Best site diary apps for solo UK contractors (2026)

I asked the subcontractors on my site what they use to write their daily reports. Every single one of them said the same app. Not the system the main contractor makes them use — their own one, on their own phone, paid for out of their own pocket.

That told me something the software companies don't put on their websites: most site diary software is priced and built for teams, and the person actually writing the diary is usually on their own. A site manager, a supervisor, a foreman, a one-man contracts manager. One person, one phone, own card.

So this is a guide for that person. Not for a company rolling something out to forty users. For you, on your own, wanting the day written down properly before you forget it.

Full disclosure up front: I built one of the apps in this comparison. I'm a working senior construction manager and I built Site Pal because I got sick of typing diaries at eight at night. I've tried to be straight about what it doesn't do, and there's one recommendation below that isn't mine — because for some people it's genuinely the right answer.

The thing nobody tells you about the pricing

Here's what a single person actually pays, per month, for the main options:

Look at the gap. Below about £20 you get a form you fill in yourself. Above it you're into hundreds a month for a team licence you don't need. There is almost nothing in the UK market built for one person who wants the diary actually written for them.

That gap is the whole reason I built what I built.

What each one actually does

Prices tell you half the story. Here's the other half — the features that matter when you're the one person writing the record.

Read that top row again. Six apps, and one of them writes the entry for you. Everything else on the market gives you a better form to fill in yourself.

The row worth a second look is "nothing to download." Every other app on this list needs an App Store trip, an install and an update every few weeks. Site Pal opens in the browser you've already got — and on iPhone you add it to your home screen and it opens full screen, no address bar, exactly like an app. If you're standing on a site with two bars of signal and a job to get back to, that's the difference between using it today and meaning to look at it later.

And the honest column: no custom forms, and Excel export isn't there yet. If you need those today, buy something else.

Site Pal — £19, and the diary writes itself

Full disclosure again: this is mine.

Take a photo of the works. Thirty seconds later there's a diary entry — activity, number of operatives, PPE, housekeeping, GPS, weather, timestamp. You edit anything that's wrong and export a branded PDF. No form, no typing, no eight-o'clock paperwork.

Walkthrough Mode is the bit people don't expect, and it's AI end to end. Start it, walk the job, talk as you go. The AI transcribes what you said, works out what it means, and writes it up as a client-ready survey or progress report — photos, GPS, timestamps, the lot. A report that would take you an hour at the kitchen table takes minutes. Walking a job to price it? Send the report with your quote and you're the one who showed up with paperwork.

It's construction-only, and that's the whole point. It knows the difference between a brick and a block, it transcribes chalk and paint markings verbatim rather than guessing at them, and it writes in the words you'd actually use. That comes from thousands of terms I've fed it over eleven years in fit-out — it isn't a generic tool with "construction" in the title.

There's also a programme upload and commercial delays register, so a delay gets recorded against the actual programme date rather than a note in your phone. Nothing else at this price does that.

There's also on-site sign-off. Hand the phone to the client's rep or the main contractor's site manager, they print their name, their position and sign with a finger, and it's locked into the report with the date, time and GPS. Nobody can edit it afterwards — not even you. A record someone agreed to on the day is worth a great deal more than one you wrote up on your own.

£19 a month, flat. One price, any number of devices, any number of projects. 14-day trial, no card.

And it's built to sit alongside your company's system, not replace it. Every site manager I speak to on a tier one or two job is forced onto Field View or similar. Those systems are too heavy for a two-minute diary — that's exactly why you need something quick of your own. Then if something's disputed six months later you've got a dated, GPS'd, weather-logged PDF rather than trying to remember what the weather did in March.

What it doesn't do: Excel export isn't there yet. And there are no custom checklist forms — that one's deliberate: if you want a form builder, buy Dashpivot.

There's nothing to download, and that's on purpose. It opens in the browser you've already got. On iPhone, add it to your home screen and it opens full screen with no address bar, same as any app. No App Store trip, no install, no updates to chase.

If you're not ready to pay anything: Site Diary

Site Diary (Script&Go) has a genuinely free tier — "Shovel" — covering up to three projects. Not a trial, free. Daily entries, photos, weather, PDF export, and it works offline.

If you've never kept a written diary and you haven't got a budget, start there tonight rather than starting nowhere. A free record you actually keep beats a paid one you don't. Reviewers do report crashes and photo-upload problems, so check your entries are saving.

You'll outgrow it the moment you've got a fourth project, or the first week you notice you're still typing every entry by hand.

Site Audit Pro — the one everyone already has

This is the app my subbies named. It's been downloaded around 455,000 times, and that's not because of clever marketing — it's because it's cheap, it's in the app stores, and it does what it says.

What it's good at: simple, fast, form-based reports with photos and annotations. Cheap to start. Works across ten different industries, so it's flexible.

Where it falls down for construction specifically: it's generic by design. The ten-industry menu means nothing in it knows what blockwork is, or what a secant piled wall looks like, or that "housekeeping" means something specific on a site. And critically — you still type everything yourself. It gives you a better form. It doesn't fill the form in.

Watch the per-device pricing too. If you use a phone on site and a tablet in the cabin, you're paying twice.

Dashpivot (Sitemate) — the form builder

Dashpivot's real strength is that you can build any form you want, and there are hundreds of ready-made templates. If your problem is "I need seventeen different specific forms and none of the off-the-shelf apps have them," this is the answer.

Priced per user per month, starting around $32 and going up to $98. For one person that's £25–£75 a month depending on tier. 30-day trial with no card.

Honest read for a solo user: you're paying for a form-building platform when what you probably need is one form that fills itself in. Great product, wrong shape for one bloke on a site.

SymTerra — good software, wrong price for one person

From £250 a month, flat, unlimited users. That's genuinely reasonable for a team of twenty. For you on your own it's £3,000 a year for a site diary.

It's got real features — speech-to-text reporting, drawings, dashboards, supply chain. If you're a main contractor reading this, it's worth a look. If you're one person, it isn't for you and I'd be wasting your time pretending otherwise.

CompanyCam — American, photo-first

$63 a month for one user, billed annually, so it's a $756 commitment up front. Additional users $29 each. Note that their solo tier is labelled "For Solo & Small Teams" — even the pricing built for individuals assumes you'll grow into a crew.

It's photo documentation first: timestamped photos, auto-organised project history, offline sync, client updates, and it'll collect payments on site. That last bit tells you who it's really for — US trades contractors invoicing homeowners, not UK site managers writing contemporaneous records.

Good product. Different job.

Gather Insights — not for site managers

Worth mentioning so you don't waste an afternoon on it. Gather is aimed at QSs, project managers and commercial managers, and it's built around NEC4 compensation events and contract intelligence — catching things before the time bar. Pricing on application.

If you're a commercial manager, look at it. If you're the one walking the site, it's a tier above what you need.

How to actually choose

• Three projects, no budget → Site Diary, free tier. Start tonight.
• You want the cheapest paid option and don't mind typing → Site Audit Pro. Check the per-device pricing.
• You need lots of custom forms → Dashpivot.
• You've got a team of fifteen or more → SymTerra.
• You're a QS or commercial manager chasing compensation events → Gather.
• You want the diary written for you off a photo, and you're one person paying your own £19 → Site Pal.

The one thing I'd say regardless of which you pick: keep the record. A dated, timestamped, GPS-logged entry with a photo is worth more in a dispute six months later than the best memory on site. Whichever app makes you actually do it every day is the right one.

Prices checked 6 August 2026 from each vendor's published pricing where available. Where a price came from a third-party source, that's noted. If any of this is out of date or wrong, email sitepalapp@outlook.com and I'll correct it — including the columns that don't flatter me.

Changelog

• 22 August 2026 — Site Pal now works offline for diary and walkthroughs; offline removed from the list of gaps.
• 8 August 2026 — Site Pal added on-site signature capture; signatures row updated from not yet to yes.
• 6 August 2026 — first published