Coat to Close: painting contractor software, set up for you | Knetix IQ
For painting companies of 1 to 5 people

One system runs your back office, and it all fits in your phone.

Leads, estimates, crews, invoices and reviews in one account, so your day goes to your customers, not the paperwork and the chasing. Ask your own Claude what's running over or who's booked Monday. We build it around your shop and keep it running.

$399 a month for up to 5 users, 1 business phone number and 1 marketing website. One-time $199 set-up.

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Most estimates that go quiet were never a no.

Coat to Close follows up with your customer automatically and reminds you when it's time to call, so no estimate slips out of sight and out of mind. It stops when they say yes.

Wins 46% of the jobs it quotes. PCA's benchmark for a healthy painting business is 30 to 55%.

Live painting account, residential, May to October 2026.

You're running a painting company out of five apps that don't talk to each other.

A spreadsheet for estimates. A CRM for leads. A calendar for the crews. QuickBooks for the money. And your memory for the follow-up.

So leads wait. Estimates go cold after the walkthrough, which is where most jobs are lost. Crews show up at the wrong address. Nobody asks for the review. And each of those tools sends its own bill.

  • "I send the quote, get busy, and forget to follow up."
  • "The bank balance looks fine, but I don't know which jobs made money."
  • "Calls, forms, Facebook messages and texts land in different places."

Common painter complaints from industry research.

What it is

One system. Two layers.

Most software sells you a slice. Coat to Close gives you the whole platform plus the painting tools built on top of it, set up as one system around how your shop works.

Layer 1 · Built for painters

Room-by-room estimating, plan takeoff, a 12-stage residential pipeline and a separate 9-stage commercial pipeline, crew scheduling, job costing, review requests and the CTC IQ app on your phone.

Layer 0 · The full platform underneath

A business phone number with missed-call text-back, two-way texting, one inbox, email, a marketing website and funnels, Facebook lead ads, social posting to 9 networks, invoicing with online card payments and e-signature, and the automation that ties it together. One account instead of five.

One system replaces the phone provider, the CRM, the email tool, the social scheduler, the estimating software, the scheduling app, and the review tool.

The estimator

Price the job the way you paint it.

Other apps give you line items. This gives you rooms, walls, coats and gallons.

Room by room, at the kitchen table

Walls, ceilings, trim and doors against your own rates. Send before you leave the driveway.

Interior, exterior and cabinets in one quote

Exterior by elevation. Cabinet doors and drawer faces priced separately.

Your margin before you send

Labor, material, overhead and profit on every estimate, with labor shown in painter-days.

Buy the right amount of paint

Gallons pooled per product and rounded up once, the way you actually buy it.

Change your rates in 30 seconds

Estimates you already sent keep the prices they were built with.

Bid commercial off the plans

Load the PDF, set the scale, trace the walls. The rooms drop straight into the estimate.

A clean quote for the client, a spreadsheet for you

The client gets a professional quote; you get an Excel record of every estimate.

Watch a quote get built →
Your own Claude, on your own numbers

Ask your business anything, even from the truck.

Don't overpay others for AI. Bring your own Claude account and connect it right into the system as your field assistant. We provide the Knetix IQ instruction kit that connects it to your jobs, costs, crew schedule and pipeline. Ask which jobs run over, which lead sources close, or who is booked next week. Claude can book a crew, and it waits for your yes first.

"What keeps running over on my jobs?"

Labor, paint or sundries across finished jobs, biggest first.

"Which lead sources closed the most work this year?"

Close rate and job value by source.

"Email the Ramirez family that we start Monday at 8."

Drafted, sent through Knetix IQ when you say so, saved on their record.

"Put the Ramirez job on Alejandro, Monday to Wednesday."

It reads back the customer, address, crew and days, and books it only after you say yes.

What's included

Everything you need to run the business. Not everything you need to buy next.

Ten systems, one account, built and running from day one.

Lead capture

  • Website, funnel, internal-form and Facebook lead-ad leads land in the right pipeline automatically.
  • Missed-call text-back answers the call you couldn't take from a ladder.
  • Every lead gets a reply and you get a "call now" alert.

Estimate follow-up

  • Coat to Close follows up with your customer automatically and reminds you when it's time to call, so no estimate slips out of sight and out of mind. It stops when they say yes.
  • An alert when they open the estimate.
  • "Not yet" goes to a holding list with check-ins at 30, 60 and 90 days.

Pipelines

  • A 12-stage residential pipeline and a separate 9-stage commercial pipeline, each moving on its own.
  • Dashboards for today's work and for pipeline and revenue, including why jobs were lost.

Site visits

  • Booking sends a confirmation and a day-before reminder by text and email.

Crew scheduling

  • Book or change a job on the calendar and the crew lead gets a text.
  • Reminders two days, one day and the morning of.

Invoicing and payments

  • On the finish date you get a reminder to bill.
  • Clients pay by card online.
  • Late payers get a friendly reminder, then a firmer one, then you get a call task.
  • Payments sync to QuickBooks Online through Stripe.

Reviews

  • A check-in text after payment, then a Google review ask.
  • Unhappy answers come to you first.

Repeat work

  • A happiness email at one week and a referral ask at one month.

Texting that gets delivered

  • Carrier-registered business texting with opt-out handling and quiet hours.
  • Your own email sending domain.

The CTC IQ app

  • One app on your phone: Schedule, Estimate, Lead and Measure.
  • No app store.
Also in your account, set up with you

Call routing · call recording and transcription (per-minute usage rates apply) · 2-way SMS/MMS · unified inbox across SMS, email, calls, Messenger, Instagram DM, Google Business, WhatsApp · email marketing · social planner for 9 networks · funnel and website builder · forms and surveys · online booking calendars · full CRM with smart lists and custom fields · visual pipelines · workflow automation · invoicing and estimates · documents, contracts and e-signature · Google and Facebook reviews in one place · reporting and attribution dashboards · iOS/Android mobile app.

$399 a month. Up to 5 users.

The whole platform and the full painting build for one price: up to 5 users, 1 business phone number and 1 marketing website, plus a one-time $199 set-up. Owner, crew leads and office help all sign in.

$399/mo
Everything above. Up to 5 users.
  • Up to 5 users included
  • 1 phone number and 1 marketing website
  • No feature tiers
  • The estimator is included
  • One-time $199 set-up

What you'd have to stitch together otherwise.

PaintScout

A good painting estimator that stops at the estimate. No phone, no marketing, no reviews.

Jobber & Housecall Pro

Solid field-service apps with generic line-item quotes, and marketing on higher plans or as add-ons.

A do-it-yourself build

The same platform underneath for less, and it arrives empty. Every workflow, the estimator, the calendar and the app are months of work. Coat to Close is that work, done.

See the full comparison ↓
Capability Coat to Close PaintScout Jobber Housecall Pro DIY build
Painting-specific estimatingNativeNativeNoneGenericNone
CRM & sales pipelineNativeAdd-onNativeNativeNative
Crew schedulingNativeAdd-onNativeNativeAdd-on
Invoicing, payments, e-signNativeAdd-onNativeNativeNative
Marketing automation & socialNativeNoneAdd-onNativeNative
Reputation / reviewsNativeNoneNativeNativeNative
Native phone / call routingNativeNoneNoneAdd-onNative
Field app for paintersNativeNoneNativeNativeAdd-on
QuickBooks 2-way syncNativeAdd-onNativeNativeAdd-on

Like having someone watch every detail of your business.

It works in the background every day so nothing slips between the lead and the payment.

81% of jobs under $2,000 won. Only about 1 in 10 over $10,000, which showed where to grow.

42% reply rate on a short "still thinking it over?" email. The longer one got 12%.

Dozens of automations running from lead to review.

Receipt photos read themselves: vendor, lines and tax filled in, checked against the total.

Results from a live painting account, May to August 2026.

What's coming (and isn't here yet).

We'd rather tell you than let you find out.

  • Geofence-triggered automation: V2.

Questions

Do I have to set anything up?

No. We build your pipeline, automations, website and app, load your prices and keep it running.

Will my crews need to learn an app?

No. The crew lead gets a text with the job details when you book it.

How many people can use it?

Up to 5 sign in at the one price: owner, crew leads and office help.

Does it replace QuickBooks?

No. Payments run through Stripe and sync to QuickBooks Online, so your bookkeeper sees everything without re-keying.

What if I lose signal on a job?

The estimate you're building stays on your phone. Save or send it once you're back online.

Do I need a Claude account?

Yes, for your field assistant. Bring your own Claude account and we connect it right into the system, so it can answer questions about your jobs, costs and pipeline, draft emails and book crews. The rest of the system runs without it.

Does it work for commercial jobs?

Yes. Commercial has its own 9-stage pipeline, its own site-visit flow, commercial letterhead with project name and PO number, and takeoff from the plan set.

Do I own it?

Yes. Your account, your web address, your data. No other company sees your jobs.

See a lead become a paid job in 20 minutes.

We'll walk you through a real account: a lead coming in and getting answered, an estimate going out, a crew getting booked, an invoice getting paid, then what the job made.

$399 a month for up to 5 users · one-time $199 set-up · no obligation

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