BuildWitt Training vs. MindForge

1. What are BuildWitt Training and MindForge?
2. What's included?
3. What features and capabilities are available?
4. How much do BuildWitt Training and MindForge cost?
5. What are the pros and cons?
6. Which is better—BuildWitt Training or MindForge?

In the Dirt World, you need software solutions that help the people who are out moving dirt and making things happen.  

BuildWitt Training and MindForge are two of those solutions. But how do you decide which is right for you?

With a side-by-side comparison.

Now, we know comparing ourselves to MindForge is weird. You may be thinking, Won’t BuildWitt just say their product is better? 

Not necessarily. We want to help you make the best choice for your people—whether that’s BuildWitt Training, MindForge, or both. So we’ll walk you through an honest comparison of the software and how it can help you. 

Let’s do this!

What are BuildWitt Training and MindForge?

BuildWitt Training and MindForge are software designed to help heavy civil, construction, mining, and other Dirt World workers in the field and office.

BuildWitt Training is training software that helps set your team up for success on and off the jobsite. It teaches them things like:

• Safety
• Leadership 
• Industry basics
• Job-specific skills
• Personal development 

MindForge is mostly communication software with a little safety and leadership training on the side. Their messaging platform helps you quickly, easily communicate with field crews, office staff, and third parties like subcontractors and suppliers.

With MindForge, you can deliver timely information to the jobsite—and that’s important because informed crews are successful crews.

What’s included? 

BuildWitt Training 

BuildWitt Training comes with over 800 video lessons that cover:

• Safety
• Soil testing
• Toolbox talks
• Personal finance
• General construction skills
• Leadership and management
• Mental health and suicide prevention
• Industry basics for asphalt paving, aggregate mining, heavy civil, and more
• Job-specific training for equipment operators, estimators, field supervisors, grade checkers, laborers, and pipelayers
• . . . and more coming soon!

We also share content from our partner companies, like instructional how-to videos from the American Welding Society and HCSS. Plus, your crews can earn OSHA, MSHA, and HAZWOPER certifications right in the app with the ClickSafety add-on. 

See BuildWitt's course catalog.

MindForge

The MindForge platform has two components. The web portal lets admins manage communication and training in your organization—while the mobile app lets workers access information, train, and reply to messages.

MindForge also includes over 350 training videos from them and their partners. Topics include:

• Leadership essentials 
• Safety—from basics like PPE and heights to specialty topics like pregnancy safety and human trafficking awareness

See MindForge's course catalog.

What features and capabilities are available? 

BuildWitt Training and MindForge have some similar features and some that are pretty different. Let’s see:

Now, some of the features these apps “share” work differently depending on which app you get. Let’s cover those in more detail.

Training videos

MindForge’s training content mixes animated and live-action videos. In the live-action content, you’re likely to see a video host photoshopped onto a picture of a jobsite. 

At BuildWitt, we film all of our content on real jobsites with people who really work there. And our team of subject matter experts helps us make every lesson as realistic and practical as possible. 

Our videos also use microlearning. That means most lessons are 10 minutes or less, so your team can watch a quick video during a toolbox talk or a few minutes of downtime. Some MindForge videos are over 30 minutes long—making the info harder to retain and taking a big chunk out of your team’s workday. 

MindForge Construction LifeSaver animated videos:

BuildWitt Training videos:

Custom content

Both apps let you upload your own custom content. 

The main difference is that in BuildWitt Training, uploads are free and unlimited. You can also create quizzes or combine videos from our pre-existing courses to create your own custom learning plan. In MindForge, you’ll have to pay extra for your team to see your own content.  

Mobile-friendly app

Both apps are mobile-friendly, so your crew can train on the job. And neither software requires your people to have a company email address to sign up.

But with MindForge, your team can also chat and check for announcements in the mobile app—which you can’t do with BuildWitt Training. 

Access for subcontractors

Subcontractors can use either platform. Again, the difference here is cost.

In MindForge, you can give them an access code so they can join chats for free. With BuildWitt Training, you’ll need to buy your subcontractor a user license before they can participate in your team’s training.  

Other differences

BuildWitt Training has more training capabilities and features than MindForge. We offer over twice as much training content on more topics, and our training works for people at all experience levels—whether they’ve been on the jobsite 20 years or 20 minutes. 

You can also implement BuildWitt Training faster. It takes an average of two weeks, but you can pull it off in as little as one day if you’re in a hurry—compared to 90 days for MindForge.

But to be fair, that’s because our software is solely training-focused. MindForge is more of a communication solution. That’s why MindForge has messaging capabilities and free subcontractor access that you won’t find in BuildWitt Training. 

We give you a way to develop your workforce. They give you a way to communicate with that workforce. 

How much do MindForge and BuildWitt Training cost?

A good software system is worth every penny you pay for it. So, let’s see just how many pennies we’re talking about. 

MindForge pricing

MindForge’s pricing is kind of complex, so we’ll start there. 

Cost example: Marketplace Package 

Let’s say you have 100 employees, and you want to use MindForge to train them. Most training videos cost one credit per person, but pay attention—some cost up to 15. 

You decide to use only one-credit training videos, and you assign one video per month. Here’s how that math shakes out:

$5 per credit x 100 people = $500/video

$500 x 12 months = $6,000

Fortunately, training is pay-as-you-go, so you can buy training credits when you’re ready to use them. But with over 350 training videos, it can become cost-prohibitive if you plan to do lots of training. 

Cost example: Communicator Package

Now let’s say you buy the Communicator Package for $3,000 per year, and all 100 people in your company use it. Let’s check out that math:

$3,000 ➗ 12 months = $250/month

$250 ➗ 22 working days/month = $11.36/day

$11.36 ➗ 100 people = $0.11/person/day

That’s a great value for on-demand communication between all of your jobsites, front office, and subcontractors. 

BuildWitt Training pricing

Here at BuildWitt, we like dirt-simple pricing. Let’s take a look at what BuildWitt Training costs:

*Does not include cost of completing ClickSafety certification courses

User license costs 

User license costs vary for BuildWitt Training because we offer discounts for choosing annual billing and buying more user licenses.

Your user licenses will cost $15 per person per month if you pay your subscription fee monthly—regardless of how many users you have. But if you pay annually, you’ll start to rack up the savings:

• $12/person/month for 2-49 users
• $10/person/month for 50-249 users
• $8/person/month for 250+ users

Want to see how much you’ll pay for BuildWitt Training? Discover your estimated costs with our pricing calculator.

BuildWitt Training cost example

Let’s return to our example: you want to train 100 employees with us. Here’s how much it’ll cost:

$10/month x 100 users = $1,000/month 

$1,000 x 12 months = $12,000 user licenses 

$12,000 + $1,000 onboarding + $3,000 subscription = $16,000

That’s a big number to look at, but remember: 

1. You’ll save $1,000 next year because you only pay the onboarding fee once. 
2. There’s a huge ROI on training, especially when you do it often.
3. It’s a good overall value. Your team will get unlimited access to around 1,000 training videos, plus any custom content you upload. They can watch the same video a dozen times, or they can watch a different video every day.

Let’s see what happens if your 100 employees watch one video per day:

$16,000 ➗ 12 months = $1,333/month

$1,333 ➗ 22 working days = $60.60/day

$60.60 ➗ 100 people = $0.61/person/day

That’s a small price to invest in developing a top-notch workforce.

Comparing costs

First things first: we can’t compare the cost of communicating with MindForge versus BuildWitt Training, because our software doesn’t allow messaging. So for quick communication, MindForge is the hands-down winner. 

But we can compare the costs of training with both platforms. 

* $5/credit x 100 people x 52 weeks in a year = $26,000/year

** $10/user per month x 100 people x 12 months in a year = $12,000

*** The $4,000 includes onboarding and subscription fees. 

You can see that if you want to train your people frequently (which is what they need and want), BuildWitt Training gives you a much better value. It costs less to train, and you get more than twice as much content. Since our videos only take a few minutes to watch, your crew won’t lose production time to train.

Of course, it doesn’t matter how much money you save if you buy software that doesn’t meet your needs. Let’s see the pros and cons to see who each software is best for.

What are the pros and cons?

Every rose has its thorns. Here are some of the good and bad things about both software solutions.

Which one is better—BuildWitt Training or MindForge? 

BuildWitt Training and MindForge do different things, so which software is better for you depends on what you’re trying to do.

You may just need one, or you may actually need both  to accomplish your goals. But as a general rule of thumb,

• MindForge is better if you need to quickly communicate with team members and subcontractors in the field. You can see a MindForge demo here. 
• BuildWitt Training is better for training your team. The content is simple, powerful, and easy to customize. Plus, you’ll get clear pricing and ultra-fast implementation. You can see a BuildWitt Training demo here.

Remember, the best software is the one—or two—that gets your people what they need to succeed at their jobs. That’s what it’s all about!