Apps like Construction Master

Construction Master Pro is the app version of a calculator that framers have carried for decades, and Calculated Industries still sells that calculator, model 4065, at an MSRP of $74.95. The app is free to download and costs $39.99 a year after a 14-day trial. The three reviews Google Play showed first on 1 October 2026, written from July to September, are all about that one fact, and two of them come from people who own the hardware. The alternatives below split on the question those reviewers are asking: rent the math, or buy it once.

What each one costs, read off the listings

Read on 1 October 2026. Apple's column is the In-App Purchases row in each listing's Information section, expanded, which shows up to ten items with prices and no billing periods unless the item name gives one. None of the Google Play listings had an in-app items and offers section, so the Play column is the price on the Buy button or the badges.

The app passes its own calculator in year two

Calculated Industries prints an MSRP beside every calculator on its product line page and no price beside either app, so the comparison has to come from two places. Ours, from their figures:

Paying monthly instead costs $59.88 a year for Pro, which passes the calculator in the sixteenth month. None of this makes the subscription a bad deal for everyone. The app does things the calculator cannot: project notes, help videos on every key, Bosch GLM laser readings sent into a calculation on iPhone, and an AI assistant the iPhone listing calls Ask CMPro. The developer's replies make the same case. The subscription buys development, and the calculator buys the math.

One discrepancy is worth checking before you start. Both listings advertise a 14-day trial; the developer's replies to Google Play reviews on 28 July and 3 August 2026 offered 7 days. The screen that starts the trial is the one that binds.

The alternatives

Construction Master 5 Calc, the same math for less

The same publisher's other feet-inch-fraction model, with 13,000 App Store ratings of its own. Its subscription is $3.99 a month or $34.99 a year on Apple's list, $5 a year less than Pro, against $64.95 for the calculator it copies. The two listings name different function sets, so compare them key by key before choosing on price.

The Construction Master Pro calculator itself

Not an app, and the most honest alternative here. It is the device the app imitates, sold once at $74.95 MSRP, and several of the app's own reviewers say they carry one. It never needs a phone unlocked on the tool belt, which is the one drawback named in the first review the App Store shows.

Feet and Inches Calculator, by Winograd Apps

The broadest of the cheap options, on both stores: 1M+ downloads on Google Play, where it is called Feet & Inch Construction Calc. Beside the fraction keypad it lists stair stringers, rafters, pipe offsets, electrical tools, tile layout and a floor-plan takeoff. Google Play badges it Contains ads, and its upgrade can be $14.99 once, which Apple's listing promotes above the privacy panel. Its App Privacy panel declares Identifiers and Usage Data used to track you across other companies' apps.

Construction Calc, by Snappy Appz

A free Lite version with ads (500K+ downloads on Google Play) and a paid version with none, $7.99 on the App Store and $7.49 on Play. It lists 50 memory registers, miters, balusters, stairs and concrete, and works offline. Snappy publishes several near-identical listings on the App Store, including Construction Calc Pro and Construction Calc Pro 2 at $13.99 each, so check the name and the price before you buy the wrong one.

Construction Calculator, by xNeat

A clean feet-inch-fraction keypad in thirty-one languages, with stairs, rafters and arcs sold as add-ons or inside a subscription. Apple's list runs from $1.99 for Themes to $39.99, and the promoted slot offers monthly and yearly plans with a free trial. Its developer's reply to a 2024 review says ads were added to a once ad-free app. Its App Privacy panel reads Data Not Collected. A search of Google Play for it by name on 1 October 2026 found nothing.

Tape Calc, by witty apps

New and small, with 100+ downloads on Google Play, and the closest to the reviewers' ask: no ads, no subscription, exact fraction math to 1/64″, and a Data safety section reading No data collected. The plus key is free; area, volume and conversions are a one-time Pro purchase whose price the listing does not show.

Handyman Calc, ours

Free with ads and nothing to buy, on Google Play only for now. It holds every measurement as an exact fraction and rounds once, to 1/16″ unless you pick 1/8, 1/32 or 1/64 in Settings, beside fifteen material calculators from concrete to stair layout. The browser version is the same app with no ads, so you can try it before installing anything. It does not do hip, valley or jack rafters, compound miters or trig keys.

What these do better than ours

Construction Master Pro is the deeper calculator by a distance: irregular hips and valleys, crown angles, compound miters, full trig, laser input, and a key layout that matches the hardware people learned on, rated 4.8 from 40,000 App Store ratings. Winograd's covers trades ours ignores, electrical and pipe fitting among them. Tape Calc collects nothing and shows no ads, which ours cannot say. Snappy's paid version and Winograd's lifetime upgrade remove ads for a one-time price, and ours offers no way to pay them off. If you frame roofs every day, pay for Construction Master; if you add fractions on weekends, almost anything on this page will do.