Key Takeaways
- Procore and Buildertrend serve different segments of the construction industry, with Procore built for large commercial projects and Buildertrend built for residential builders and small to mid sized contractors.
- Both platforms offer role based permissions and encrypted data transmission, but Procore has pursued formal certifications like ISO 27001, while Buildertrend's security features are described as sufficient for smaller operations rather than independently certified at the same level.
- In 2023, the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recovered over 45 million dollars from a single business email compromise incident targeting a construction project, showing how attractive bid and payment data inside these platforms is to criminals.
- Business email compromise cost businesses over 3 billion dollars in reported losses in 2025, and 86 percent of those losses moved through wire transfer or ACH, the exact payment rails construction firms use for subcontractor and vendor payments every week.
Every general contractor eventually has the Procore versus Buildertrend conversation, usually while comparing price sheets and feature lists. The conversation that should happen alongside it, but rarely does, is who actually has access to your bid documents, your subcontractor payment data, and your client's financial information once it's inside either platform.
Procore vs Buildertrend: what's actually different
Procore and Buildertrend are both construction project management platforms, but they're built for different scales of contractor, and that difference shows up in how each one handles access and data control. Procore is purpose built for large, complex commercial projects, with detailed document version control, extensive third party integrations, and a permissions structure designed for dozens of stakeholders across a single job. Buildertrend is built for residential builders, remodelers, and smaller specialty contractors, combining scheduling, budgeting, client communication, and a CRM into one platform with a simpler permission model.
Side by side on security and access
| Factor | Procore | Buildertrend |
|---|---|---|
| Target user | Large commercial contractors, GCs | Residential builders, small to mid sized firms |
| Permissions | Granular, role based across large stakeholder groups | User based, simpler tiered structure |
| Data encryption | Encrypted in transit and at rest | Encrypted data transmission |
| Formal certification | ISO 27001 certified | Not independently certified at the same level |
| Document version control | Advanced, tracks changes across revisions | Centralized storage, less granular versioning |
| Third party integrations | 300 plus, including accounting and ERP systems | Fewer, focused on residential tools like QuickBooks |
Both platforms market themselves as secure, and both do offer real protections like role based permissions and encrypted transmission. The meaningful difference is depth and independent verification. Procore has pursued formal security certifications that get audited by a third party, which matters if you're bidding on projects where the owner or a lender requires proof of a security program, not just a claim of one. Buildertrend's security is generally described in vendor and reviewer material as adequate for smaller operations, without the same level of independent certification behind it.
Neither difference means one platform is unsafe. It means the burden of configuring permissions correctly, training staff on what not to share outside the platform, and keeping admin access limited to people who actually need it falls more heavily on you as the contractor when you're using a system with a simpler permissions model.
Why your project management software is a fraud target, not just a scheduling tool
Construction is one of the more lucrative targets for business email compromise because bid documents, subcontractor invoices, and payment approvals all move through email and shared platforms as a matter of routine. This isn't a hypothetical risk. According to the FBI's 2023 Internet Crime Report, a critical infrastructure construction project entity in New York reported a business email compromise loss of 50 million dollars in a single incident. The FBI's Recovery Asset Team was able to freeze roughly 45.9 million dollars of that before it left the banking system, but that recovery only happened because the loss was reported immediately.
Business email compromise as a category isn't slowing down. The FBI's most recent Internet Crime Complaint Center reporting shows BEC losses reached roughly 3 billion dollars in 2025, and 86 percent of that money moved through wire transfer or ACH, the same payment methods contractors use every week to pay subcontractors and vendors. A typical attack doesn't hack Procore or Buildertrend directly. It spoofs an email address that looks nearly identical to a subcontractor's real one, or compromises an employee's inbox, and requests a change to where a payment should be sent.
How this actually plays out on a job site
A common version of this scam looks like an invoice from a subcontractor you've paid a dozen times before, except the bank account listed has quietly changed. Because the request looks routine and the amount matches an expected payment, it often gets approved without a second look. By the time anyone notices, the money has moved through several accounts and become very difficult to recover.
What this means for who has access to your platform
Whether you run Procore or Buildertrend, the practical defense against this kind of fraud has little to do with which software you chose and everything to do with how disciplined your access controls and payment verification process are.
- Limit who inside your platform can approve or change payment details. Not every project manager needs that permission.
- Verify any change to subcontractor or vendor payment information by phone, using a number you already have on file, not one provided in the email requesting the change.
- Review your platform's user list quarterly. Former employees and subcontractors who no longer need access are a common overlooked exposure.
- Treat bid documents and pricing data as confidential, not just internal. These files have real value to a competitor, not just to a fraudster.
- Report suspected fraud immediately. The construction case above only avoided a total loss because it was reported to IC3 the same day.
Whichever platform fits your projects better, the software is only as secure as the permissions, training, and verification habits your team builds around it. That's the layer most vendor comparisons skip entirely, and it's usually the one that decides whether a fraud attempt succeeds or gets caught in time.