Honest comparison
For UK small builders comparing HandsHQ alternatives, The Site Book is the clearest fit when you need more than RAMS. It covers RAMS, CPP, COSHH, inductions, toolbox talks, worker sign-off, plus Business site attendance, files, portal users, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions. Pricing is Starter £0, Pro £39/month or £360/year, Business £199/month.
HandsHQ is a genuinely good tool - but it's built for mid-to-large contractors with dedicated health and safety staff, and if your team is under twenty people you're probably paying for scale you don't use. This page is about downsizing from HandsHQ, not upgrading to it. The Site Book is the closest like-for-like for small builders because it is not RAMS-only: it covers RAMS, CPP, COSHH records, inductions, toolbox talks, worker sign-off, plus Business site attendance, files, portal users, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions. Haspod is the right downsize if you want a template library. RAMS Pro suits teams who only need the RAMS half. CDM Wizard is a free fallback.
Reviewed
Based on publicly available vendor pricing and documentation reviewed 2026-05-31.
Pricing, fit, and feature coverage side by side.
| Feature | The Site Book | Haspod | RAMS Pro | CDM Wizard |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Starter £0; Pro £39/mo or £360/yr; Business £199/mo | £799/yr (annual upfront) | Free; GBP15-45/mo | Free |
| Team size | 1 internal user on Pro; up to 5 internal logins and 25 active site portal users on Business | 1–50 | Small-mid | Any -small/domestic jobs |
| Best for | Small UK builders who need CDM documents plus lightweight site H&S operations: RAMS, CPP, COSHH, inductions, toolbox talks, site attendance, site files, document review evidence, subcontractor evidence and worker/visitor portal access. | Small-to-mid UK businesses (sole trader up to ~50 users) that prefer browsing a 800+ template library and customizing by hand, and are comfortable with annual-only upfront commitments. Documents / Training / Talks are sold as separate annual subscriptions or bundled in the Pro Plan. | UK contractors who want AI RAMS on a low monthly tier, with COSHH, inductions, inspections, toolbox talks, and other modules from Pro upward. | Builders on small or domestic works who want a free tick-box questionnaire that generates a compliant CDM 2015 Construction Phase Plan. |
| Not ideal for | New product (launched 2025) -smaller customer base and shorter track record than established tools like HandsHQ. | Annual-only billing with no monthly option and no automatic renewal -every plan requires a £799+VAT upfront commitment for 12 months, which is a heavy lift for sole traders testing the product. | Document and back-office user limits apply on the lower tiers, so growing teams need to watch usage and plan fit. | Scoped to a single CPP for small or domestic works — no RAMS, COSHH, method statements, inductions, permits or worker tracking. |
| RAMS | AI-generated, site-specific, edit in-browser. | Via template library | AI RAMS generator with monthly limits. | |
| CPP | Full Construction Phase Plans - not just RAMS. | Template | Pro/Enterprise module. | Questionnaire-driven Construction Phase Plan generator for small/domestic projects; emailable branded PDF. |
| COSHH | Standalone COSHH document + site-specific register, SDS upload with extraction, and an expert-reviewed substance library. | Template | Pro/Enterprise add-on module. | |
| Method statements | Template library | |||
| Site inductions | Workers sign from their phone - key H&S details readable in 9 languages. | Training Plan add-on | Pro/Enterprise add-on module. | |
| Multilingual inductions (9 languages) | Workers read and acknowledge key H&S details in 9 languages; the language used is recorded in the audit trail and translations are site-team reviewable. | — | — | — |
| Worker cert tracking | Cert plus right-to-work evidence records, with expiry reminders. | Training matrix on Pro/Enterprise. | ||
| Incident log | Accident records on Pro/Enterprise. | |||
| Permits to work | Template only | |||
| Site diary | Site logbook present in the app bundle. | |||
| Subcontractor tracking | Engineers and client contacts. | |||
| Toolbox talks | Talks Plan add-on | Pro/Enterprise add-on module. | ||
| Site attendance | Business includes check-in/check-out and live H&S attendance. | — | — | |
| Site portal | Business includes up to 25 active site portal users. | — | — | |
| Site files | Drawings, plans, H&S docs, procedures, RAMS, CPP and emergency information. | — | — | |
| Document review | Business document status, reviewer notes and review history. | — | — | |
| Subcontractor evidence | Business evidence record, review and archive workflow. | — | — | |
| Site inspections | Business inspections with checklist items. | — | Pro/Enterprise add-on module. | — |
| Corrective actions | Business corrective actions with owner, due date and completion state. | — | Site snagging modules cover some actions. | — |
| PCPP import | Upload an existing PCPP and reuse the structure. | |||
| Document checking | ||||
| Data export | Includes the Audit Pack: one merged, audit-ready compliance-evidence PDF. | PDF/DOC download | ||
| AI chat | ||||
| RAMS / CPP / COSHH generation | The flagship: generates site-specific UK RAMS, CPP and COSHH from a plain-English brief. | — | — | — |
| Right to work | Right-to-work evidence records with expiry reminders, alongside cert tracking. | — | — | — |
| Mobile app | Workers sign and get inducted from their phone browser with nothing to install; a native builder app is in development, not yet in the public app stores. | — | — | — |
| QR / mobile sign-in | Site Control (per-site tier) adds a permanent entrance QR for sign-in/out from the worker's phone. | — | — | — |
| Contractor self-onboarding | Site Control (per-site tier) adds contractor self-join via the entrance QR with CSCS upload and approval. | — | — | — |
| RFIs | Site Control (per-site tier) adds RFIs - create, attach, comment, answer and close. | — | — | — |
Most alternatives pages target users upgrading from a cheap tool to something more serious. This one targets the opposite move - builders who are on HandsHQ and have realised it's too much tool for a smaller firm. HandsHQ is built for mid-to-large contractors with dedicated H and S staff and the pricing reflects that. For a small builder, the right call is a tool that covers RAMS, CPP, COSHH records, inductions, toolbox talks, worker sign-off, site attendance, files, portal users and evidence workflows without enterprise onboarding.
At-a-glance fit per product - pulled from the same data that drives the snapshot table.
Pick the option that matches how your team actually works.
If you're under five people and downsizing from HandsHQ because tiered RAMS allowances and demo-led onboarding don't fit your scale, The Site Book is the cleanest move. Starter is £0, Pro is £39/month or £360/year, Business is £199/month, and the optional setup service is £249 one-off, not a subscription. You're swapping a great larger-team tool for a right-sized small-builder tool.
Recommended for: Under 5 people - sole trader or micro-team downsizing from HandsHQ
If you're a five-to-ten person firm downsizing from HandsHQ because the enterprise workflow is heavier than your jobs need, The Site Book or Haspod both make sense. The Site Book wins on monthly pricing, AI document generation, Business team logins, portal users, site attendance, files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions; Haspod wins if you want a hand-editable template library.
Recommended for: 5 to 10 people - outgrowing entry tools but nowhere near enterprise
Strengths, weaknesses, fit, and the sources every claim came from.
The Site Book Ltd
Starter £0; Pro £39/mo or £360/yr; Business £199/mo
Haspod Ltd
£799/yr (annual upfront)
RAMS Pro
Free; GBP15-45/mo
CITB (Construction Industry Training Board)
Free
Pricing
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Short, straight answers - the same questions real builders ask.
HandsHQ is an excellent tool - it's just architected for mid-to-large contractors with dedicated health and safety teams. If you're a small builder, you're paying enterprise prices for features you don't use, onboarding overhead you can't justify, and per-seat costs that spike every time you add casual labour. Downsizing to a tool built for your scale saves money and removes the sales-demo bottleneck before you can even start work.
HandsHQ now publishes individual RAMS plans from £44/month to £190/month, plus team plans from £275/month. The Site Book takes the opposite approach: Starter is £0, Pro is £39/month or £360/year, and Business is £199/month. The optional setup service is £249 one-off, not a subscription, so small builders can price the software before any sales conversation.
The Site Book is the closest like-for-like scope match for a sole trader, but priced and built for smaller firms. It is not RAMS-only: it covers RAMS, CPP, COSHH records, site inductions, toolbox talks, worker sign-off, and wider CDM paperwork. Business adds 5 internal logins, 25 active portal users, site attendance, files and evidence workflows for £199/month.
You can export your RAMS and method statements from HandsHQ as PDFs and re-import the source content into another tool. The Site Book accepts PCPP uploads and reuses the structure, so existing HandsHQ output gives you a head start. Most teams run both platforms in parallel for a few weeks during the downsize - draft new jobs in the new tool, close out old jobs in HandsHQ, then cancel the HandsHQ contract.
CDM Wizard is the free fallback — it ships a basic CDM 2015 questionnaire and PDF output for nothing, which suits builders who need one document for one job and cannot justify monthly spend. The Site Book's own free tier lets you create a real project and generate a real RAMS at no cost with no credit card, which is usually a better starting point for anyone planning more than one job per year.
Based on publicly available vendor pricing and documentation reviewed 2026-05-31.
Every pricing, feature, and fit claim in this comparison is pulled from public vendor documentation and cross-checked against independent sources. The “source basis” footer on each product card lists the exact URLs and the date we fetched them. We revisit this page at least every 90 days - last reviewed on .