hive gives at least 30 days' notice of a price change by email.
• There's no data-export provision. After cancelling you can still sign in and view past inspections, and Hive "may delete Customer Data after a reasonable period."

Househound is independently owned too, with no investors or parent company. Client data is never sold and never used to market to your clients. It bills monthly (month to month) or annually, and owners can export clients, inspections, invoices, payments and appointments as CSV from Settings. More: who owns home inspection software.

Hive has shipped a lot in 2026, and on a feature list it covers more than Househound does. These are the gaps that matter most in practice:

• More languages: Other languages on request, and TREC reports in Spanish. Househound has English, Spanish and French, and doesn't translate TREC reports.
• More state forms: Florida roof and WDO, and Texas WDI. Both have wind mitigation, 4-point, TREC and NPMA-33 forms; Househound's Florida forms print as its own layout of the form, not the official PDF filled in.
• Repair prices suggested for you: The Repair Estimator, added October 18, 2026, emails a separate Hive-branded PDF grouped by trade, priced by Hive's model for the city or ZIP, and labeled as projections for planning and negotiation, not quotes. Items it can't price responsibly, such as water intrusion and structural movement, are flagged for a specialist. Cost to Cure also puts your own prices in a table at the top of the report. Househound shows cost ranges the inspector enters, totalled by severity, and never suggests a price.
• Agent tools: Alerts when a report is opened. Both have a repair request builder; Househound tracks no report views.
• Payments: Card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Affirm and Pay at Close, plus a report lock until the client signs and pays. Househound takes cards only and can hold a report for a signature, not for payment.
• Communication and integrations: Text automations, QuickBooks Online for US and Canadian companies, Google Calendar and Mailchimp.
• Re-inspections: Mark repairs fixed or not and re-inspect selected defects. Househound has no re-inspection workflow.
• Support hours: Hive answers 7 days a week by chat, screen share, video call or email. It doesn't offer a phone line.

If several of these are part of your week, Hive is the better fit, and its lower annual price for teams makes that easier.

Both turn a spoken or typed note into a finding drawn from your own comment library, and both leave you to approve it. The difference is mostly in what surrounds them.

Hive's Smart Add (released September 14, 2026) shows up to 3 matching comments from your template with match scores, and drafts new text only when nothing fits. Hive adds AI Comment Assist, which drafts a comment from a few words following your company's writing prompt, and AI Comment Merge, which combines related defects into one comment and keeps their photos and location tags. Hive's FAQ says these tools need an internet connection.

Househound's Autodraft places the note in the right area and item, then reuses a library comment word for word, adapts one, or writes a new one, with a suggested severity and recommendation. It refuses things that aren't findings, such as a truck radio in the background. On the phone, a note recorded with no signal is queued and drafted when you reconnect, so you review the drafts in a strip when you're back in the truck. It works on the web dashboard as well.

If you want more writing tools, Hive has them. If you dictate in basements and crawlspaces where there's no signal, Autodraft's queue is built for that.

Yes. Hive's FAQ says the app works without signal: photos, comments and report editing sync when you're back online, and an October 2026 update added a one-tap download of today's inspections. Its drafting tools (Smart Add, AI Comment Assist and AI Comment Merge) need a connection.

Househound's apps are offline-first. When you have signal, every inspection in the week either side of today downloads on its own, with its photos and your comment library, so a job booked yesterday for Thursday is already on the phone. With no signal you can add findings, photos, video and dictation; they save to the phone and upload later. The web dashboard is online only. More: offline home inspection apps.

Hive delivers a web report and a PDF, with your brand color and cover page and a defects-only summary. Clients sign, pay and read through one client portal link, and Hive can lock the report until they've signed and paid. Translated PDFs and the Repair Estimator PDF ride alongside.

Househound delivers a link. It opens on any phone with no login, starts on a count of major, moderate and minor findings with a filter for the major ones, and can hold video and 360° photos. Each publish keeps a dated copy, so a later edit never changes what the client was sent. Clients and agents also get a portal with reports, agreements and invoices. Reports are delivered as a link, with a PDF download of the same report, and the delivery email links to the PDF rather than attaching it. If you turn them on, the client can switch the report to Spanish or French, each with its own PDF, and the report can show your repair cost estimates in an "Estimated repair costs" block totalled by severity. The client or the buyer's agent can build a repair request from the report and share it as a link, copy it as text for the addendum, download a CSV or print it. Report styling is one design for everyone, with your logo and contact details, and a "Powered by Househound" line that can't be removed.

Templates, the comment library and contacts move, and past reports can go into a read-only archive; the rest starts fresh. Hive doesn't publish a template export, so the route into Househound is a published Hive report saved as a PDF, uploaded on the Templates page. Autodraft reads it and builds a template and comment library you can edit. Up to 10 files at once, 20 MB each.

• Clients and agents: ask Hive support for the contacts CSV, then import it in Househound under People → Clients or Agents → Import contacts… on the web. You map the columns, and a contact whose email is already saved is updated, never duplicated.
• Past reports: download each from its online link as a PDF, then upload the PDFs to the past-report archive (Reports → Archive → Past reports), up to 50 at a time: read-only, searchable, shareable. They don't become Househound inspections.
• Services, agreement, emails, booking page: set up fresh. You can upload your existing agreement file.
• Timing: Hive bills in advance and doesn't refund unused time, so plan the move for the end of your term, especially on an annual plan.

There's no done-for-you migration. If a file doesn't come through, email hello@househoundusa.com. The full checklist is in How to switch from Hive Inspect.