The Site Book vs HandsHQ: UK Builder Comparison 2026
The Site Book is not RAMS-only: it covers RAMS, CPP, COSHH, site inductions, toolbox talks and worker sign-off, plus Business site attendance, files, portal users, document reviews and subcontractor evidence. Starter is GBP0, Pro is GBP39/month or GBP360/year, and Business is GBP199/month with 10 management logins and 50 active portal users included. Project-worker overage is currently recorded and auto-raised instead of blocking site work; Site Control is a separate per-site gate and contractor-access product.
The Site Book wins for builder-run firms - from sole traders to principal contractors with up to around 50 staff - that need flat-rate CDM paperwork plus Business site operations; HandsHQ remains the right call for organisations with a dedicated health and safety department that want enterprise RAMS governance.
HandsHQ individual and team pricing, RAMS features, Training Register features and HSI ownership were checked against current first-party pages on 2026-07-21; The Site Book facts were checked against the product repository.
Starter £0; Pro £39/mo or £360/yr; Business £199/mo
£44-£190/mo individual; teams from £275/mo
Team size
1 internal user on Pro; 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users on Business. Any invited seat can be a field-only Site Supervisor limited to assigned sites/projects. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; Business can optionally require a 4-digit PIN for shared-link sign-off, and project workers count as active portal users while assigned
One-person RAMS accounts through to enterprise teams
Best for
UK builders and principal contractors - from sole traders to builder-run firms of around 50 staff - 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.
Individuals who want a template-led RAMS subscription and organisations with a dedicated health and safety function that need formal RAMS governance, approvals and integrations.
Not ideal for
New product (launched 2026) -smaller customer base and shorter track record than established tools like HandsHQ.
Pricing starts at £44/mo for Basic with 1 RAMS; Advanced is £99/mo for 3 RAMS, Pro is £190/mo for 6 RAMS, and Small Team starts from £275/mo billed annually plus setup.
RAMS
AI-generated, site-specific, edit in-browser.
Template library with editor.
CPP
Full Construction Phase Plans - not just RAMS.
Included on team plans and annual individual plans.
COSHH
Standalone COSHH document + site-specific register, SDS upload with extraction, and construction-focused library entries that appear in search only after review.
Unlimited assessments on Advanced and above; 15,000+ substance library advertised.
Method statements
Site inductions
Workers sign from their phone - on Business, key H&S details are readable in 9 languages.
Not listed in the current RAMS product feature set.
Multilingual inductions (9 languages)
On the Business plan, 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.
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Worker cert tracking
Cert plus right-to-work evidence records, with expiry reminders.
Separate Training Register tracks training, certificates and expiry dates and integrates with RAMS.
Incident log
Permits to work
Site diary
Pro includes editable daily entries; owner/admin deletion is permanent, while a Business Site Supervisor's delete can be restored. Live entries and photo counts appear in the Audit Pack.
Subcontractor tracking
Separate Training Register distinguishes employee and subcontractor personnel.
Toolbox talks
Site attendance
Business includes check-in/check-out and live H&S attendance.
Site portal
Business includes up to 50 active site portal users.
Site files
Drawings, plans, H&S docs, procedures, RAMS, CPP and emergency information.
RAMS/project files, not a small-builder site portal.
Document review
Business review status and history, plus optional named-approver routing (accept/reject each version with recorded reasons before issue) and client review via share links.
Approval workflows on team-led plans.
Subcontractor evidence
Business evidence record, review and archive workflow.
Site inspections
Business inspections with checklist items.
Corrective actions
Business corrective actions with owner, due date and completion state.
PCPP import
Upload an existing PCPP and reuse the structure.
Document checking
Data export
Includes the Audit Pack: one merged PDF covering documents, sign-offs, worker evidence, attendance, incidents, COSHH, permits and up to the latest 500 live Site Diary entries.
RAMS PDFs; Training Register reports and training-matrix export.
AI chat
RAMS / CPP / COSHH generation
The flagship: generates site-specific UK RAMS, CPP and COSHH from a plain-English brief.
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Right to work
Right-to-work evidence records with expiry reminders, alongside cert tracking.
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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.
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QR / mobile sign-in
Site Control (per-site tier) adds a permanent entrance QR for sign-in/out from the worker's phone.
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Contractor self-onboarding
Site Control (per-site tier) adds contractor self-join via the entrance QR with CSCS upload and approval.
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RFIs
Site Control (per-site tier) adds RFIs - create, attach, comment, answer and close.
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RAMS sign-off (per worker)
Per-worker RAMS sign-off is tracked on Business; an optional 4-digit PIN adds shared-link identity evidence, and Site Control can block check-in until the current version is signed.
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Live people-on-site
Business adds a live people-on-site H&S view plus evacuation and muster roll-call.
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Document-review evidence
Business keeps version history with a per-version record of review, issue and worker acknowledgement.
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Multi-site dashboard & exports
Unlimited projects with account-wide exports and the merged Audit Pack; no cross-site rollup dashboard below the Site Control tier.
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SSOW
Delivered as the method statement inside the RAMS rather than a separate safe-system-of-work document.
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Reading this table: a tick means supported, a dash means partly supported, and a cross means we checked and it is not supported. An em dash (—) means we have not verified that capability for that product either way — treat it as unknown, not as a missing feature, and check with the vendor.
Why this matters
HandsHQ is a serious platform with direct-signup individual RAMS plans and sales-assisted team tiers for formal governance. It is now part of HSI, whose 2025 acquisition announcement cited 2,000 clients. The Site Book was built for the builder-run side of the market: sole traders through to principal contractors with up to around fifty staff who need professional compliance documents and live site compliance, but do not have a dedicated H&S department. Both tools work; choose the operating model that matches yours.
Who each tool is for
At-a-glance fit per product - pulled from the same data that drives the snapshot table.
The Site Book
Best for
UK builders and principal contractors - from sole traders to builder-run firms of around 50 staff - 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.
Not ideal for
New product (launched 2026) -smaller customer base and shorter track record than established tools like HandsHQ.
Team size
1 internal user on Pro; 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users on Business. Any invited seat can be a field-only Site Supervisor limited to assigned sites/projects. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; Business can optionally require a 4-digit PIN for shared-link sign-off, and project workers count as active portal users while assigned
HandsHQ
Best for
Individuals who want a template-led RAMS subscription and organisations with a dedicated health and safety function that need formal RAMS governance, approvals and integrations.
Not ideal for
Pricing starts at £44/mo for Basic with 1 RAMS; Advanced is £99/mo for 3 RAMS, Pro is £190/mo for 6 RAMS, and Small Team starts from £275/mo billed annually plus setup.
Team size
One-person RAMS accounts through to enterprise teams
The bottom line
Pick the option that matches how your team actually works.
Choose The Site Book Pro if…
Choose The Site Book if you're a sole trader or small firm on domestic or small commercial work. Pro is GBP39 per month or GBP360 per year, the first project is free, signup is self-serve, and AI drafts a RAMS from a brief. Business adds 10 internal logins, 50 active portal users, attendance, files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions.
Recommended for: Sole traders and small builders on domestic or small commercial jobs
Choose The Site Book Business if…
Choose The Site Book Business at GBP199 per month if you're a builder-run firm of ten to fifty people. Pro already includes the one-click Audit Pack. Business adds 10 management logins, assigned-site Site Supervisors, 50 active portal users, optional PIN evidence for shared-link document sign-off, attendance, supervisor diary correction controls, subcontractor evidence and document review history; project workers count in the portal allowance, while worker setup beyond it is not blocked and is recorded for a capacity conversation. Site Control is the per-site gate and contractor-access tier, not an automatic headcount upgrade.
Recommended for: 10–50 person builders and principal contractors without a dedicated H&S department
Choose HandsHQ if…
Choose HandsHQ if you have a dedicated health and safety department that wants enterprise-grade team collaboration, formal approval workflows, and a detail-rich template editor. Its team plans publish user bands, are billed annually plus setup, and use a sales-assisted route. Individual RAMS plans are separate and offer direct signup.
Recommended for: Organisations with a dedicated in-house health and safety department
Why switch to The Site Book
✓A free first project, Pro at GBP39/mo or GBP360/yr, and no tiered RAMS allowance.
✓Generate a site-specific RAMS first draft from a plain-English brief in under five minutes, ready for competent-person review.
✓Self-serve signup with a free tier - create your first real project without entering a credit card.
✓Pro includes the merged Audit Pack; Business adds assigned-site supervisors, optional PIN evidence for shared-link document sign-off and restorable supervisor diary corrections.
✓Business separates internal team seats from active portal users, so site participants do not need office/admin access.
✓Add your own work types for any trade - not just a fixed template library - each with a method statement that flows into the RAMS sequence of works, including a ready-made Commercial Solar PV group.
Full breakdown per product
Strengths, weaknesses, fit, and the sources every claim came from.
Starter £0; Pro £39/mo or £360/yr; Business £199/mo
Best for
UK builders and principal contractors - from sole traders to builder-run firms of around 50 staff - 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.
Team size
1 internal user on Pro; 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users on Business. Any invited seat can be a field-only Site Supervisor limited to assigned sites/projects. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; Business can optionally require a 4-digit PIN for shared-link sign-off, and project workers count as active portal users while assigned
Sweet spot
A builder-run principal contractor on a domestic or commercial project who needs ready-to-sign CDM documents, worker sign-off, a live people-on-site view, practical site files, subcontractor evidence records and lightweight inspections/actions - without a dedicated H&S department to run them.
Strengths
UK construction compliance tool that ships RAMS + CPP + COSHH + inductions (readable and acknowledgeable in 9 worker languages on Business, with the language audit-recorded) + worker sign-off, including optional 4-digit shared-link PIN evidence on Business, plus site attendance, portal users, site files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions.
Generate a site-specific RAMS first draft from a natural-language brief in under five minutes, ready for competent-person review - not a template library you hand-fill.
Controlled document workflow without an enterprise contract: version history and a recorded issue confirmation before a document is shared with a client or downloaded in the app on every plan, re-sign on revision with superseded signatures preserved plus PCPP import, cert tracking and document checking from the £39/month Pro plan - and on Business, optional named-approver routing (a designated approver accepts or rejects each version, with recorded reasons, before it can be issued) plus client approve/reject/request-changes via share links.
Transparent pricing: Starter £0, Pro £39/month or £360/year, Business £199/month with 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; project workers count as active portal users while assigned.
Build RAMS for any trade - add your own work types and method statements alongside the built-in library, reusable across projects, including a ready-made Commercial Solar PV group. Save a finished job as a reusable project template, or clone it, so the next job of the same shape starts from your own setup.
COSHH goes deep: a standalone COSHH assessment document, upload-a-Safety-Data-Sheet extraction, a site-specific substance register and an expert-reviewed library - plus per-worker RAMS sign-off and a one-click Audit Pack covering documents, sign-offs, worker evidence, attendance, incidents, COSHH, permits and up to the latest 500 live Site Diary entries.
Weaknesses
New product (launched 2026) -smaller customer base and shorter track record than established tools like HandsHQ.
Procore integration is in final testing rather than publicly launched -until it ships, compliance docs export as PDFs rather than syncing into Procore. A public REST API and signed webhooks are live on the Site Control tier; Autodesk Construction Cloud is not integrated.
Site files are a practical portal for drawings, plans and procedures, not formal drawing revision control.
UK-focused content (CDM 2015, HSE guidance) -international contractors on non-UK projects would need to adapt the output.
Check the product detail
These maintained Help Centre guides show exactly how the controls behind this comparison work.
Individuals who want a template-led RAMS subscription and organisations with a dedicated health and safety function that need formal RAMS governance, approvals and integrations.
Team size
One-person RAMS accounts through to enterprise teams
Sweet spot
A buyer who values a large curated RAMS and COSHH library, with published individual allowances or team workflows organised by user band.
Strengths
Established compliance platform with published customer case studies across UK high-risk work.
Now part of HSI, with HSI's acquisition announcement citing more than 2,000 client organisations.
Curated RAMS library plus a COSHH library advertised at more than 15,000 substances.
Published individual pricing offers direct signup; team tiers publish user bands and prices before a sales conversation.
Digital RAMS signatures, approvals, review history and integrations suit dedicated H&S teams producing documents regularly.
Weaknesses
Pricing starts at £44/mo for Basic with 1 RAMS; Advanced is £99/mo for 3 RAMS, Pro is £190/mo for 6 RAMS, and Small Team starts from £275/mo billed annually plus setup.
HSI ownership may be a positive for enterprise buyers, but small UK builders may prefer a UK-SME-first product roadmap.
The public RAMS and Training Register feature sets do not list a built-in incident log, permits-to-work, site diary, attendance workflow or general site portal.
Individual RAMS plans offer direct signup, while team plans are billed annually plus a setup fee and higher-capability packages remain sales-assisted.
Short, straight answers - the same questions real builders ask.
Is HandsHQ or The Site Book better for small builders?
The Site Book is built for builder-run firms from sole traders up to around fifty staff. Pro is GBP39 per month or GBP360 per year and the first project is free. HandsHQ also offers direct signup on individual RAMS plans, starting at GBP44 per month for one RAMS. Choose by workflow: wider CDM and site operations in The Site Book, or template-led RAMS governance in HandsHQ.
Does The Site Book work for a 30-person construction company?
Yes. Business at GBP199 per month includes 10 management logins plus 50 active portal users. People assigned to projects count in that active total, but the current worker setup does not block site work when that allowance is crossed: it raises the account cap and records the overage for a capacity conversation. Manual portal-user activation at a reached cap requires deactivation or an agreed limit increase. Site Control is not required by headcount alone.
How much does HandsHQ cost?
HandsHQ publishes individual monthly prices of forty-four pounds for one RAMS, ninety-nine pounds for three RAMS, and one hundred and ninety pounds for six RAMS. Its team plans start at two hundred and seventy-five pounds per month, billed annually plus setup, with published tiers at ten, twenty-five and sixty users. The Site Book uses flat Starter, Pro and Business plans instead of RAMS-volume allowances.
Can I try The Site Book before committing?
Yes. The Site Book lets you create a first project and generate a CPP, RAMS and site induction without entering a credit card. HandsHQ's individual RAMS plans also offer direct signup and advertise a 30-day money-back guarantee, while its team packages use a demo or sales-assisted route. The distinction is therefore the free project and product scope, not whether either vendor has any self-serve path.
Does HandsHQ handle site inductions and worker sign-off?
HandsHQ advertises digital signatures for RAMS: personnel can sign on their own device. Its current RAMS feature list does not advertise a built-in site-induction workflow, site attendance or a general worker portal. The Site Book combines RAMS, CPPs, COSHH, emergency plans and digital site inductions, then Business adds attendance, site files, notifications and project-scoped portal access for workers and other site participants.
Can I switch from HandsHQ to The Site Book?
Yes, but there is no direct HandsHQ RAMS importer. Export your existing RAMS as PDFs for your records or project files, then recreate the active documents you want to revise and manage in The Site Book. Test one live project first so your team can check the document, sign-off and evidence workflow before moving the rest.
How we built this comparison
HandsHQ individual and team pricing, RAMS features, Training Register features and HSI ownership were checked against current first-party pages on 2026-07-21; The Site Book facts were checked against the product repository.
Every pricing, feature, and fit claim in this comparison is checked against public vendor documentation and, where relevant, independent sources. The “source basis” footer on each product card lists the exact URLs and the date we fetched them. The internal freshness dashboard flags source evidence after 45 days; priority pricing is scheduled for monthly review and feature or ownership claims for quarterly review. Last reviewed on .
Content owner: The Site Book editorial team. Reviewed by: Nicola Dobbie. Approved: . Next review due: .
UK construction compliance tool that ships RAMS + CPP + COSHH + inductions (readable and acknowledgeable in 9 worker languages on Business, with the language audit-recorded) + worker sign-off, including optional 4-digit shared-link PIN evidence on Business, plus site attendance, portal users, site files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions.
Generate a site-specific RAMS first draft from a natural-language brief in under five minutes, ready for competent-person review - not a template library you hand-fill.
Controlled document workflow without an enterprise contract: version history and a recorded issue confirmation before a document is shared with a client or downloaded in the app on every plan, re-sign on revision with superseded signatures preserved plus PCPP import, cert tracking and document checking from the £39/month Pro plan - and on Business, optional named-approver routing (a designated approver accepts or rejects each version, with recorded reasons, before it can be issued) plus client approve/reject/request-changes via share links.
Transparent pricing: Starter £0, Pro £39/month or £360/year, Business £199/month with 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; project workers count as active portal users while assigned.
Build RAMS for any trade - add your own work types and method statements alongside the built-in library, reusable across projects, including a ready-made Commercial Solar PV group. Save a finished job as a reusable project template, or clone it, so the next job of the same shape starts from your own setup.
COSHH goes deep: a standalone COSHH assessment document, upload-a-Safety-Data-Sheet extraction, a site-specific substance register and an expert-reviewed library - plus per-worker RAMS sign-off and a one-click Audit Pack covering documents, sign-offs, worker evidence, attendance, incidents, COSHH, permits and up to the latest 500 live Site Diary entries.
