Where construction contracts go wrong
A general contractor can sit on dozens of live agreements at once: prime contracts, subcontracts, purchase orders, equipment rentals, bonds and a steady stream of change orders. The risk rarely sits in the headline price. It sits in the paragraphs that decide who gets paid when, who carries a delay, and what has to be done in writing within a few days.
Teams that manage this in shared folders and spreadsheets tend to learn about a problem from an invoice dispute. Reading every clause up front, and keeping the dates in one place, is cheaper than reconstructing a paper trail later.
Clauses the analyzer flags in construction agreements
Upload a subcontract or owner agreement as a PDF or DOCX and the analyzer rates each clause, explains the exposure in plain English and suggests redline language. The checks that matter most in this industry include:
- Pay-if-paid and pay-when-paid language that ties your payment to the owner paying the contractor
- Retainage percentage, release timing and conditions
- Indemnification that makes you responsible for the other party's negligence
- Limitation of liability, waiver of consequential damages and caps
- Change order procedure and the written notice window to claim extra time or cost
- Liquidated damages and delay clauses, including no-damages-for-delay
- Termination for convenience and what you are paid on early termination
- Insurance, additional insured and waiver of subrogation requirements
- Flow-down clauses that bind you to terms you have not seen in the prime contract
Track notice deadlines and renewals
Construction contracts run on short notice windows. A claim for extra time, a lien notice or a notice of non-renewal on an equipment or software agreement has to arrive by a date, in a form the contract specifies. ContractsAnalyzer extracts term, renewal type and notice periods from each document and sends email alerts ahead of the date, so the deadline is on a calendar and not in someone's memory.
Built for the people who actually sign
Project managers, estimators, contract administrators and owners of small and mid-size firms usually review these agreements without in-house counsel on every deal. Set the review to your side of the table (contractor, subcontractor or owner) and pick a standard, strict or light playbook, so the same agreement is judged against your appetite for risk. Starting at 49 USD per month, it costs less than an hour of outside review on one subcontract.
How it works on a live job
Upload the subcontract the day it arrives, before anyone signs. The analyzer returns an overall risk rating, each flagged clause with a plain English explanation, and suggested redlines you can export to DOCX and send to the other side. Once the agreement is signed, the same record holds the key dates, payment terms and obligations, so the project manager and the accounts team are looking at one source.
Change orders get the same treatment. Run each one against the base contract and check that the pricing, time extension and notice language still match what was agreed, rather than discovering the mismatch at closeout.
Who uses it
General contractors check subcontracts and supplier terms before issuing them. Specialty trades review the prime contract flow-downs and payment terms before they commit crews. Owners and developers compare contractor agreements against their own standards. Each one sets a side and a playbook, and gets findings written for that position.
What it does not do
It does not replace a construction attorney, and it does not confirm compliance with your state's prompt pay, lien or licensing rules. It finds the clauses worth negotiating and gives you language to start from, so the time you spend with counsel goes to the points that matter.