Most inspection apps look the same in a demo over office Wi-Fi: a form, some photos, a PDF at the end. The differences show up in a plant room with no signal, in month three when a client disputes a report, and on the invoice when a "per user" price meets a team of occasional inspectors. These are the questions worth asking any vendor, Saundy Inspect included, before you commit.
1. Does it work with no signal at all, including submit?
"Works offline" usually means the form survives a dropped connection. Ask the harder question: can a surveyor download the day's jobs, complete every form, take every photo, collect a signature and press submit with the phone in flight mode, then have it all upload itself later? If submitting needs a connection, the day's paperwork isn't done until the surveyor is back in coverage.
Saundy Inspect is offline-first: jobs download ahead of time, everything including submit works with no signal, and an outbox syncs when coverage returns.
2. Who controls the templates?
If every change to a checklist is a support ticket, the app will drift away from how your firm actually inspects. You want a template builder you can use yourselves: sections, question types, reusable option lists, and conditional questions that only appear when they're relevant. A standard library to start from is a bonus, not a substitute.
3. Where do photos end up?
Photos should attach to the answer they evidence, not to the inspection as a whole, and certainly not to the camera roll for sorting later. On block inspections, ask whether one photo can cover several units without being uploaded several times.
4. What happens when a report needs changing?
Every report gets amended eventually. Ask whether the app issues a new version alongside the old one, or overwrites it. Ask whether the original stays available. Ask whether re-issuing a report costs another credit. In Saundy Inspect every submit is a numbered version, nothing is overwritten, and amendments are free.
5. Are defects records, or lines in a PDF?
A finding that only exists in a report is a finding nobody follows up. Look for a defects register where a flagged item becomes a tracked record with a lifecycle: raised, signed off, reopened with a reason, every event on an audit trail. Check whether a defect in a shared area can span several units and be closed once.
6. How is it priced, and what does an occasional user cost?
The three common models are per report, per user seat, and per unit or plot. Each suits a different firm. The trap is a per-seat price with a minimum seat count, where the surveyor who does four inspections a month costs the same as the one who does forty. Ask for the whole price list, in writing, and ask what happens when usage goes over the plan.
Saundy Inspect publishes the first two: from £6 per report in packs that never expire, and £45 per inspector per month with everything included and no minimum. For estates, Programme is priced per plot per year with unlimited inspectors and quoted for your portfolio. There is no metered overage on any plan.
7. Can you get your data out?
Your reports and your inspection data are yours. Check that reports are standard PDFs you can keep, that you can export your data, and that the vendor's terms say what happens to it if you leave.
8. Will it talk to the system you already run?
If you have a property, policy or claims system, you don't want to re-key sites into an inspection app and re-key results back. Ask for an API and webhooks: your system creates the sites and books the inspections, the app handles the inspection, and the finished report lands back automatically.
9. Can you try it on a real job before paying?
A demo proves the vendor can use the app. A trial on your own templates, on a real site, in the places your surveyors actually work, proves you can. Ask for one without a card, and check the trial isn't capped so low that you can't finish a genuine inspection.
Try the questions on us
Saundy Inspect runs in any browser and as an offline-first Android app, with iOS on the way. Start a free 14-day trial with unlimited reports and no card, take it somewhere with no bars, and see how it answers the nine questions above.