Kineo vs Productive
Kineo and Productive both run projects and billing, and each has an assistant that acts on your records and an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT. Productive is strong on budgets, resourcing, and profitability, and its Ultimate plan adds AI agents that run on their own schedules and triggers. Kineo is built around engineering and architecture projects, with phase billing and retainage on the contract, an email address for every project, and drawing reviews against your firm's checklists.
Free for 14 days, with every feature included.
- Compared
- Kineo and Productive
- Published by
- Kineo
- Productive details
- Checked October 2026
Which one fits your firm
Choose Productive if you want
- Budgets, capacity and resource planning, and profitability reporting across the firm's projects
- AI agents that run on a schedule, on events in Productive, or from a Slack mention, working with the records you share with them
- An assistant that logs, submits, and approves time entries and timesheets within your permissions
- MCP access to CRM records, purchase orders, and reports as well as projects and time
- A separate sandbox endpoint for testing a connected assistant
Choose Kineo if you want
- Contracts with phases and fee lines, change orders from an effective date, and retainage
- A G703-style continuation sheet on phase invoices, with QuickBooks Online as the ledger
- An email address for each project, client, and contact, with imported mail feeding suggestions and automations
- Automations you describe in plain language, like drafting a change order when a client asks for extra work
- Drawing reviews against your firm's checklists, with each markup filed under the item it answers and outside reviewers by link
- Every feature on every plan, including the assistant, automations, and MCP server
Kineo and Productive side by side
Each product described in its own terms, from its website and documentation.
| Job | Kineo | Productive |
|---|---|---|
| Assistants and automations | ||
| Assistant | A chat beside any screen that reads and edits projects, tasks, time, contracts, and billing drafts with the permissions of the person asking. | Works from the screen you're on, records you mention, attached files and photos, and the conversation so far, and asks when a request could mean more than one record. It can create, edit, and submit time, and approve or reject timesheets, within your permissions. |
| Claude, ChatGPT, and other assistants | An MCP server with sign-in, so Claude, ChatGPT, and Claude Code work on Kineo records with each person's permissions. | An MCP server on the Ultimate plan. Each person authorizes access to one organization, its help center has steps for Claude and ChatGPT, and a separate sandbox endpoint is available for testing. |
| What a connected assistant can change | Clients, contacts, projects, phases, tasks, documents, time, expenses, proposals, contracts, change orders, draft invoices, and credit notes. People with permission can approve a change order or record a payment. | It creates and updates projects, tasks, and CRM records, and logs, edits, and deletes time. It also creates invoices, expenses, payments, and purchase orders, edits docs and comments, and queries reports. |
| Automations | Rules you describe in plain language. They run when email is imported, when something happens in Kineo, on hourly workday checks, or by hand, and they draft documents, create tasks, and email your team. | AI agents on the Ultimate plan that run on a schedule, on events in Productive, or when mentioned in Slack, with conditions, instructions, run details, and manual runs. Each agent works with the records shared with it and the permissions it's assigned. |
| Projects and time | ||
| Projects | Clients, projects, phases, drawing sets, and documents with tasks, reviews, files, and history, and a board by document stage. | Projects with phased work and budgets. |
| Time | Weekly timesheets with approval. The assistant can enter a week of time from a description. | Time entries and timesheets with approval. The assistant flags conflicts when it logs time. |
| Billing | ||
| Fees and invoices | Drafted by phase from percent complete and approved time and expenses, with retainage and a G703-style continuation sheet. Someone on the team issues and sends each one. | Budgets and invoicing on each project. |
| QuickBooks Online | Customers, invoices, credit memos, and payments sync, and payments recorded in QuickBooks update Kineo. | Its page for engineering and architecture firms lists QuickBooks among its integrations. |
| Buying | ||
| Price | $29, $49, or $79 per seat per month, with every feature on every plan. | $10 per user per month for Essential and $25 for Professional, billed yearly, or $12 and $29 billed monthly. Ultimate, with AI agents and MCP, is priced by quote. |
| AI usage | Each seat adds to the workspace's included assistant usage, which resets monthly. Team Plus and Team Pro include more, and top-ups run from $10 to $500. | AI features on every plan within a monthly credit limit. Skills come with Professional and Ultimate, and agents, MCP, and connectors with Ultimate. |
| Getting started | A 14-day free trial you start yourself, or a demo with the founder. | A 14-day free trial of Essential or Professional, and a demo for Ultimate. |
Assistants and automations
Assistant
- Kineo
- A chat beside any screen that reads and edits projects, tasks, time, contracts, and billing drafts with the permissions of the person asking.
- Productive
- Works from the screen you're on, records you mention, attached files and photos, and the conversation so far, and asks when a request could mean more than one record. It can create, edit, and submit time, and approve or reject timesheets, within your permissions.
Claude, ChatGPT, and other assistants
- Kineo
- An MCP server with sign-in, so Claude, ChatGPT, and Claude Code work on Kineo records with each person's permissions.
- Productive
- An MCP server on the Ultimate plan. Each person authorizes access to one organization, its help center has steps for Claude and ChatGPT, and a separate sandbox endpoint is available for testing.
What a connected assistant can change
- Kineo
- Clients, contacts, projects, phases, tasks, documents, time, expenses, proposals, contracts, change orders, draft invoices, and credit notes. People with permission can approve a change order or record a payment.
- Productive
- It creates and updates projects, tasks, and CRM records, and logs, edits, and deletes time. It also creates invoices, expenses, payments, and purchase orders, edits docs and comments, and queries reports.
Automations
- Kineo
- Rules you describe in plain language. They run when email is imported, when something happens in Kineo, on hourly workday checks, or by hand, and they draft documents, create tasks, and email your team.
- Productive
- AI agents on the Ultimate plan that run on a schedule, on events in Productive, or when mentioned in Slack, with conditions, instructions, run details, and manual runs. Each agent works with the records shared with it and the permissions it's assigned.
Projects and time
Projects
- Kineo
- Clients, projects, phases, drawing sets, and documents with tasks, reviews, files, and history, and a board by document stage.
- Productive
- Projects with phased work and budgets.
Time
- Kineo
- Weekly timesheets with approval. The assistant can enter a week of time from a description.
- Productive
- Time entries and timesheets with approval. The assistant flags conflicts when it logs time.
Billing
Fees and invoices
- Kineo
- Drafted by phase from percent complete and approved time and expenses, with retainage and a G703-style continuation sheet. Someone on the team issues and sends each one.
- Productive
- Budgets and invoicing on each project.
QuickBooks Online
- Kineo
- Customers, invoices, credit memos, and payments sync, and payments recorded in QuickBooks update Kineo.
- Productive
- Its page for engineering and architecture firms lists QuickBooks among its integrations.
Buying
Price
- Kineo
- $29, $49, or $79 per seat per month, with every feature on every plan.
- Productive
- $10 per user per month for Essential and $25 for Professional, billed yearly, or $12 and $29 billed monthly. Ultimate, with AI agents and MCP, is priced by quote.
AI usage
- Kineo
- Each seat adds to the workspace's included assistant usage, which resets monthly. Team Plus and Team Pro include more, and top-ups run from $10 to $500.
- Productive
- AI features on every plan within a monthly credit limit. Skills come with Professional and Ultimate, and agents, MCP, and connectors with Ultimate.
Getting started
- Kineo
- A 14-day free trial you start yourself, or a demo with the founder.
- Productive
- A 14-day free trial of Essential or Professional, and a demo for Ultimate.
Give every project, client, and contact its own email address
Forward or copy mail to a project's, client's, or contact's own address from any email account, so each message comes in addressed to the work it's about.
When someone on your team imports a message, Kineo reads it and its attachments, files it under the project, and, where suggestions are turned on, suggests the tasks and comments it asks for. Automations watching the inbox can draft the change order or proposal a client asks for and create a task for the project manager to check it. Every imported message also lands in one inbox for the whole firm.
Describe an automation in plain language and see each step before it runs
Productive's agents follow instructions you write and run on a schedule, on events, or from Slack.
Pick what to watch, such as a project's inbox, an invoice, or a phase, then write when to act and what to do. Kineo lays out the steps as you type. Automations start when an email is imported, when something happens in Kineo, on an hourly check during the workday, or when you run them by hand.
They draft proposals, contracts, change orders, invoices, and credit notes, create tasks, and email the people on your team you choose. Drafts wait for someone with permission to review them, and if a step fails, the steps that succeeded are kept so you can retry the rest.
Work on Kineo from Claude, ChatGPT, or Claude Code
Productive runs an MCP server on its Ultimate plan, with a sandbox endpoint for testing.
If you're evaluating both, connect each one to the same assistant, give them the same request, and compare what the assistant can read and change.
Kineo runs an MCP server. MCP is the open standard assistants use to connect to other software. Each person signs in with their Kineo account, and the assistant gets the same tools as Kineo's own, within that person's permissions. It can read a project's email, check the phases and fee lines on its contract, draft a change order or the month's invoice, record a payment, and enter a week of time.
In Claude Code, run claude mcp add --transport http kineo https://app.gokineo.com/mcp, then sign in from /mcp.
Review drawings against your firm's checklists, with outside reviewers by link
Kineo's drawing reviews run against your firm's own checklists. Each markup is filed under the checklist item it answers, and each item gets a decision. Review workflows route each set to its reviewers, with reminders, and a markup can become a task for the person revising the sheet. Clients, agencies, and consultants review through an emailed link with the same drawings, markup tools, and checklist as your team, without an account or a seat.
Bill each phase from the contract, with retainage and QuickBooks Online
When a client accepts a proposal, its fee lines become the contract. Kineo drafts each invoice by phase from percent complete and approved time and expenses, withholds retainage where the contract calls for it, and adds a G703-style continuation sheet to the PDF. Customers, invoices, credit memos, and payments sync with QuickBooks Online, which stays your ledger.
When extra work is agreed, an approved change order adjusts the contract's fee lines or phase budgets from its effective date, and the next invoice drafts from the updated contract.
What each costs
Kineo
- Team: $29 per seat per month, or $290 per seat per year
- Team Plus: $49 per seat per month, or $490 per seat per year
- Team Pro: $79 per seat per month, or $790 per seat per year
- Every feature on every plan, with more assistant usage and storage on Team Plus and Team Pro
- Outside reviewers and client portal contacts free, without a seat
- A 14-day free trial, then monthly or annual billing
Productive
- Essential: $10 per user per month billed yearly, or $12 billed monthly
- Professional: $25 per user per month billed yearly, or $29 billed monthly
- Ultimate, which adds AI agents, MCP, and connectors: priced by quote, starting with a demo
- At least three seats
- Contractors are billed as users, and clients are free
- AI features on every plan within a monthly credit limit
- A 14-day free trial of Essential or Professional
Productive's prices are the US dollar figures on its pricing page, checked October 2026. It also lists prices in euros. Ultimate's price comes from a quote. Kineo's prices are in US dollars.
Try Kineo on one project while you keep Productive
Run one current project in Kineo for a billing cycle, with Productive still running the rest of the firm, and compare the results with the people who'll use it.
- 1
Set up one project
Add a current project with its client, contract, and phases, and invite the people working on it.
- 2
Send it real email
Turn on the project's email address and forward it the next client request.
- 3
Write one automation
Describe one routine job, such as drafting a change order when a client asks for extra work.
- 4
Review the next drawing set
Route it through your checklist, with an outside reviewer if the project has one.
- 5
Bill the month
Draft the invoice and have your billing lead compare it with the one Productive produces.
Questions about Kineo and Productive
Sources
Productive's details come from its own website and documentation, checked October 2026. Products change, so confirm anything that matters to your decision with Productive.
- Productive pricing
- Productive for engineering and architecture firms
- Productive help: MCP server
- Productive help: working with the AI assistant
- Productive help: using AI to manage time entries
- Productive help: setting up and managing AI agents
- Productive help: setting up triggers for AI agents
- Productive help: AI general information
More comparisons
Try Kineo on a project you're working on now
Set up a project with its contract and phases, invite your team, and give the assistant some of the routine work. Your first 14 days are free, with every feature included.