Strandr vs LightQuoter: Prices, Measuring and the Gaps

What does each one cost over a season?#

Strandr is a flat $197 a year. LightQuoter's free plan signs one job a season, so a working shop pays for Season or Annual. Season is $79 a month from September to January and $9 a month from February to August, $458 for a full year, with cards at about 3.4 percent plus 30 cents all-in, about half a point over Stripe's standard 2.9 percent. Annual is $397 a year with no LightQuoter fee on card payments. Cash and cheque payments recorded by hand carry no card fee. Accounts opened before the change keep a free founding plan with a 2 percent fee, shown here for comparison.

The Season column is $458 plus half a point of what you collect, so it is an estimate built on LightQuoter's "about" card rates. Annual is the cheaper LightQuoter plan at every volume over a full year.

The Strandr column is the honest catch. $197 buys the mockup only. If you quote from a spreadsheet, sign on paper and take e-transfer, Strandr is the cheapest stack there is. If you add a quoting app, a signing app and a payment link, add their bills to the $197 before you compare. LightQuoter's alternative page says most Strandr users run Jobber beside it; that is their claim with no source, so treat it as a guess, but the point stands that Strandr alone does not send an invoice.

How does each one make the mockup?#

Strandr works on a photo you upload. You drag the runs along the eaves, set colours and brightness, add decorations, and export a high-resolution image with no watermark. Their home page claims two minutes and I believe it. Projects save as .strandr files so a colour change later does not mean starting over, and it runs on a PC, Mac or tablet in a browser. Strandr's lighting design page lists permanent and architectural lighting in the same tool.

LightQuoter builds the mockup on Google Street View, with a day and night preview. The upside is speed: no site visit, no homeowner photo, the address is enough. The trade-offs are the ones that come with any borrowed picture. Street View is shot from the road, often at an angle, sometimes years old, and the imagery belongs to Google. Google's Maps terms restrict storing, modifying and building derived work from its imagery. I am not a lawyer and I am not telling you how LightQuoter's arrangement works. I am telling you to ask, because the mockup you send 300 homeowners sits on it.

How does each one measure the roofline?#

Neither one measures from the photo the mockup is drawn on. Strandr sends you to Inchr, a free tool it includes: set a reference length (their measuring guide uses a standard door at 80 inches), measure the runs, export "for reference," then upload the same photo to Strandr and place the lights. Two apps, and the footage rides between them in your head. Their guide tells you to add 10 to 15 percent for corners and routing, which is sound.

LightQuoter traces the roofline on satellite imagery inside the app and applies a pitch adjustment. Satellite is a plan view, so a 20-foot run seen from above is 22.4 feet along a 6/12 slope (the slope factor for 6/12 is 1.118, plain geometry). That is what the pitch adjustment does, and it is only as good as your guess at the pitch. Anything under an overhang, behind a tree or on a gable end is hidden from above.

Both are estimates. I say the same about our own tool. Confirm on site before material is ordered, whichever app drew the number. The reference-object method, its foreshortening problem and the fixes are covered in our measuring guide.

Who prices, signs and collects the deposit?#

LightQuoter does all three. Per-foot pricing with install and takedown fees, 1, 2 and 3-year contracts, digital signatures, and Stripe payments are on the home page feature list, on every plan, with the free plan capped at one signed job a season.

Strandr does none of them, and does not claim to. The proposal export is a document the homeowner reads, not one they sign and fund. Strandr's pitch is that the mockup closes the job at the door, and for some shops it does. The homeowner still asks "how much," and the answer comes from somewhere else.

What happens after the sale?#

This is where the two products are furthest apart. LightQuoter lists a kanban job pipeline, crew scheduling and calendar, route optimization, seasonal takedown scheduling, renewals, Google review requests and an automated email system. For a seasonal shop with two crews, that is the November and January workload in one place.

Strandr has nothing after the export, by design. It is a design tool, and Strandr says so plainly on its own comparison post: "No built-in CRM or invoicing." If you run Jobber, Housecall Pro or a spreadsheet for the season, Strandr sits beside it and never touches it.

A season on each: a worked example#

Take a shop doing 40 seasonal jobs at $2,000 each, $80,000 for the season, with a 30 percent deposit on every job. Pick your own averages; the shape of the math is what matters.

Stripe's 2.9 percent plus 30 cents applies to LightQuoter either way and to any card payment anywhere, so it is left out. At $80,000 all-in, Season costs about $461 more than Annual; at deposits only, about $181 more. LightQuoter Free is not in the table because it signs one job a season. A shop still on a legacy founding account pays 2 percent instead: $480 on deposits only, $1,600 on everything. If you want to see what the $2,000 house itself looks like as line items, price it in the free tool and read the footage by run.

Mistakes installers make choosing between them#

From the switches I have watched:

• Comparing $197 to $0 and stopping. Neither number is the season's cost. Add the quoting and signing tools to Strandr, and remember LightQuoter Free signs one job a season, so the real LightQuoter number is $397 or more.
• Assuming the imagery is current. Street View and satellite dates vary by street. A new garage, a removed tree or a re-roof since the picture was taken changes the footage. Drive by or ask for a photo.
• Skipping the site check on a satellite trace. Overhangs, gable ends and returns hide from above. The pitch is a guess unless you have been on the roof. Confirm before ordering.
• Buying the all-in-one and never turning on the pipeline. LightQuoter's scheduling, routing and renewals are the reason to pay for a plan. If you keep running the season in a notebook, you paid $397 or more for a quoting tool.
• Forgetting the takedown line. Strandr will not remind you; it does not price. LightQuoter has a takedown fee field. Either way, the January visit goes on the quote or it comes out of your margin.
• Sending the customer a mockup with no number on it. The homeowner forwards it to a spouse, who asks what it costs. A mockup that carries the price gets a yes or a no; one that does not gets a "let me think."

When to choose Strandr#

Choose Strandr when the mockup is the sale and everything else already works. You have quoting you trust, a signing method, a way to take deposits, and you want the best-looking picture on a tablet at the door for the least money. Strandr also fits shops that sell permanent lighting on the picture, since it designs both in one tool. At $197 with a 30-day money-back window, the downside is small.

When to choose LightQuoter#

Choose LightQuoter when you want the whole seasonal loop in one app today and you are comfortable with satellite measurement and Street View mockups as the source. The free plan lets you quote and sign your first job at no charge. Past that, Annual at $397 costs less than a full year of Season and carries no LightQuoter fee on card payments. Shops with multiple crews get scheduling, routing, takedown planning and renewals without a second subscription. Record cash and cheques by hand to keep them clear of card fees.

Switching between them#

Neither vendor's pages describe an importer from the other. Strandr projects are .strandr files that hold placed lights; LightQuoter's traces, quotes and signed contracts live in its account. What moves is what you own: the photos of houses, your customer list, and your prices in a spreadsheet. Keep the old account readable until last season's balance invoices are paid.

Moving from LightQuoter to Strandr means finding a home for the quote, the signature and the deposit before you cancel, because Strandr has none of them. Moving from Strandr to LightQuoter means entering the rate card once, quoting three houses you already quoted, and checking the satellite footage against the tape on each one before you trust it for the season. Do either in August or January, not November.

The third way#

GlowBid is the tool I built because I wanted the mockup, the measurement and the price to be one drawing, on photos I own. You draw the runs by type on your photo, scale from a known length, and the footage, the bill of materials and the quote come from that same geometry. Every measurement carries a source tag and a confidence level, and the quote says it is an estimate confirmed on site. E-signature, Stripe deposit, invoices, three agreement types including multi-year seasonal leases, and on Pro the pipeline and follow-up texts. No Street View is ever saved or measured.

Core is $69 a month or $299 a year, with a 7-day trial and no card, 30-day money-back on a first yearly payment, and a yearly price that holds while the subscription stays continuous. The canvas is free to try now at glowbid.io/tools/roofline-measure, no login until export. Plans are on the pricing page. The longer version of the Strandr comparison is on the Strandr alternative page, the LightQuoter alternative page does the same for LightQuoter, and the best Christmas light installation software roundup puts the whole field in one table.