How to switch from Hive Inspect to Househound

Hive's subscription agreement says you keep ownership of your data, but it has no clause giving you an export when you leave, and it says Hive "may delete Customer Data after a reasonable period" after you cancel, without defining the period (Hive Inspect subscription agreement, sections 3.1 and 8.4). So ask while your plan is active.

Write to Hive support (chat in the dashboard or support@hiveinspect.com; Hive says support answers 7 days a week) and ask for:

• your contacts (clients and agents) as a CSV
• your earnings and metrics spreadsheets
• each template, in any file they can produce
• a bulk copy of your published report PDFs, if they can provide one

Hive's changelog lists CSV exports for contacts and earnings and spreadsheet exports from metrics (Hive changelog), but its help pages don't give the menu path, so ask support where to find them in your account.

Hive publishes no bulk download of past reports. Hive's FAQ says a published report can be downloaded as a PDF from its online link (Hive Inspect FAQ), so open each report you must keep and save its PDF. Start with the reports your state requires you to retain, then any recent ones a client or agent might ask about.

Keep the PDFs in your own storage, with a second copy. Hive's FAQ says published reports are stored with no expiration date, but once you cancel, the agreement allows deletion after a reasonable period.

Sign up on the web at househoundusa.com/signup. Your first 3 reports are free and there's no card to enter.

In the Househound web dashboard, open Templates, click Import, and drop in a PDF of a recent Hive report (or click to choose it). During setup, the templates step opens with Bring your own template, which does the same thing.

Pick a long report with many findings in every section: a template built from a report only knows the comments that report contains. If Hive support sent you a template as a spreadsheet, a Word .docx or a JSON file, import that too; Househound reads any spreadsheet and maps its columns, and reads a Word or JSON file the way it reads a PDF. Up to 10 files go in at once, 20 MB each, and each file becomes its own template.

A template read from a PDF is a draft. Check that each Hive section has an area, the items are in your order, the wording is yours, and each deficiency has the severity you'd give it. Hive and Househound both use 3 severity levels, so mapping them is direct: Househound calls them major, moderate and minor.

Every comment lands in your comment library. Autodraft reuses those comments when it turns your spoken notes into drafted findings, and nothing reaches a client until you save it.

On the web, go to People → Clients → Import contacts… (or People → Agents) and choose the contacts CSV from Hive. CSV and Excel files both work, up to 5,000 rows and 5 MB. You map each column (name, email, phone, company, type, notes), and if the file has a type column, rows marked as agents become agents. A contact whose email is already saved is updated, never duplicated, and every skipped row is listed with the reason.

Then open Reports → Archive → Past reports and upload the PDFs you saved, up to 50 at a time, 50 MB each. Househound reads the address, client, email and date from each PDF, and you can correct them. Archived reports are read-only: you can search, open, download and share them, but they don't become Househound inspections.

Add your services and fees and any price rules for square footage, bedrooms or units. Upload your agreement and choose when it goes out. Paste your Hive email wording into the client and agent emails. Set your booking start times and crew rules.

Connect Stripe from Househound's payment settings. Money goes straight to your Stripe account. Each client card payment carries 3.25% + 40¢, and that includes Stripe's processing, so it's one deduction. Collect any open Hive invoices in Hive before you leave.

Use one of your 3 free reports on a real job, start to finish on the phone, and publish it. Both apps work without signal; in Househound, dictation recorded offline drafts once you're back online. Keep Hive for jobs already booked there.

Point your website's booking link at your Househound booking page, or paste the booking widget onto the page. Cancel Hive from Billing in your Hive account or by emailing support@hiveinspect.com (Hive Inspect subscription agreement, section 8.1). Cancelling takes effect at the end of your current term, and Hive gives no refunds for unused time, so on an annual plan cancel close to the renewal date. A Hive website plan is billed separately.