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SightSpec vs HomeGauge

Why inspectors switch from HomeGauge

HomeGauge has decades of trust. Here's what changes when the whole inspection — capture to delivered report — happens on your phone instead of at the desk tonight.

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01 · Compare the experience

Your Tuesday, before and after

Not a feature list — the same inspection day, run two ways.

Today
On SightSpec
7:58 AM
Clipboard, camera, and hoping the job details loaded before you lost signal.
The job and the property details are already on your phone, signal or not.
9:40 AM
The basement has no bars. Findings go into a voice memo to retype tonight.
Say what you see. Local-first capture saves it on the device instantly and syncs when you're back in range.
11:30 AM
A camera roll of two hundred photos to sort at your desk.
Photos are already attached to their findings, captioned and in order.
8:47 PM
The second shift: authoring the report at the Windows desktop.
There is no 8:47 PM. You reviewed the drafted findings on site — the report left from the driveway.
The handoff
One PDF attachment, forwarded to the agent, skimmed once.
The buyer gets a hub scored area by area and the agent gets a brief — same inspection, no app, no login.

02 · Switch day

Previewable, fast, reversible.

The things you'd be afraid to lose are exactly the things that come over.

  1. 1

    Connect

    Your HomeGauge Export Comments file rebuilds your comment library in minutes — reviewed by you before anything saves.

  2. 2

    Preview everything

    Templates, comment library, clients, and schedule — you review every imported item before anything is saved.

  3. 3

    Go live the same day

    The guided flow takes about 5–8 minutes start to finish; most inspectors are fully moved the same day.

  4. 4

    Roll back any time

    Any import can be undone in one tap from your migration history. The decision stays reversible.

The SightSpec Import Center — guided, step-by-step import

03 · After the switch

What your client sees now

A live Property Health Score hub the buyer actually reads, and an agent brief that answers the deal questions — the report becomes the thing that wins your next referral, not an attachment that gets skimmed once.

Open a real sample report
9:41
The buyer's living home record — the property scored area by area
9:41
The agent brief for the same inspection — repair exposure and negotiation items

And if we're ever wrong for you

Export everything — templates, comments, clients, reports — in one tap, anytime. The Data Freedom Guarantee is in writing, so the whole decision stays reversible, not just the import.

Read the guarantee →

04 · Side by side

The honest comparison

Swipe sideways for the full table →

Category
SightSpec
HomeGauge
Price per seat

$79/mo, or $63/mo billed annually.

$89/mo after a 30-day trial. No annual or per-seat price published.
Where you work

One device — the whole inspection is completed and published from the phone.

Windows desktop writer (Mac via Parallels) plus a Companion app that collects data in the field to finish at the desk.
Offline support

Offline-first; every field action saves on the device first and syncs later.

The Companion app collects in the field; HomeGauge's published pages do not state its behaviour with no connection.
AI workflows

The photo drafts the finding — title, description and severity.

AI is offered through the Spectora web writer in the same family; the desktop writer's advertised strengths are customisation and report styles.
Report formats

PDF and web report from one inspection, plus a buyer hub scored area by area.

Multiple established styles — Narrative, Grid and others — with deep customisation built over twenty years.
Repair lists

Repair request builder inside the buyer hub.

CRL — buyers and agents build a repair list from the report and attach it to their repair addendum. Agents already know it.
Scheduling

Drag-and-drop day lanes, online booking and a subscribable calendar feed.

Online scheduler with real-time availability and direct booking from your website.
Who you're buying from

An independent product.

Part of the Spectora family — HomeGauge and Spectora are two workflows from one supplier.
Switching

Imports preview before they save and undo in one action; templates, comments and clients export on demand.

Published paths move data in, and between HomeGauge and Spectora; no export path to a third-party writer is documented.

Comparison reflects publicly documented capabilities as of 2026. HomeGauge is a trademark of its owner; this page is for factual comparison only.

  • Features

    HomeGauge's desktop depth is real, and hard to replicate

    HomeGauge leads

    Twenty years of customisation shows: multiple report styles, a deeply editable comment library, online agreements, report lock until payment, an industry forms library and the CRL repair list agents already know. SightSpec does not enable payments in the current release. On feature surface, HomeGauge leads.

    SightSpec
    One platform on every paid plan — offline-first field capture, desktop operations, AI drafting, PDF and web reports, and a scored buyer hub. Plans differ on volume and seats, not on capability.
    HomeGauge
    Desktop report writer with multiple report styles (Narrative, Grid and others), credit card processing, online agreements and signatures, report lock until payment, a forms library including NPMA-33 and Florida wind mitigation, and the CRL repair list.

  • Pricing

    Close enough that the published numbers do not decide it

    Depends on your business

    HomeGauge lists $89/month after a 30-day trial and publishes no annual price and no per-seat rate. SightSpec Pro is $79/month, or $63 billed annually. At one seat the gap is small; beyond one seat there is nothing published to compare against, and we will not estimate a price a vendor has not stated.

    SightSpec
    Solo is free; Pro is $79/month ($63/month billed annually); Team is $149 ($119 annual) with 3 seats and Scale $299 ($239 annual) with 8 seats. Additional inspectors are $39/month.
    HomeGauge
    $0 to start and $89/month after a 30-day free trial, for new customers. No annual price and no additional-inspector rate are published.

  • Mobile workflow

    Finish on the phone, or finish at the desk

    SightSpec leads

    HomeGauge's classic writer is Windows desktop software — Mac users are directed to Parallels — paired with a Companion app that collects data in the field so the report can be finished and formatted on the desktop. That is a two-device workflow by design. SightSpec completes and publishes the report from the phone, which is a different day.

    SightSpec
    Mobile-first: the whole inspection is completed on the phone — camera, voice and severity as you go — with no desktop step required to finish.
    HomeGauge
    The classic desktop software runs on Windows (Mac via Parallels or similar), and the Companion app on Android and iOS collects data in the field; the report is then finished and formatted on the desktop.

  • Reporting

    HomeGauge's report formats are deeper and better known

    HomeGauge leads

    Multiple report styles, a comment library shaped over years, and CRL — a repair list buyers and agents build straight out of the report and attach to a repair addendum. In markets where agents already work that way, that is a genuine advantage and switching away from it has a real cost.

    SightSpec
    Both deliverables from one inspection: a PDF report and a shareable web report, plus a buyer hub scored area by area, delivered branded with no app and no login.
    HomeGauge
    Multiple report styles including Narrative and Grid, cloud-based report delivery through an inspector dashboard, and the CRL tool letting buyers and agents create a repair list from the report and attach it to their repair addendum.

  • Scheduling

    Both ship online booking

    Evenly matched

    HomeGauge ships an online scheduler with real-time availability and direct booking from your website; SightSpec ships online booking plus drag-and-drop day lanes and a subscribable calendar feed. Neither is clearly ahead for a solo inspector, and SightSpec's automated client confirmations are not enabled in the current release.

    SightSpec
    Drag-and-drop day lanes on the desktop schedule, online booking, and a subscribable calendar feed any calendar app can read.
    HomeGauge
    An online scheduler sharing real-time availability for direct client bookings from the inspector's website, with automated contract creation and scheduled emails.

  • AI

    AI is on the other writer in the family

    SightSpec leads

    HomeGauge's own software page presents two report writers: the Spectora web writer, whose advertised AI is comment assistance, and the HomeGauge desktop writer, whose advertised feature list is customisation, report styles and the Companion app. SightSpec drafts the finding from the photograph on the device you are already holding.

    SightSpec
    AI reads the photograph: a captured image drafts the finding's title, description and severity for you to accept, edit or undo. Voice notes become report writing. AI is included on every paid plan rather than metered per seat.
    HomeGauge
    HomeGauge's software page offers two writers — the cloud-based Spectora report writer and the classic HomeGauge desktop report writer, whose advertised strengths are detail, customisation, multiple report styles and the Companion app.

  • Offline

    Not comparable on what either vendor publishes

    Depends on your business

    HomeGauge's Companion app exists to collect data in the field, but HomeGauge does not publish how it behaves without a connection. SightSpec is offline-first by construction. We are not going to score a dimension on an absence of documentation, so this stays open — ask HomeGauge directly, and get the answer in writing.

    SightSpec
    Offline-first by construction: every capture is written to on-device storage and queued, so a field action completes with no network at all and replays when signal returns.
    HomeGauge
    The Companion app collects data in the field on Android and iOS; HomeGauge's published pages describe the field-to-desktop workflow without stating the app's behaviour when there is no connection.

  • Integrations

    HomeGauge sits inside a wider ecosystem

    HomeGauge leads

    ISN names HomeGauge among the report writers its back office works with, and HomeGauge ships its own payments, agreements and website services. SightSpec's vendor connections are import mapping presets for export files, not live integrations, and we publish no marketplace.

    SightSpec
    Import mapping presets for the major vendors' export files, plus a subscribable calendar feed. SightSpec does not publish a general third-party integration marketplace.
    HomeGauge
    HomeGauge is one of the report writers ISN's back-office platform names as compatible, alongside Home Inspector Pro, Palmtech and Spectora.

  • Migration

    The comment library comes over, and the import reverses

    SightSpec leads

    The hard part of leaving a desktop writer is the comment library, which is where a decade of judgement lives. SightSpec imports a HomeGauge export behind a mandatory preview, and the import can be undone in one action. HomeGauge publishes no export path out to another vendor.

    SightSpec
    Templates, comment library, clients and schedule import in about 30 minutes behind a mandatory preview step, and any import can be undone — the undo deletes exactly what the import created.
    HomeGauge
    HomeGauge's published pages describe importing into HomeGauge and moving between HomeGauge and Spectora within the family; they do not document an export path to a third-party report writer.

Choose SightSpec if

You want the report finished before you leave the driveway rather than at the desk that evening, you work where signal is unreliable, and you are not tied to a Windows machine.

Where SightSpec falls short

  • Invoicing and card payments are not switched on in the current release, so getting paid still happens in your existing tool.
  • No published third-party integration marketplace — vendor imports are mapping presets for export files, not live API connections.
  • The export covers templates, the comment library and clients; a full report-and-photo archive export is not available in one action today.
  • We are the newest product on this list, with the smallest installed base and the shortest track record.
  • Automated client and agent email — confirmations, digests, calendar invites — is not enabled in the current release.

Choose HomeGauge if

You value deep customisation and a classic collect-in-the-field, finish-at-the-desk workflow on Windows, and your agents already use the CRL repair list — a workflow worth protecting.

What HomeGauge does well

  • Over twenty years of report-format depth: multiple styles, deep customisation, and a comment library inspectors have shaped for years.
  • CRL — buyers and agents build a repair list straight from the report and attach it to their repair addendum. Agents already know it.
  • A complete business layer alongside the writer: payments with report lock, online agreements and signatures, scheduling and websites.

Methodology

Every competitor claim on this page was read from the vendor's own published pages on 9 August 2026 and recorded with the exact wording. No claim comes from a review site, a listicle, or a competitor's own comparison page — including ours. Prices are treated as expiring after 90 days and are re-checked on that schedule. Verdicts are argued per dimension and a competitor wins wherever its documentation supports it; three verdicts on this page moved in the competitor's favour when we did the research. SightSpec's side is limited to behaviour that ships enabled by default; capabilities still behind a flag are excluded even where our own marketing mentions them.

Primary sources

Last verified 2026-08-09. HomeGauge is a trademark of its owner; this comparison is for factual comparison only.

05 · FAQ

Common questions

Is HomeGauge the same company as Spectora now?
HomeGauge's own pricing page answers "Who owns HomeGauge?" with "HomeGauge is now part of the Spectora family", and its software page is headed "A Spectora Company". They stay two genuinely different workflows — but they are not two independent suppliers.
Where is HomeGauge genuinely better?
Report-format depth and CRL. Twenty years of styles and customisation is real, and the Create Request List — where buyers and agents build a repair list straight from the report — is a flow agents in many markets already know. Switching away from it has a cost worth counting.
Will my comment library survive the move?
Yes — your Export Comments file rebuilds it in minutes, editable in SightSpec, and you preview everything before it saves.
Do I have to give up the desktop?
No — SightSpec has a full desktop business OS for the office. The difference is the field work no longer waits for the desk.
Can I get my data back out?
Templates, comment library and clients export on demand in open JSON and CSV. A full report-and-photo archive export is not available in one action today; it's listed among our limitations below.

Still on HomeGauge? We built a Lifeboat.

Your Export Comments file rebuilds your library in minutes — then inspect from your phone.

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