What Changed in Inspection Software Since 2025
Spectora bought HomeGauge, AI became table stakes, and Horizon is retiring. What actually changed in the inspection software market, with specifics.
The inspection software market changed more in the last eighteen months than in the previous ten years, and most of it happened without much announcement.
If you last evaluated your software before 2025, several of the assumptions you made then are no longer true. Here is what actually changed, with the specifics, so you can decide whether any of it affects you.
AI stopped being a differentiator and became table stakes
Two years ago, "has AI" was a reason to choose a platform. It is not any more, and any comparison telling you a major vendor lacks AI is working from old information.
Spectora made AI Comment Assist free to every user in June 2026. Palmtech ships an AI Image Defect Detector and a Comment Helper in Palmtech 11, included at no extra charge. ISN has a Comment Helper. Several smaller platforms have added photo analysis and voice-to-text.
What still differentiates is where the AI engages. Most of these tools improve what you have already typed. That saves an editing pass. The smaller number that produce report content from voice and photos remove the data entry step instead, which is a different order of saving because typing was never the expensive part of the evening.
Binsr Pro sits in the second category, with five shipping AI capabilities: AI Voice and Photo Quick Add, AI Image Annotations, AI Galleries, AI Instructions and Combine Comments with AI.
The useful question for any vendor is no longer whether they have AI. It is whether their AI engages before or after your data entry.
The market consolidated
Spectora acquired HomeGauge in April 2025. HomeGauge's own site is now branded as a Spectora company.
This matters for anyone building a shortlist, because two names that look like independent alternatives are one company. If you are leaving Spectora and considering HomeGauge, you are not leaving.
Palmtech and ISN are both owned by Porch. That is another pairing worth knowing about when you think you are comparing two independent vendors.
Horizon is retiring, and a lot of inspectors have to move
Carson Dunlop has announced that Horizon retires on December 15, 2026, and is directing users toward Spectora.
If you are on Horizon, this is the one item on this page with a deadline attached. Export your templates and comment library now and keep an independent copy, before you evaluate anything. Your library is worth more than the subscription, and a migration under time pressure is where libraries get lost.
Since you are paying the switching cost regardless, it is also the one moment when evaluating the whole market makes more sense than taking the recommended path by default.
Pricing models diverged
The category used to be roughly one shape: a monthly subscription per seat. It is now at least three.
Per seat, flat. HomeGauge and Home Inspector Pro at $89 per month. Palmtech at $50 per user.
Per seat plus per inspection. Spectora at $109 with its Advanced add-on at $4 per published inspection. Binsr at $75 per inspector with Pro adding $4 per completed inspection.
Per inspection only. ISN, tiered at $7.25 for the first 50 each month, $5.50 for the next 50, and $3.75 from 101 to 150. Tap Inspect at $7.50 per job.
The consequence is that "which is cheaper" no longer has a general answer. It depends on your volume, and the ranking genuinely inverts. At low volume a per-inspection model wins; at higher volume a flat subscription does.
The AI bill is arriving
This is the change nobody advertises, and it is worth thinking about before your next renewal.
AI has a real per-use cost to the vendor. Every generated comment costs them something, and that cost scales with how much you use it.
Most platforms have not priced that in. They added AI to an existing subscription without changing the subscription. That is pleasant now and unlikely to hold, because the economics do not work at scale. A low headline price with AI bundled in is a bill deferred rather than a bill avoided.
Binsr prices it openly instead: $4 per completed inspection on Pro, visible on the invoice from day one. Whichever approach you prefer, ask any vendor directly what happens to their pricing as AI usage grows. A vendor who has already answered that is one whose costs you can plan around.
What has not changed
The inspector still makes every call. AI cannot enter the crawlspace, operate the equipment, or carry the professional liability for a judgment about whether something is a defect. It does not know your state's standards of practice or your local code.
The thing it changes is the distance between your judgment and the client's understanding of it. That distance used to be measured in evenings.
Two cautions worth holding onto. These systems produce fluent text that can be wrong, and a fabricated detail in a legal document is a real problem, so read what the software wrote every time. And a report that is fast but vague is worse than a slow one; speed only counts if the finished report is at least as clear and defensible as what you produce today.
What to do about any of this
If you are on Horizon, start now. You have a deadline.
If you last evaluated before 2025, your assumptions about who has AI and what things cost are probably out of date, and it is worth one afternoon to check.
If you are happy where you are, none of this is a reason to move. Switching costs are real, and a workflow your team runs well has value that does not show up on a comparison chart.
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