Scheduling Software for Home Inspectors
Your customer is usually the agent, not the buyer, and the agent is booking against a contingency deadline. Cartoply puts real availability in front of them, sizes the inspection by square footage, and routes the job to an inspector who covers that area and holds the right certifications.
The agent books whoever answers first
Home inspection is a referral business with a stopwatch attached. An offer goes under contract, the inspection contingency starts running, and the agent has a window — often seven to ten days — to get an inspector through the property and a report in hand. That agent is standing in a parking lot with a phone. If you cannot be booked in thirty seconds, they call the next inspector on their list, and once someone else is booked you are not just out one job. You are out that agent.
Then there is the sizing problem. A 1,300 square foot ranch and a 4,200 square foot 1962 build with a crawlspace and a detached garage are not the same appointment, but if both go on the calendar as "inspection" you are either finishing at 3pm with nothing to do or running 90 minutes long and calling the next client from the driveway. The details that determine the answer — square footage, year built, foundation, whether the utilities are even on — are exactly the details that never make it into a text message.
And add-ons are where the margin is. Radon, WDO, sewer scope, and mold are real revenue, and they get lost every time the booking happens in conversation instead of in a form. Cartoply moves all of it to the booking: the agent picks a time that is genuinely open, the property questions set the duration, the add-ons are checked at the moment of highest intent, and the job routes to an inspector who can perform it.
What Cartoply does for home inspection businesses
A booking an agent can finish at a red light
Turn on instant booking and your page skips the month calendar for a flat, day-grouped list of the soonest genuinely open times across every eligible inspector. The agent taps a slot, answers the property questions, and gets a confirmation they can forward to their buyer. No callback, no "let me check with my inspector," no window where a competitor gets there first. That speed is the entire competitive argument in a contingency-deadline business.
Square footage sets the block
Make size the thing that picks the appointment type. Under 1,500 square feet is one type at one duration and price, 1,500 to 2,500 another, 2,500 to 3,500 another, and over 3,500 another again. Ask year built and foundation type on top and price the older, crawlspace, or multi-unit variants accordingly. Buffers before and after every inspection reserve the drive and the report-writing block, enforced in both directions so the next slot an agent sees is honest.
Property intake before you pull up
Add up to ten questions per inspection type: full property address, square footage, year built, foundation type — slab, crawlspace, basement — number of units, occupied or vacant, whether the utilities are on, lockbox or access code, and the agent’s name, brokerage, phone, and email. Utilities off is the single most expensive surprise in this business, and it costs one required dropdown to prevent.
Prepay or pay at the inspection — your call
Put the full inspection fee on the appointment type and collect it through Stripe or PayPal at booking, or leave the type free to book and collect on site the way many firms still do. Payments are authorized first and captured only once the slot is secured, so nobody is charged for a booking that lost a race. Cancellations follow the cutoff you set — which matters when a deal falls apart the night before and the slot could have gone to someone else.
Territory and certification routing for multi-inspector firms
Give each inspector a service area by ZIP code, city, radius, or custom shape, and inbound jobs route to whoever covers that address against their live calendar. Then narrow further by what they are certified to do: answer-based routing means a booking with radon or a sewer scope selected only reaches the inspectors who hold those certifications. Shared coverage rotates fairly, so the inspector who has gone longest without a job gets the next one.
Confirmations that set the report expectation
Every confirmation and reminder email goes to the agent and the buyer with the address, the arrival window, what is included, and your report turnaround — same-day or within 24 hours, whatever you actually commit to. Each email carries a self-service reschedule and cancel link with a cutoff you set, so a closing date that moves does not become four phone calls. Google Calendar and Outlook stay in sync both ways.
Who at a home inspection business uses Cartoply
Solo inspectors
You inspect all morning, write reports all afternoon, and answer the phone in an attic. A booking page takes the calls you cannot take: the agent picks a real open slot, answers the property questions, adds radon or a sewer scope, and gets a confirmation. Your service radius, your daily cap, your minimum notice, and your report-writing buffer are enforced by the page instead of by you deciding on the fly whether you can squeeze in one more.
Start on the free plan. There is nothing to pay until you hire a second inspector.
Multi-inspector firms
Territories decide who covers which address, certifications decide who can take which add-on, and live calendar sync decides who is genuinely free. Fair rotation means your newest inspector fills up instead of your most senior one absorbing everything. New inspector certified for radon? Update their routing and the next radon job goes to them the same day, without a dispatcher rebuilding the board.
Pro runs $7/seat/month — $28 for a four-inspector firm, which is a fraction of one inspection.
The agents and brokerages who send you work
Agents are repeat customers who never sign anything. What keeps them is friction, or the absence of it. A link they can bookmark, availability that is real, a confirmation they can forward to a buyer in one tap, and a reschedule link when the closing date moves. Give a brokerage that experience twice and you become the inspector they type in without thinking.
See it set up for an inspection firm
We’ll configure square-footage-sized inspection types, radon and sewer add-ons, property intake, and territory routing — in 15 minutes.
Book a 15-minute demoHow to set up online booking for your home inspection business
Most inspectors go from signup to a live booking page agents can use in under 30 minutes.
- 1
Create your Cartoply account
Sign up free — no credit card required. Add your firm and invite your inspectors.
- 2
Connect your calendars
Connect Google Calendar or Outlook for each inspector. Cartoply reads live availability, so a report-writing block or a continuing education class never gets booked over.
- 3
Draw your service areas
Map coverage by ZIP code, city, radius, or a custom shape. Bookings route to whoever covers the property address, and addresses outside every territory never see open slots.
- 4
Build inspection types sized by square footage
Under 1,500, 1,500 to 2,500, 2,500 to 3,500, and over 3,500 — each with its own duration, price, buffer, and daily cap. Add types for condos, new construction, four-point, and pre-listing inspections.
- 5
Add your add-ons
Radon, termite and WDO, sewer scope, mold, pool and spa, well and septic — as their own inspection types where they need their own duration, or as questions on the main type where they extend an existing visit.
- 6
Add your property questions
Address, square footage, year built, foundation type, number of units, occupied or vacant, utilities on, lockbox code, and the agent’s contact details. Make utilities and access required — they are the two that ruin a morning.
- 7
Route by certification, then publish
Send radon and sewer-scope bookings only to the inspectors certified for them, connect Stripe or PayPal if you prepay, and put the link in your email signature, your website, and every agent’s phone.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best scheduling software for a home inspection business?
It depends what you are solving. If you want an all-in-one inspection platform — report writing on site, photo handling, agreements, invoicing, and a CRM built around inspection workflows — that is what Spectora, ISN, and HomeGauge are for, and their reports are the product. If your problem is the front end — agents who need to book against a contingency deadline from a parking lot, inspections that get blocked at the wrong length because nobody asked the square footage, add-ons lost in conversation, and jobs routed to inspectors who are not certified for them — that is the booking and intake layer, and that is Cartoply. It gives agents real availability in about thirty seconds, sizes the block by property, and routes by territory and certification. Plenty of firms run Cartoply for booking and keep their inspection platform for reports.
How do I set inspection length by square footage?
Make square footage the thing that selects the appointment type. Under 1,500 square feet might be two hours, 1,500 to 2,500 two and a half, 2,500 to 3,500 three, and anything over 3,500 a longer type at a higher price. Because the duration and price are attached to the type the agent picks, the slot they take is the slot you actually need. Ask year built, foundation type, and number of units as questions on top, and add buffers before and after so drive time and report writing are reserved rather than absorbed.
Can real estate agents book an inspection without calling me?
That is the point of the page. Send agents a link they can save, and they see genuinely open times — checked against every inspector’s live Google Calendar or Outlook — pick one, enter the property details, add radon or a sewer scope, and get a confirmation email they can forward to their buyer. Turn on instant booking and the page shows a flat list of the soonest available times instead of a month calendar, which is what an agent standing outside a house on a contingency clock actually wants. The reschedule link in the confirmation handles the closing date that moves.
How do I sell add-ons like radon, termite, and sewer scope at booking?
Two ways, and most firms use both. Where an add-on has its own duration, price, and equipment — radon with a monitor placement and retrieval, or a sewer scope — make it its own inspection type so it is scheduled honestly. Where it simply extends a visit, add it as a question on the main inspection type with its own line. Either way the add-on is offered at the moment of highest intent, when the agent is already booking, rather than in a follow-up call that never happens. Add-ons selected at booking can then route to whoever is certified to perform them.
How do multi-inspector firms route jobs to the right inspector?
Two filters, applied in order. First territory: each inspector covers an area you draw as ZIP codes, cities, a radius, or a custom shape, and the property address decides who is eligible. Then certification: answer-based routing narrows the pool further, so a booking with radon selected only reaches inspectors who hold that certification, and a sewer scope only reaches the ones with the camera. Whoever is left is filtered by live calendar availability, and the job goes to the inspector who has gone longest without an assignment, so work spreads instead of piling on one person.
Should I take payment when the inspection is booked or at the inspection?
Both work, and Cartoply supports either. Collecting the full fee at booking through Stripe or PayPal effectively removes cancellations on deals that fall apart, and the payment is authorized first and captured only when the slot is secured. Collecting on site is still normal in this industry, especially with agent-referred work, and in that case you leave the type free to book and rely on your cancellation cutoff instead. A middle path is to prepay direct-to-consumer bookings while agent-booked inspections stay pay-on-site — they are separate appointment types, so you do not have to pick one policy for everyone.
Ready to be the inspector agents book first?
Start free. No credit card required.
Size your inspection types, add your property questions, and put bookable availability in every agent’s phone — in under 30 minutes.
14-day free trial — no credit card required. $7/seat/month after that.