Help center

1. On the home page, choose Get started free, fill in your details and choose Create account.
2. There’s no password. We email you a sign-in link; open it to sign in. Next time, go to Sign in, enter your email and choose Send sign-in link.
3. If your account needs a plan first, you’ll see Pick a plan (see Plans and billing).
4. The setup wizard walks you through Business, Service area, Branding, Inspections, Availability, Template and Recovery phrase. You can run it again later from your account menu with Run setup wizard. To change the states you serve later, go to Settings → Service area.

Your vault, the keys that encrypt and sign your reports, comes from 12 words that only you hold. We never see them and can’t reset them. If you lose them, nobody, including us, can recover them or the reports encrypted to them.

1. In the Recovery phrase step, choose Create my 12 words.
2. Read the warning, tick the box, type I UNDERSTAND, then choose Show my 12 words.
3. Write the words on paper. You can also choose Print a recovery sheet. Print it on paper; don’t save it as a PDF.
4. Choose I've written them down →, type the words you’re asked for from your paper, and choose Save and continue. To see the words again, choose Show my 12 words again.
5. Lock your vault on this device: choose Use fingerprint, face or screen lock. If you choose Not now, your vault stays open for this session only and you’ll enter your 12 words next time.

Already have 12 words from an earlier setup? Choose I already have one, enter them and choose Restore vault.

Keep the paper somewhere safe and private. Never send your 12 words to anyone, including our support team. We never need them.

You always sign in with an emailed link. Separately, each device keeps your vault locked until you unlock it.

• When the app asks, choose Unlock with passkey.
• On a new device, or when your passkey isn’t available, the app asks for your 12 words. Choose Use my recovery phrase if you’re offered it, enter your 12 words, and choose Unlock with phrase (or Restore vault during setup).
• To change how this device unlocks, or to take your vault off a device you no longer use, go to Settings → Vault on this device and choose Change unlock method or Remove my vault from this device….

As an inspector, you always lock your vault with a passkey, because your vault signs your reports. Your clients can choose Use a password instead to set a device password, which never leaves their device. A client who forgets it chooses Forgot your password? Use your 12 words.

1. From Today or Jobs, choose ＋ New inspection.
2. Choose the Inspection state, then an Inspection template. If there’s no template for that state yet, choose Build one.
3. Enter your client’s details. Their Email is the account your report is delivered to, so make sure it’s right.
4. Enter the property’s Street address, set the Scheduled date / time and choose Create inspection.

1. Open the inspection and choose Open on-site →, or use On-site app in the sidebar.
2. Pick a section under Sections, then an item.
3. For a defect, pick a Severity: Safety, Maintenance or Monitor. Write a Comment, or insert one of your canned comments with Comments ▾. Add a Cost est. and Recommend if you need them.
4. Choose one of the item’s answers to save it, or ⚑ Flag later to come back to it.

Findings are encrypted on your device as you save them. Your vault has to be unlocked to save. If it’s locked, the app asks you to unlock it, and nothing you typed is lost.

No signal at the property? Keep working: everything is saved on your device, and photos upload once you’re back online. Until you send the report, your findings are kept, encrypted, only on the device you captured them on. Send the report from that device, and don’t clear the browser’s data for the app before you’ve sent it.

1. In an item, tap the ＋ photo tile. On a phone it opens the rear camera.
2. Each photo shows Queued or Uploading… until it reaches our servers. If one shows Failed, open it and choose Retry.
3. Open a photo to add a caption in Caption…, then choose Save. To remove a photo, choose Delete.

Captions are part of your encrypted report. The photo files themselves are not end-to-end encrypted; see how photos are stored.

• Go to Templates and choose ＋ New template. Pick From state, From SOP or SOP + state, give it a Template name and choose Create template.
• Use Edit to change a template’s contents, or Duplicate to start a copy.

1. Open the inspection and choose Start report → (or Open report → if you’ve already started one). Review your findings.
2. Choose Publish & deliver. This opens Sign & send report.
3. Check your client’s key fingerprint. See the next section.
4. If you like, add an Inspector note. It goes into the notification email as plain text, so it isn’t end-to-end encrypted. Keep findings out of it.
5. Choose Encrypt & sign →. Your browser encrypts and signs the report on this device and delivers it to your client’s account.
6. On Report delivered, choose Send email → to email your client that their report is ready.

Before your first send on a device, Sign & Send may ask you to finish setting up:

• Report signing isn't set up on this device: choose Enter recovery phrase and enter your 12 words. You only do this once per device. You can also do it from Settings → Vault on this device → Enable report signing on this device.
• If it asks you to protect your vault, choose Protect with passkey.
• Confirm your signing key — we emailed you a link: open the link in that email, then come back. You can’t send until your signing key is confirmed.

If you see Awaiting recipient, your client hasn’t set up their account yet, so the report can’t be sent to them. Ask them to look for their invitation email and set up their account, then choose Publish & deliver again.

Your client’s key comes from our server. The fingerprint check is how you make sure the report is encrypted to your client and nobody else.

1. The first time you send to a client, Sign & send report shows First delivery to this client and their key fingerprint.
2. Call or meet your client. Ask them to open Your reports in Home Inspection Vault and read you the fingerprint shown there.
3. If it matches, tick My client read me this fingerprint and it matches. If it doesn’t match, don’t send. Contact support.

After that, your browser remembers the key. If it ever changes, you’ll see Client's key has changed, and sending is blocked with Check your client's key before sending. This happens when a client resets their recovery phrase, and it’s also what an attempt to intercept the report would look like. Ask your client to read you the fingerprint on their Your reports page. Only if it matches the new key, tick My client read me the new fingerprint and it matches and choose Use the new key.

Your browser can’t tell whether the call happened. On a first delivery, that call is the only thing that can catch a key that isn’t your client’s.

Your client needs their own Home Inspection Vault account, the one for the email on the inspection. They sign in with an emailed link, just like you.

1. The first time, they create their own 12 words: Generate new, write them down, then Save and publish. They can lock their vault with a passkey or Use a password instead.
2. The email about a delivery asks them to sign in. Their Your reports page lists the reports you’ve delivered to them, newest first, and marks the ones they haven’t opened New. The recipient portal link shown to you after delivery opens a report directly, if you’d like to send it too. The same page shows Your key fingerprint, the code they read to you.
3. When they open a report, their browser checks your signature, the report and every photo before it shows anything. The report shows Signed by with your email, and they can download a PDF that’s made on their own device. A photo that doesn’t match what you signed isn’t shown.

Their browser remembers your signing key the first time it opens one of your reports. To be sure it’s yours, your client can ask you to read your signing fingerprint. You’ll find it under Settings → Vault on this device → Your signing fingerprint. They then tick My inspector read me this fingerprint and it matches. If a later report is signed with a different key, their browser holds it back until they’ve checked with you and chosen Trust this key.

If you send a report again for the same inspection, your client gets the new version as a separate delivery; the earlier one stays readable. Once they’ve opened the newer version, the earlier one tells them an updated version was sent, with Open the updated version.

You can revoke a delivery at any time while your subscription is active. Only the person who sent it can revoke it.

1. Right after you send, the Report delivered screen shows Revoke delivery. Choose it, then Yes, revoke. You’ll see Delivery revoked.
2. Later, open the inspection from Jobs. Its Deliveries card lists every report sent from it. Choose Revoke access next to the delivery, then Revoke access again to confirm. The delivery is then marked Revoked.

Your client can no longer open that delivery: they see Access revoked instead. A copy they’ve already opened or saved stays readable to them: revoking can’t reach into their device. You can’t undo a revocation.

Your 12 words can’t be recovered. If they’re lost, or someone else may have seen them, you can create a new vault. Reports encrypted to your old vault then become permanently unreadable unless you find the old words.

1. From your account menu, choose Run setup wizard and go to the Recovery phrase step. If this device still holds your old vault, the wizard asks you to remove it first: go to Settings → Vault on this device → Remove my vault from this device…, then run the wizard again.
2. Choose I've lost my recovery phrase, or someone else may have seen it — create a new vault.
3. If your account already has a signing key, answer Why are you replacing your recovery phrase?
   • I've lost it, and nobody else has seen it: reports you’ve already sent keep opening for your clients, with a note that your key changed.
   • Someone else may have seen it: pick this if you’re not sure. Your clients are warned before opening any report signed with your old key that they hadn’t already opened, so nobody holding your old words can pass a report off as yours.

   Your answer is signed with your new key. Nobody, including us, can change it, and you can’t change it later.

4. Tick I've lost my recovery phrase and understand my existing reports can't be recovered, choose Create a new vault, and set up your new 12 words.
5. Confirm your new signing key from the link we email you. You can’t send reports until it’s confirmed.

Your record of your clients’ keys is lost too, so each client’s next delivery asks you to check their fingerprint again. A client who is warned about a report signed with your old key can still choose Show this report anyway for that one report.

One plan with everything in it: $79 a month, or $869 a year (one month free). Team members are included at no extra cost. Every account starts with a 30-day free trial, and no card is needed until it ends.

• Your plan lives in the user menu under Billing & subscription, and in Settings → Billing. Both show the same thing: your current plan, its status and when it renews. During the trial they show Free trial with the days left and the date it ends.
• When your account needs a plan, you’ll see Pick a plan. Choose Choose Monthly or Choose Annual and pay through Stripe. We never see your card details. Only the account owner can subscribe.
• To update your card, download invoices or cancel, the account owner chooses Manage plan on the billing page. It opens Stripe’s billing portal, where all three are done. Other team members see the plan but can’t change it; ask the owner.
• If a renewal payment fails, the billing page says what went wrong, and you have seven days to fix it: every page shows a warning with the date it must be fixed by, and you keep working until then. The account owner chooses Update payment method and adds a new card in Stripe’s portal; we charge the open invoice to the new card automatically. Once the seven days are up, or if Stripe gives up on the payment sooner, creating and editing pause until the payment goes through: the app opens the billing page, and everything you’ve saved stays readable.
• If you cancel, you keep access until the end of the period you’ve paid for. Once a subscription has ended, the owner sees Subscribe again on the billing page; if the trial ended without a plan, the owner sees Subscribe instead. Both lead to Pick a plan. Everything you’ve saved stays readable either way.

Inside the app, press ? to see every keyboard shortcut.

Can’t find what you need? Contact support. To learn how your reports are protected, read about security.