In the age of digital, distributors are seeking ways to get closer to their customers. Consider, if you have an electronic connection, and ideally an integration, with your customer, the relationship is deeper and you are building a moat around the customer. Your competition will still win some business (selected lines, locale, credit, perhaps price) but you win the dominant share … because you are a trusted partner.

Yes, sounds like nirvana but there are at least a dozen distributors in the roofing industry that are already doing this … connecting with over 30,000 customers!

And the opportunity is coming to the HVAC industry this fall.

Construct CRM offers CRM for contractors to help them operate their businesses better. The CRM isn’t just a contact management system. It also has quotation capabilities, ordering capabilities, field service management, project and delivery tracking and more. Essentially, everything a contractor needs except the billing / accounting functionality.

In partnership with their distributor clients, who white-label / private-label the platform, the system is free to contractors.

They shared more in this press release (which has been synopsized, at the end you can click for the full press release) The key for the HVAC industry is their roadmap:

Construct CRM: Entire US Roofing and Siding Industry Now Has Access to Free CRM+FSM Software

In the age of AI, Construct CRM brings the cost of high-quality contractor software to zero — empowering contractors, distributors, manufacturers, financial and intelligence partners to transact without friction from license fees

Construct CRM, the first software platform worldwide to offer distributor and manufacturer branded CRMs for residential and commercial contractors, announced that free CRM and field service management (FSM) software is now accessible to the entire United States roofing, siding and exteriors industry. Through its growing network of distributor … now live across more than 150 branches in the United States serving over 30,000 exterior contractors — and through RoofEdgeCRM.com, the first agentic-run CRM, in markets without a nearby distributor partner, no roofing contractor in America is left without access to a professional-grade CRM at no cost.

“Our mission is simple: democratize access to high-quality software by bringing its cost to zero,” said Santo J. Leo, CEO and Co-Founder of Construct CRM. “In the age of AI, there is no reason a contractor, an independent distributor, or a manufacturer should be priced out of the tools that make them more competitive. We built a model where great software is free for the people who do the work — and the industry pays us only when we create real value. We have ushered in the new era of software, where software revenue comes from outcomes, not access.”

Generating $10M in Monthly Sales!

The Construct CRM Platform is already seeing millions in monthly digital estimating, payments and financing volume and surpassed $10m in monthly online material sales earlier this year. The Platform is on pace to finish the 2026 roofing season with an annualized run rate of more than $1b in sales. Construct CRM’s free software training team is onboarding more than 100 contractors per month.

Coverage for Every Contractor, in Every Market

Through Construct CRM’s distributor partners, contractors gain a fully featured, free CRM branded by the building products distributor they already buy from. Where Construct CRM does not yet have a white-label distributor partner within a ~50-mile radius of a branch, RoofEdgeCRM.com is now available directly, ensuring that every roofing and siding contractor in the country can access the platform.

Bid-to-Procurement: Built for Speed

Contractors gain access to bid-to-procurement features designed to compress the time between lead generation to estimate and order. The platform allows contractors to:

• Collaborate directly with branch staff on takeoffs and quote building
• Attach live material quotes to sales estimates for faster bidding
• Access saved order templates and reorder in seconds
• Order online 24/7/365
• Automatically calculate order quantities
• Track delivery or pickup status in real time

Unprecedented Speed to Quote

In select markets, instant roof estimating is available. Construct CRM expects to make property data available nationwide for an additional fee in markets this summer where a distributor partner is not yet available.

Financial Tools That Put Contractors First

Through Construct CRM’s financing partners, qualified contractors can give homeowners access to project financing with no dealer fee for credit profiles down to a 600 FICO score. Contractors also benefit from discounted card and eACH payment processing.

Connect Everything

Contractors can sync their data with virtually any third-party system, including bookkeeping, CRM, FSM, Google, and other data and lead sources.

Gateway: Supercharging the Distributor’s ERP

Construct CRM’s Gateway order management system features functionality that makes distributors transition embedded eCommerce effortless for contractors and branch staff alike:

• Instant material quotes, takeoffs, and templates with full property intelligence and measurement data, reducing ERP order entry to seconds
• Catalog tools including an AI PIM data finder, fuzzy search, item grouping by color and size, automatic swapping of brand and generic accessories, and more
• Analytics and reporting that help distributors track online ordering adoption at the branch and user level

With the Construct CRM implementation, distributors have access to turn-key private-labeled digital contractor tools that embed their catalog into the contractors estimating and business workflows for the optimal eCommerce experience vs. webstores, text, email, phone, and fax. Construct CRM also provides a turn-key digital playbook including learning management system, organization-wide training program, and continuous support – all at no additional cost. Construct CRM integrates with all major ERPs.

Expanding Across the Trades – HVAC in Q4!

Construct CRM is expanding its partnerships with distributors and manufacturers beyond roofing and exteriors into additional trades, including lumber and building materials (LBM), HVAC, electrical, plumbing, paint, and landscaping. Under Construct CRM’s outcome-based model, distributors and manufacturers pay only when the platform generates profitable orders. It plans to launch its first HVAC CRMs this fall.

The company’s distributor network already includes some of the largest independent building materials distributors in the country, with white-label CRMs including RichardsCRM.com. Others are in the full press release.

To learn more, or if you are interested in a partnership you can request a demo at www.ConstructCRM.com.”

Questions

After I received the press release I reached out to Santo with some questions. He shared much detail (reach out if you’d like a full copy) but, here’s some key additional input:

Q: What is the cost for a distributor or manufacturer to white label a platform to their customers?

We charge a one-time implementation fee that we typically rebate partly or entirely back against order fees to get you towards a net-zero investment over the term of the Software License Agreement. Aside from that we charged a fixed price order fee for orders over a minimum dollar amount. This way we are only paid for profitable orders. We never charge a %.

Q: What happens when a contractor buys from multiple distributors — which they inevitably do? Can they direct the order as they want? Can they integrate pricing and product information from multiple distributors, and if so, how many?

A distributor-powered CRM has the catalog of the distributor you signed up through fully integrated — that’s where the real-time, collaborative experience lives, all the way down to branch-level availability and job-specific pricing through the distributor’s ERP. For that fully embedded experience, the contractor chooses their preferred distributor.

They’re not locked out of the rest, though. A contractor can upload price books from other distributors, manufacturers, subcontractors, or their own internal price lists, build purchase orders from them, run property- and equipment-based calculations, and automate workflows like routing orders to the right place. There is no cap. So they can absolutely direct orders where they want — they just get the deepest, collaborative integration with the catalog they enrolled through, and a flexible upload-and-order experience with everyone else. It’s all better than 0, where they are at today.

Q: When an installation is private-labeled, does it come with that distributor’s product catalog? Customer-specific pricing? How do both get updated?

Yes. A distributor-powered CRM comes with that distributor’s catalog integrated, and pricing reflects the contractor’s real, customer-specific pricing — we leverage the distributor’s ERP APIs extensively, down to branch-level availability and job-specific pricing. Contractors also get preloaded template libraries that the distributor keeps current, with automatic product swaps when availability changes.

Q: How many distributors overall are (1) connected on your platform and (2) private-labeling? How many manufacturers are already private-labeling?

We have over a dozen distributors who sell to more than 30k active customers that are live and have been publicly announced and/or are actively enrolling contractors.

Thoughts

• While many consider CRM a bad word as it concurs thoughts of “busy work for salespeople”, the Construct CRM model appears to represent a value-added customer service that can strengthen, and increase, a revenue stream for a distributor.
• And, with the tool electronically quoting and accepting orders, it is also a productivity tool, thereby improving profitability and enabling business scalability.
• While yes, there may be more complexities to HVAC than in the roofing industry, there are also similarities in contractor needs and interactions. As a few companies engage with Construct CRM, the HVAC model will get refined, as needed. Early adopters will have an advantage.

Seems like a unique opportunity for companies that want to differentiate themselves and potentially “lock up” a customer.

Click here for the full press release and here to get Santo’s full response to my questions.