Multi-Trade Project Request Hub for GCs

Problem and target customer

Why this exists

Customer problem

Project inquiries arrive through calls, email, and generic forms with missing site details, unclear trade scope, and photos detached from the request. Coordinators re-contact prospects before estimators can decide ownership or prepare a quote.

Who pays

Small general contractors and multi-trade service firms with an office coordinator assigning residential or light-commercial inquiries to estimators.

Business model

Monthly subscription per contractor office, with higher tiers for additional estimators, service territories, and request volume.

Editorial note

The first product boundary ends at a quote decision. Project delivery, dispatch, and job costing would turn a focused lead handoff into a construction management suite before the intake problem is validated.

Trade routing should be explainable and editable by the contractor. Address, property type, selected discipline, and staff availability are enough to propose ownership while unusual requests remain in a human triage queue.

The strongest beta signal is fewer clarification calls before estimating. Completion rate and quote speed are useful later, but the source does not establish target percentages.

Choose your next step

What do you need next?

Evaluate the operating tradeoffs quickly, or inspect how to build the MVP.

Evaluate this ideaSee the cost and deployment preview

Compare the three operating paths at the default workload before opening the full calculator.

See cost preview Build this ideaInspect the build blueprint

Review MVP scope, workflow, states, data rules, architecture, and acceptance criteria.

Open blueprint

Evaluation preview

What would it take to run?

Directional infrastructure estimates for the current 300 project requests assumption. Open the full calculator when you are ready to change it.

Open full cost and deployment

ManagedSelected

$5-$30/ month

Managed app, database, and job capacity for public requests and staff triage.

Lowest operating effort

Lean self-hosted

$7-$28/ month

One operator-managed server handles intake, files, database, and staff views.

Lowest baseline cost

More control

$40-$105/ month

Separate runtime, database, and storage capacity for heavier request traffic.

Most separation and control

Build blueprint

Build the first paid use case

Product goal

Who it serves and what it must change

Target user: A property owner submitting a project and the contractor coordinator who routes complete scope to the right estimator.
Problem: Incomplete, multi-channel inquiries make staff chase basic site, timing, trade, and photo details before estimating can begin.
Measurable outcome: A test request spanning two trades reaches the correct estimator queue with complete contact, property, scope, timing, and attachment context, then advances to a recorded quote decision.

MVP scope

What ships now and what waits

Included

Conditional public request form for property, project type, trades, urgency, access, budget band, and photos
Service-area and selected-trade routing rules with visible reasons
Coordinator triage queue for exceptions, duplicates, and manual reassignment
Estimator ownership, internal notes, quote due date, amount, and customer-facing status
Email confirmations and status updates with delivery tracking

Excluded

Automatic image-based scope diagnosis
Construction project management after acceptance
Crew scheduling and dispatch
Contract signing and invoicing
Guaranteed instant estimates

UX and user flow

Screens, actions, and states

Project Request

Collect enough site and scope information for the contractor to make a routing decision.

Select property typeChoose tradesAdd photosReview and submit

Triage Queue

Separate routed inquiries from service-area, missing-data, and multi-trade exceptions.

Inspect requestResolve exceptionAssign estimatorMark not served

Estimate Workspace

Give an estimator the request, attachments, ownership, notes, due date, and quote controls.

Add noteRequest clarificationRecord quoteChange owner

Request Status

Let the prospect check whether information is needed, a quote is ready, or the request was declined.

View statusAnswer clarificationOpen quote summary

Primary flow

A prospect enters the property address, selects affected trades, describes the work, adds timing and photos, and consents to contact.
The server validates service territory and applies ordered trade-routing rules, preserving the matched reason.
A coordinator reviews exceptions or confirms the proposed estimator and quote due date.
The estimator requests clarification or records a quote summary and amount.
The prospect receives the status update and the request is marked Accepted, Declined, or Expired after a decision.

Loading, empty, and error states

Draft
Submitted
Needs triage
Awaiting clarification
Assigned
Quote preparing
Quoted
Accepted
Declined
Not served
Expired

Core entity outline

Entities and business rules

ProjectRequest

Stores the customer, property, scope, timing, and lifecycle of one inquiry.

Fields: reference, contact_name, email, phone, property_address, property_type, description, urgency, budget_band, status, submitted_at
Relations: Has many RequestedTrades, Has many Attachments, May have one Quote

RequestedTrade

Identifies each discipline involved and its routing result.

Fields: request_id, trade, scope_note, routing_status, estimator_id, routing_reason
Relations: Belongs to ProjectRequest, May reference Estimator

RoutingRule

Defines an ordered territory, property, trade, and availability condition for assignment.

Fields: priority, trade, postal_codes, property_types, estimator_id, active
Relations: May assign many RequestedTrades

Quote

Captures the estimator's bounded proposal summary and customer decision.

Fields: request_id, amount, scope_summary, valid_until, status, sent_at
Relations: Belongs to ProjectRequest

RequestMessage

Keeps clarification questions and customer answers attached to the inquiry.

Fields: request_id, sender_role, body, created_at
Relations: Belongs to ProjectRequest

Business rules

Submission requires contact consent, a valid property location, at least one supported trade, scope text, and timing.
Routing rules are evaluated by priority and retain the matched rule; no match sends the request to Needs triage.
A multi-trade request remains one customer inquiry but each selected trade may have a different estimator.
Only an assigned estimator or coordinator may record a quote; customers can view but not edit it.
Quote acceptance is blocked after valid_until and does not create a construction project in the MVP.

Architecture and data flow

Components, integrations, and controls

Public intake app

Render conditional form steps, uploads, confirmation, and customer status.

Staff operations app

Protect triage, estimator assignment, notes, and quote actions.

Application API

Validate requests, evaluate routing rules, enforce transitions, and queue notices.

PostgreSQL database

Store requests, trades, rules, quotes, messages, and delivery state.

Object storage

Keep project photos outside the relational database.

Integrations

Address lookup for normalized service-area checks
Transactional email for confirmations, clarification, and quote notices
Optional SMS for time-sensitive status notices after explicit consent
Optional Make webhook for an internal assignment handoff

Data flow

The form uploads validated images and submits their storage keys with the structured request.
The API normalizes the address, checks service territory, evaluates each selected trade, and stores routing reasons transactionally.
Coordinator and estimator actions append ownership and status history before notifications are queued.
Customer clarification updates the existing request and returns it to the assigned estimator without creating a duplicate.

Failure handling

Save a local form draft and preserve completed fields when an upload or submission fails.
Send address lookup failures to manual triage rather than rejecting a potentially valid project.
If email or SMS fails, retain the request and expose a resend control with delivery history.

Security

Use signed, expiring customer-status links and role checks for all staff operations.
Strip image metadata, verify MIME type and size, and serve attachments through authorized URLs.
Keep addresses and customer contact details out of client logs and analytics events.

Rate limits

Limit submissions by IP, contact address, and property address with a bot challenge after bursts.
Cap photo count and total bytes per request.
Throttle status-link checks and bound notification retries per recipient.

Deliverables and acceptance

Definition of done for the MVP

Deliverables

Responsive conditional intake and customer status pages
Protected triage queue and estimator workspace
Schema, migrations, service-area configuration, and routing-rule editor
Attachment pipeline and notification delivery log
Tests for routing, multi-trade ownership, permissions, expiration, and failure recovery

Acceptance criteria

A customer can submit a two-trade request with photos and receive one reference number.
Rules route each requested trade independently and show staff the rule that matched.
An out-of-area or unmatched address appears in Needs triage without losing the submission.
An estimator can request clarification and the customer's answer returns the same inquiry to active review.
When a notification provider fails, staff still see the saved status change and can resend without duplicating the quote.

Recommended stack

Enough technology for the first version

Web application

Next.js and Tailwind CSS

Serve a mobile intake and dense staff queue from one application.

Data and auth

PostgreSQL with Auth.js

Represent multi-trade assignments, ordered rules, quote states, and staff roles.

Files

Cloudflare R2

Store project photos with signed access and predictable low-volume costs.

Resend

Deliver request, clarification, and quote notices with visible failure state.

Address lookup

Mapbox Geocoding API

Normalize locations for service-area checks while preserving manual review on lookup failure.

Why this is sufficient

The key technical risk is trustworthy routing from incomplete public input. A relational rule model, protected file storage, and explicit triage state keep ownership explainable without AI classification.

Not required for the MVP

LLM APIVector databaseConstruction scheduling suiteAccounting integrationNative mobile app

Next stepTurn the blueprint into an execution plan

Copy the build prompt, model the operating cost, and choose where to deploy.

Build and ship

Execution

Build, price, and deploy the MVP

Once the blueprint is clear, use the prompt, cost model, and deployment options to start building.

Build prompt

Copy this into a builder

Build a mobile-friendly public intake plus a desktop staff queue in Next.js. Use administrator-defined trade and territory rules; do not use an LLM to classify construction scope.

Build prompt

Your build prompt is ready

Open the prompt pack whenever you are ready to take this blueprint into your builder.

Based on the blueprintReady for your builderFollow-up steps included

Cost calculator

Model the MVP operating cost

A technical run-cost estimate for the first production version. Team, acquisition, payment fees, and business COGS are excluded.

Estimated monthly total$5-$30

$8.33-$50 per 500 project requests

Project requests / month300 project requests

Selected pathEasiest

Pricing checkedAug 2, 2026

Cost breakdown

$5-$30 per month

Low and high values allow for usage variance and plan headroom.

Managed intake deployment

Managed app, database, and job capacity for public requests and staff triage.

5K project requests included, then $5-$15 per 5K project requests

$5-$25

Project photo storage

Object storage for intake images after the included beta allowance.

Monthly allowance from this idea's operating profile

$0-$5

Included

Application and database hosting
Project photo storage
Routine transactional email
Backups and background notification jobs

Not included

Estimator labor
Phone service
SMS carrier registration fees
Mapping overages beyond beta assumptions
Contracts, accounting, and legal review

Pricing basis

The estimate combines the selected infrastructure path, required operating modules, selected optional modules, and usage above included monthly allowances. Taxes and regional uplifts are excluded.

Railway pricing Cloudflare R2 pricing

Deployment options

Pick the operational tradeoff

Choose based on operating preference, not only the headline price.

EasiestRecommended

Railway

Host intake, staff operations, database, and background notices with little platform setup.

$5-$25/month before optional messaging

Good fit

Small GC office
Managed deployment
Moderate request volume

Limitation

Resource use and attachment traffic can increase the bill.

Deploy the request hub

Cheapest

Vultr

Run the app, worker, and database on one small Vultr VPS with Docker Compose and explicit backups.

$7-$23/month

Good fit

Cost-sensitive beta
Single server
Operator-managed backups

Limitation

The operator owns updates, monitoring, and restore drills.

Deploy on Vultr View the lean VPS guide

More control

DigitalOcean

Separate application, worker, data, storage, and backup responsibilities as the workload grows.

$40-$100/month

Good fit

Separated services
More attachments
Operational headroom

Limitation

More components increase configuration and observability work.

Explore DigitalOcean View the separated cloud guide

Start building

Prototype, automate, then deploy

Recommended route

01Vibe-coding builderPrototype the request-to-estimator handoff

Use Lovable to test the conditional customer form, trade-routing explanation, estimator queue, and quote-status view with office staff.

Open Lovable 02AutomationNotify assigned estimators

Use Make as optional glue to post a newly assigned request to an existing team channel or send a bounded reminder when the quote due date passes.

Open Make 03DeployHost intake and estimating operations together

Deploy the public form, protected request queue, database, and attachment handling on Railway with one production release path.

Open Railway

Multi-Trade Project Request Hub for GCs

Is this worth validating?

Build this if

Avoid this if

Validate first

Why this exists

Customer problem

Who pays

Business model

What do you need next?

What would it take to run?

Build the first paid use case

Who it serves and what it must change

What ships now and what waits

Included

Excluded

Screens, actions, and states

Primary flow

Loading, empty, and error states

Entities and business rules

Business rules

Components, integrations, and controls

Integrations

Data flow

Failure handling

Security

Rate limits

Definition of done for the MVP

Deliverables

Acceptance criteria

Enough technology for the first version

Next.js and Tailwind CSS

PostgreSQL with Auth.js

Cloudflare R2

Resend

Mapbox Geocoding API

Why this is sufficient

Not required for the MVP

Build, price, and deploy the MVP

Copy this into a builder

Your build prompt is ready

Model the MVP operating cost

Usage assumptions

$5-$30 per month

Included

Not included

Pricing basis

Pick the operational tradeoff

Railway

Good fit

Limitation

Vultr

Good fit

Limitation

DigitalOcean

Good fit

Limitation

Prototype, automate, then deploy

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