Thank you Kenton but you got my question wrong, however a rep from Spectacular answered that question already. The InterNACHI narratives are available for the Bulk Report and Elite plans only, not for the $59 monthly plan.
I have used several over the years and by far the most user friendly and best reading reporting software I have used is SPECTACULAR. It works on apple and Android devices as well as desktop. Though it is so easy to use that I never need more than my mobile phone.
Libraries are downloadable by state.
You can use to send your pre-inspection agreement, and it can be integrated with your credit card processor which tracks payments automatically.
My photos go directly into the report as I am inspecting. No need to download later.
I have won several new real estate referrals due to the report being so easy to read for the end user.
Ive been using SPECTACULAR since 2017. Problems have been very few and customer service is on point. Ive always been able to get a resolution right away with a phone call.
They have pricing per report, per month, or by the year.
If you renew yearly the price is reduced.
You can find them on the play store and download for free.
This is a business solution in your pocket.
I love it and would never use another.
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Got a Sample Report we can view?
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I appreciate your feedback, and I do understand your good connection with Spectacular because it was in my top 3 choices and it is still tempting but I think I will stick to HomeGauge for a while. I loved it and the ways in which all its functionalities are interconnected. I am practicing with it doing some dummy inspections to make no mistakes with real inspections, and so far, their customer services has been excellent responding my questions and giving me some guidance.
The HG Companion mobile app looks solid too.
If after the 3 months trial, I eventually decide to step away from HG for any unexpected reason, I would move to Spectacular. They know how to help with the transition at no cost, including the migration of the personalized libraries.
Nick, your comments have peaked my interest and I would like to see what information you have. I’m currently comparing all of the software options as I prepare to start my business as a new inspector.
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Welcome to our forum, Shawn!..enjoy participating. 
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Many of you have seen my comments on the forums, and know I’m not one to typically slam someone or something. However, I feel compelled to share today’s experience with Palm-Tech. Our business is essentially dead in the water because Palm-Tech’s cloud service crashed this morning so I’m airing my opinions.
If you are even thinking of Palm-Tech - don’t do it.
If you are already on Palm-Tech, you likely have experienced the pains we have of updating libraries, templates, and other stuff just to have those changes magically disappear.
What a POS. I hold myself accountable for putting up with it for 2 years, even after many have told me to get away from that archaic POS.
I know, I have been told. It’s like an old pair of shoes, they are just comfortable and you hate to move to that break-in period of that tight new pair of shoes.
I have sampled the many free trials available, and have to say as mentioned here by others they all have their pros and cons. None have made me say, WOW I really like this software!
Good thing we are doing all mold inspections tomorrow, as that is all external from Palm-Tech.
PS: They called me late today since I opened a ticket this morning. I asked the girl (Denise I think) who called, what redundancies across data centers you have and how far back are your backups. Had not a flipping clue what the hell I was talking about.
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That’s one of the many risks you take with cloud based inspection software.
Subscription cloud based software that harvests client information has become ubiquitous.
Read through various inspector forums and you will see that the cloud-based software is prone to crashing, leaving the inspector dead in the water. It happens often. Add to that the fact that almost all the subscription software runs on Amazon, so if AWS goes down, they all go down.
We are one of the few remaining companies to publish home, commercial, and insurance inspection software that is not cloud based, isn’t a subscription (you buy it, you own it), and has never and will never harvest or share your information or your client’s information.
As for affordability, you won’t find better prices than ours. None of our competitors can beat our prices.
Exactly.
The real question here is… What systems do YOU have in place to handle these realities and to deal with them when they DO happen?? IMO, YOU are as much at fault for your troubles as they are!!
For many years I have been preaching about redundancies for all ones business systems. I stopped talking about it a couple of years ago when most every newbie “knew better” and told me BS to my ‘Boomer’ ways!
I laugh to the bank every day as I have NEVER been left dead in the water after 26+ years. I have ALWAYS had a plan and a route to save myself!!
Btw… I had Palm Tech w/a Palm Pilot back in the early 00’s. Twas the beginning of the Mobile inspecting craze. I got away from it about 2009 and never looked back. Two of the best decisions I ever made!
Fortunately, I’m intelligent enough to have the app installed on my phone and the capability to publish from my phone to my laptop and then upload to ISN manually. It’s a bit more work, but I do have a backup plan. I won’t take your commentary personally, as I am at fault if I did not have a backup plan but I wear my panties proud and have said plan. I have learned to always have a backup plan, and I even back up my data, phone, and laptop weekly to an external drive as well as my O365 storage included with my subscription.
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What software are you referencing? And yes, AWS, Azure, and others have their issues unless the software vendor is smart enough and not too cheap to use their data center redundancy.
So what’s next Gregg? Are you staying with Palm-Tech or are you switching to something else? What matters most to you? Just reliability?
Beware Gregg, this is a trap!
He’s a software Vendor that refuses to abide by Internachi rules for Vendors posting in the Forums!!
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No trap… not even sure how that’s possible. Just questions responding to his post.
Thanks, Aaron, so what makes a good inspector? Someone who looks at things with skepticism. Hence, I do value Jeffrey’s comments. However, I would not be doing my due diligence if I didn’t take a look at what’s on your website. Rest assured, there are a few pieces missing which is every other software vendor also. Those pieces include a video of a real inspection with someone using the app. A video showing how someone produces the reports post-inspection and the amount of time involved. Also missing is your InterNACHI membership showing you are a real inspector writing software with inspectors in mind. In addition, in FL when have 4-PT and Wind Mit inspections + WDO. What I would really like to see, is a piece of software that can do all those while in the inspection, yet produce separate reports which are required, then the ability to have a short version summary with only defects and marginal, in addition to the long report, and a repair request section which only dumps the selected photos unlike Palm-Tech which dumps all photos, and capability to summarize all electrical defects from each room so the agent can just tear off a page and hand it to the electrician. I would also like an inspection platform that comes ready out of the box with minimal customization - hence why I insist an InterNACHI certified Licensed home inspector be driving what goes in the software. There is always customization to make it fit, however, I have looked at so many of the big names who out of the box are garbage without buying other templates. For $59 per inspector per month + X fees per inspection for scheduling and everything else, don’t hand me a POS I can’t use out of the box (actual pricing may vary, as I have not looked in a while). Decent reporting and customizable reporting unlike Palm-Tech - For damn sake, I can’t even move the summaries around in the report or put the freaking defects before the marginal. They even have shit with spelling errors in their out-of-the-box templates! " Enginerd floors" for example, are you flipping kidding? Sorry, the more I talk about it, the more pissed off I get and the more I kick myself in the pants for even using that POS! What next, rest assured it won’t be Palm-Tech. We are using it for now, but as mentioned previously I have a huge problem with a POS poorly written, not kept updated, and supposed technical people who don’t even have a flipping clue what redundancy and DB backup are leaving them crippled for days.
I also looked at WindSurance Gorge mentioned in this thread. But again, there is no inspection integration I can see allowing all reports to be done in one with the same pics.
It looks like it is time for this again…
“A home inspection is a high-liability, in-depth, multi-disciplined technical analysis of the home conducted under adverse circumstances in front of a demanding audience, requiring the generation of an incredibly detailed written report prepared in an unrealistically short time frame for an inconceivably low fee.”
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Oh man, you nailed it in all aspects! Great summary
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I use 3D software and they use MS cloud services, in the past 8 years it’s gone down twice (Twice that affected me), both times for around 2 hours, so in my case no big deal.
I advertise same day reports and have not delivered only once in over 19 years, and that was during an area wide power outage this past summer after a storm, I have since installed a back up generator just in case.
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Apparently, most of the cloud-based software companies are not using data center redundancy based on the frequent outages. Just yesterday, I saw a bunch of inspectors on Facebook crying the blues because Palm Tech has been down. It seems that every week at least one of the cloud-based inspection report services is down.
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I would never use any cloud-based anything.
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