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Adaptive vs Built: AI accounting agents for builders or construction finance and lien waiver platform

Adaptive runs AI agents on top of a builder's existing ERP for AP, billing, WIP, change orders, lien waivers and COIs, priced by revenue band; Built is a construction finance platform for lenders, owners and GCs with loan and draw administration, an AI Draw Agent on a waitlist, and lien waiver management and payments at a published $1,000 a month. Desk research from vendor pages read Oct 25, 2026; not tested, no winner.

DESK RESEARCH, NOT TESTED. Compiled from vendors' public websites (accessed Oct 25, 2026). Vendor claims are not verified by Means & Methods Lab. No scores or rankings.

In short: Adaptive (AI project accounting agents; no public prices (quote / sales)) vs Built Technologies (Construction lending & draw management; vendor publishes prices). Facts last checked Oct 25, 2026. No winner declared; not tested.

Side by side

Adaptive vs Built: AI accounting agents for builders or construction finance and lien waiver platform: vendor-published facts side by side
Sheet rowAdaptiveBuilt Technologies
CategoryAI project accounting agentsConstruction lending & draw management
AI role (our label)AI-firstAI features added to established product
What it doesAgentic project-accounting platform for construction, with AI agents for WIP, change orders, AP, billing and lien waivers on top of the ERP. Vendor lists AI agents for WIP and forecasting, change orders, AP (invoice ingestion and cost coding, duplicate and fraud checks), billings (cost-plus, fixed-price, AIA), cards and bank reconciliation, lien waivers, insurance certificates and W-9s, and a field coordinator that collects updates from supers and PMs by voice, text, or email. Runs on top of the existing ERP (Sage, QuickBooks, Foundation, Acumatica) rather than replacing it, with a bidirectional Procore integration. Vendor says the AI never auto-posts to the general ledger and every action is reviewed by a human first, and that more than 750 builders use it (vendor claims, not verified). Re-read Oct 16, 2026: the homepage describes the Change Order Clerk as monitoring pending change requests, comparing them against contracts, job costs and field updates, drafting change orders, routing them for approval, following up with vendors and owners, and preventing sub payment until client approval is secured (vendor description). Homepage also says it is built for $5M-$1B builders with no ERP migration and links its $30M Series B announcement. Re-read Oct 17, 2026: the homepage now says Adaptive raised a $30M Series B, bringing total capital raised to $57M (vendor statement), lists separate Lien Waiver and Insurance Tracking clerks plus custom agents, and offers a phone line to its AI project accountant; FAQ unchanged (no auto-posting to the GL, first agent live in 30 to 90 days, month-to-month). Re-read again later on Oct 17, 2026: homepage and pricing page unchanged in substance. Re-checked Oct 19, 2026: the homepage says Adaptive is backed by a16z and Emergence and was selected for the 2026 AICPA/CPA.com Startup Accelerator; the FAQ says implementation scope and fees are confirmed before kickoff, and that most supers never log in because the AI project accountant reaches them by voice, text or email (vendor statements). Re-checked Oct 21, 2026: homepage unchanged in substance (AI agents for job costing, AP, billing, WIP and compliance; built for $5M-$1B builders; no ERP migration; a phone line to its AI project accountant). Builder counts and review-site ratings are vendor figures and are not used. Re-checked Oct 25, 2026: homepage, FAQ and pricing page unchanged in substance (the $30M Series B banner; agents for WIP, change orders, AP, billing, cards and bank reconciliation, lien waivers, COIs and W-9s, and field updates by voice; no auto-posting to the GL; Sage, QuickBooks and Foundation listed).Real estate and construction finance platform for lenders, owners/developers, and builders, with AI draw management and inspections. Features listed: origination, OM extraction, underwriting, draw and budget management, AI Draw Agent, AI-powered draw inspections, risk mitigation, lien waivers, compliance tracking, invoices, and payments. Vendor says its AI is trained on $3T+ of real estate finance data and the Draw Agent enables 2-5x capacity gains (vendor claims). Integrates with Sage, Yardi, Procore, and more. Re-read Oct 17, 2026: the homepage still says its AI is trained on $3T+ in real estate finance data, lists AI-powered draw inspections, and says the AI Draw Agent enables 2-5x capacity gains, 100% policy adherence, 2x more risks flagged and up to 95% faster draw processing (vendor claims); getbuilt.com/pricing still returns a not-found page. Re-checked Oct 19, 2026: homepage unchanged in substance (AI trained on $3T+ of real estate finance data, AI-powered draw inspections, AI Draw Agent figures, Sage, Yardi and Procore integrations; vendor claims). Re-checked Oct 20, 2026: homepage unchanged in substance (AI trained on $3T+ of real estate finance data, AI-powered draw inspections, AI Draw Agent figures, Sage, Yardi and Procore integrations; vendor claims); a site banner now invites visitors to register for a keynote on "the next chapter of Built", and the footer lists SOC 2 Type II and SOC 1. Re-checked Oct 21, 2026: the homepage now leads with "Fund, develop, build, and manage on one AI-powered platform" with menus for banks, private credit, owners and developers, and general contractors (GC tools: invoicing, compliance tracking, lien waiver management and payments). The AI Draw Agent page still describes documentation review, draw and budget reconciliation, policy review, compliance confirmation and borrower notification in Audit, Assist and Automate modes, offers a waitlist, and labels its figures as early-adopter program data (not used). The invoicing page lists AIA-styled G702/G703 progress invoices linked to the schedule of values with retainage, change order billing and stored materials. The integrations page lists QuickBooks Desktop and Online, Yardi Voyager, Sage Intacct, Procore Financials, Encompass, DocuSign and nCino. The footer has a link addressed to AI assistants; we did not use it. Customer quotes and counters are not used. Re-checked Oct 25, 2026: homepage unchanged in substance (one AI-powered platform for banks, private credit, owners and developers and GCs); its keynote page now gives the date as Nov 5, 2026 at 1 PM ET, online and free (a pre-recorded keynote with live Q&A). The Draw Agent page is unchanged (Audit, Assist and Automate, waitlist; it says no data is shared with public LLMs). Homepage counters, percentages and customer quotes are vendor content and are not used.
Who it's forConstruction companies with $5M to $1B in revenue: general contractors, specialty trades, custom home builders, developers, and their accounting firms (vendor wording).Construction lenders, owners and developers, and builders.
Pricing (as publicly stated)Not publicly listed (monthly base fee scaled to revenue band, covering the first agent; additional agents scoped up front). Pricing page lists month-to-month contracts, 30 to 90 days to go live, unlimited users, no per-seat or transaction fees, and SOC 2 Type 2. Re-checked Oct 16, 2026: pricing still scoped to revenue band and workflows; start with one agent and add more from the agent menu. (Checked Oct 16, 2026. Re-checked Oct 19, 2026: unchanged; the pricing FAQ also lists full data export, no charges for additional integrations within the supported list, and no long-term contracts.) Re-checked Oct 21, 2026: unchanged (monthly base fee scaled to revenue band covering the first agent; additional agents scoped up front; month-to-month, 30 to 90 days to go live, unlimited users, full data export, no per-seat or transaction fees, SOC 2 Type 2). The page now says the setup costs less than a single accounting hire (vendor wording, no figure). Re-checked Oct 22, 2026: unchanged (monthly base fee scaled to revenue band covering the first agent; additional agents scoped up front; month-to-month, 30 to 90 days to go live, unlimited users, full data export, no per-seat or transaction fees, SOC 2 Type 2). Re-checked Oct 23, 2026: unchanged (monthly base fee scaled to revenue band covering the first agent; additional agents scoped up front; month-to-month, 30 to 90 days to go live, unlimited users, full data export, no per-seat or transaction fees, SOC 2 Type 2). The FAQ now names Sage, QuickBooks and Foundation as ERPs it runs on top of and says it has a bidirectional Procore integration; the agent menu lists AP, AR, WIP, payments, lien waivers and COIs. Re-checked Oct 25, 2026: unchanged (monthly base fee scaled to annual revenue band covering the first agent, additional agents scoped to the business, no per-seat or transaction fees, unlimited users; no figures; month-to-month).Published price for one product (read Oct 21, 2026): the Lien Waiver Management & Payments page lists $1,000 a month, with unlimited projects and team members, state-mandated and custom lien waiver templates, digital payments with or without a waiver exchange, unlimited free vendor accounts, status tracking, audit trails and reminders; it says payments processed through Built qualify for a discount off that rate (talk to a specialist). The same page also says No credit card needed and Send Lien Waivers & Payments for FREE, so ask which terms apply. The payments page lists ACH free to both sides (1-2 business days, funds held in escrow until the trade partner accepts), Instant Pay free for the payor (up to $10M per transaction) and mailed paper checks. The lending platform (draws, inspections, AI Draw Agent) has no public prices. Earlier note: no public prices found (checked Oct 16, 2026): the vendor site has no pricing or plans link in its navigation or footer, and /pricing and /plans return a not-found page. The site's calls to action include "Contact us". Confirm current pricing with the vendor. Re-checked Oct 19, 2026: unchanged. (getbuilt.com/pricing still not found). Re-checked Oct 20, 2026: unchanged (getbuilt.com/pricing still returns a not-found page; Book my demo and Contact us). Re-checked Oct 21, 2026: getbuilt.com/pricing still returns a not-found page; the $1,000-a-month Lien Waiver Management & Payments rate above is the first Built price we have recorded. Re-checked Oct 22, 2026: unchanged ($1,000 a month for Lien Waiver Management & Payments, with discounts when payments run through Built; getbuilt.com/pricing still returns a not-found page). The payments page lists ACH (free to both sides, 1-2 business days, funds held in escrow until the trade partner accepts), Instant Pay and mailed paper checks; Instant Pay and check fees are not shown on the pages read. Re-checked Oct 23, 2026: the $1,000-a-month Lien Waiver Management & Payments rate is unchanged (unlimited projects and team members, discounts when payments run through Built). New on the payments page: Instant Pay (RTP rails, funds minutes after the trade partner accepts, same-day if accepted before 12:00 PM CT, up to $10M per transaction) is free to send, with a 1% fee charged to the payee and deducted from the deposit; paper checks take 7-10 business days and carry a fee to the payor (amount not shown); ACH remains free to both sides. getbuilt.com/pricing did not load in our read (403). Re-checked Oct 25, 2026: prices unchanged ($1,000 a month for Lien Waiver Management & Payments with discounts when payments run through Built, unlimited projects, team members and free vendor accounts; ACH free; Instant Pay free to send with a 1% payee fee, up to $10M per transaction; paper checks 7-10 business days with a payor fee, amount not shown).
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Facts last checked: Oct 25, 2026. Prices change; check the vendor page before relying on them.

Where the vendor descriptions differ

  • What each does (vendor pages): Adaptive lists agents for WIP and forecasting, change orders, AP (invoice ingestion, cost coding, duplicate and fraud checks), billing (cost-plus, fixed-price, AIA), cards and bank reconciliation, lien waivers, COIs and W-9s, and a field coordinator that gathers updates from supers and PMs by voice, text or email. Built lists construction loan administration, origination pipeline management, inspections and due diligence, and lien waiver management and payments.
  • Who it is for: Adaptive is aimed at builders and contractors running their own books on Sage, QuickBooks or Foundation. Built leads with banks, private credit lenders and owners and developers, with its lien waiver and payments product aimed at GCs and owners paying trade partners.
  • Where AI fits: Adaptive is built around AI agents and says nothing auto-posts to the general ledger without human review. Built says its AI is trained on real estate finance data, describes AI-assisted draw inspections, and lists a Draw Agent (Audit, Assist and Automate) on a waitlist that it says shares no data with public LLMs (vendor descriptions).
  • Lien waivers and payments overlap: both handle lien waivers. Built's product ties payments to waivers with state-approved templates, e-signature or e-notarization, free vendor accounts and ACH, Instant Pay or check options. Adaptive's lien waiver agent sits alongside its AP and billing agents. Built lists Sage, Yardi and Procore connections; Adaptive lists a bidirectional Procore integration.
  • Pricing (checked Oct 25, 2026): Adaptive charges a monthly base fee scaled to annual revenue band covering the first agent, with additional agents scoped, no per-seat or transaction fees and month-to-month terms; no figures. Built publishes $1,000 a month for Lien Waiver Management & Payments with discounts when payments run through Built; ACH is free, Instant Pay carries a 1% payee fee, and its lending platform is quoted.
  • Not used here: Adaptive's customer count, Built's Draw Agent capacity and speed figures, homepage counters and customer quotes. Neither tool has been tested by Means & Methods Lab.

Paraphrased from the sources listed above. Vendor claims are reported as claims.

What users say

The facts above come from vendor websites. Whether either tool is any good for your work is something only people who use them can say. These are member reviews, all ratings shown, never edited or removed for being negative.

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Questions to ask in your review

  • What Adaptive's base fee comes to for your revenue band and which agents it covers
  • How much of a discount Built gives off $1,000 a month for your payment volume
  • Whether you need an accounting agent layer, a lien waiver and payments tool, or both, given your current ERP
  • What did you use it for, on what kind of work and project size?
  • How long did setup and training take, and who on your team did it?
  • What does it cost you in practice, compared with what the sales call said?

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