Every crew has that moment: you need a tool right now and it's gone. No one knows who has it. The pump moves on. The inspector leaves. It cost you $600. Again.
💬 "Half a day lost and a €600 penalty. All because one tool vanished and no one owned it." — r/Construction (957 upvotes)
Every crew deals with this. It's not laziness — it's a systems problem.
You need it right now. Nobody knows. You spend 90 minutes searching. The concrete pump leaves. You eat the penalty.
Your best drill hasn't been on your site in three weeks. You find out when you need it most. It's at a job two towns over.
You own the saw. But it's "somewhere." So you rent one for $150/day. Three times this month. You already paid for that tool.
Did Mike take it? Did it get stolen? Did you lend it out? You have no record, no recourse, and no insurance claim.
Paper sign-out sheets. A whiteboard in the trailer. Nobody fills it in. It gets rained on. It's a fantasy, not a system.
ToolWatch and Hilti ON!Track are built for 200-person firms with IT departments. You have 8 guys and a job site. You need something that works today.
Checking a tool out takes 10 seconds. Less time than sending a text. No hardware. No training. Just accountability.
Add tools by photo, name, and optional serial number. Print sticky QR labels from any printer — $0.02 each. One afternoon of setup. Done forever.
Scan the QR or tap the tool name in the app. Takes 10 seconds. The foreman sees exactly who has what, on which site, right now.
Takes 30 seconds. Worker can add a photo of any damage. If a tool stays on-site overnight, they mark it as "on site" — not AWOL.
Tool not returned after 24 hours? The worker gets a push notification. You get one too. No more hunting. Accountability is automatic.
No bloat. No enterprise BS. Just the stuff that keeps jobs running.
Print standard sticky labels from any printer. Slap one on every tool. No special hardware needed.
Works on any smartphone. No app store required — runs in the browser. Your crew won't need training.
Auto-notify the worker and foreman when a tool hasn't been returned. No chasing. The system does the chasing.
Every checkout and return is logged. See exactly who had it, when, and on which site. Useful for insurance claims too.
Workers attach a photo when checking in a damaged tool. No more "it was like that when I got it" arguments.
Add workers by phone number. They join in one tap. No email, no passwords, no IT department required.
The math is obvious. The question is why you haven't fixed this already.
€600
Penalty from one missing grinder on one job (documented in r/Construction)
$150
Average cost of a single emergency tool rental when you can't find what you own
$1B+
Estimated annual US construction industry losses to tool theft alone
"Monday morning, site's humming, concrete pour scheduled for 9:00 sharp. I shout for the grinder. Nowhere. We tear the site apart — half a day lost and a €600 penalty. All because one tool vanished and no one owned it."
— r/Construction, 957 upvotes, 289 comments
ToolKeeper is being built for crews like yours. Join the waitlist and we'll reach out when early access opens — and ask for your input on features.
No spam. No sales pitch. Just a heads-up when we're ready.
We'll be in touch soon. Your tools are about to get a lot less lost.