Hover turns phone photos into a 3D exterior model.
Forge runs the commercial install operator's whole chest.
Hover built a genuinely sharp product: a homeowner or rep shoots a handful of phone photos and Hover returns a measured 3D model of the exterior — roof, siding, windows — with a visualizer that lets a residential customer see the finished facade before they sign. Forge is built for a different operator: the commercial installation contractor whose work runs on bid-build, certified payroll, change-orders, and submittals, where the measurement is one drawer in a much larger chest.
Side by side. Honest about both.
Not the use case. Forge has no consumer-facing exterior-remodel visualizer; Hyperion captures geometry for line-item estimating, not facade renders for a homeowner to approve.
Native and strong. Phone-photo capture to a measured 3D exterior model with a remodel visualizer is exactly what Hover was built for.
Yes. Hyperion — iPad/iPhone LiDAR. Walk the structure, capture geometry on site, line-item estimate in 60–90 seconds. Methodology and sample plan published at /proof/hyperion-accuracy.
Photogrammetry from phone photos rather than depth-sensor capture. Measurement comes from imagery the user shoots, not an on-device LiDAR scan.
Native. Commercial re-roof and retrofit assemblies that match what commercial crews actually install.
Built for residential exterior — roof, siding, windows. Commercial flat-roof assemblies are not the target use case.
Treasury, native. Davis-Bacon rates per project, prevailing wage per worker per task, WH-347 ready to file. RMR ledger and change-orders in the same chest.
Not in scope. Hover is a measurement and visualization product, not a payroll or compliance system.
Field-initiated. Scan delta to change-order to customer signature from the truck; Treasury writes the financial side automatically and the PM sees it in the project log.
Not in scope. Hover hands measurements off to whatever estimating or CRM tool the operator runs downstream.
Documents drawer, native. Submittal packages, AHJ markup, RFIs, as-builts, commissioning — version-controlled and attached to the project record.
Not in scope. Document control lives in a separate tool.
Native. Dialer, compliant SMS, call recording, AI summaries — federated with the project, CRM, and payroll.
Not in scope. Operators use a separate phone and messaging stack.
AI-native; one architecture where modules share state, not integrations. Public list: Forge Core $499/mo flat (unlimited users, no per-seat) plus a la carte modules, packaged as Starter $299, the Working Stack about $900, and Full Platform about $1,999. Charter is the founder program by application: $27,000 prepaid for 36 months (~$750/mo equivalent), locked forever, ten seats.
Focused single-purpose measurement product, priced per report or per subscription. A best-of-breed input to an operator's stack, not the stack itself.
Where Hover is the right call.
- 01.Residential exterior contractors — siding, windows, gutters, residential roofing — who need fast, accessible measurements without a depth-sensor device on site.
- 02.Operators who want a homeowner-facing visualizer: letting a residential customer see the finished facade before signing is a real close-rate lever, and Hover does it well.
- 03.Reps capturing properties they can photograph but not always physically walk — a homeowner or canvasser can shoot the photos from the curb.
- 04.Operators whose measurement need is satisfied by a single best-of-breed report feeding an estimating or CRM tool they already like, with no appetite to consolidate the rest of the stack.
- 05.Residential teams whose exterior geometry is simple enough that photogrammetry from phone photos captures it accurately.
The honest line.
If the work is residential exterior — siding, windows, residential roofing — and the need is a fast, accessible measurement with a homeowner-facing visualizer fed into an existing estimating tool, Hover is the right call and a sharper fit than a full operator OS. Charter is built for the commercial installation contractor running bid-build, certified payroll, change-orders, and submittals who wants the measurement, the money, and the project record on one chest.
A measurement is one drawer in the chest. Forge is built for the rest of the work.