If you run a small contracting or subcontracting business and you have looked into BCI LeadManager, you have probably hit the same wall everyone hits: there is no price on the website. Not on the product page, not on Capterra, not on GetApp, not on G2. Every path ends at "Book a Demo," and the number you eventually get depends on that conversation.
This post pulls together what is publicly verifiable about LeadManager's pricing and contract terms, where it genuinely earns its money, and what the realistic alternatives look like if you are a small operator. Disclosure up front: we build DA Leads, which competes with BCI at the early-planning end of the market. We will be specific about where we are an alternative and where we are not.
What LeadManager is, and who Hubexo is
LeadManager is the construction leads platform from the company most Australians still call BCI. The BCI Central brand was retired after Swedish parent Byggfakta Group renamed itself Hubexo in 2024, so the product now trades as "LeadManager | A Hubexo Product." Same platform, same Australian operation, new logo.
The model is human research at scale. Hubexo's own materials describe 200+ dedicated researchers updating around 40,000 projects a month. Those researchers phone builders, developers and consultants to verify project status and collect contacts. On the flagship Core tier, project records can include decision-maker direct phone numbers and emails (their wording: "where available"), the DA number, floors, floor area, unit counts, and the chain of companies attached to a project. There is a REST API and a dedicated account manager.
That is a genuinely deep product. The question for a small contractor is never whether it is good. It is whether you are the customer it is priced for.
What it costs: one verified number
BCI publishes no pricing anywhere. The one hard, citable data point comes from AusTender, where federal agencies must disclose contracts. Contract notice CN4037817 shows the Office of the Fair Work Ombudsman paying BCI Media Group Pty Ltd A$26,364.36 for a 12-month "Construction Industry Information Database Subscription" (February 2024 to February 2025). Seat count and coverage are not disclosed, so treat it as what one government organisation paid, not a universal price.
Everything else is quote-only. Forum threads from users describe it as expensive but worthwhile for the right business, with working subbies noting BCI updates frequently and carries more drawings than rivals. So the product has fans. The pricing model just is not built for small operators.
The contract terms problem
The most consistent public complaint is not the price, it is the contract structure. BCI sells 12-month agreements, and its Trustpilot page (currently sitting at 2.9 with only two reviews, both one star) is specifically about getting out of them. One reviewer from April 2023 titled their review "0 Leads - 3 Months. Stuck in a 12 Month Contract." Another from December 2025 described the agreement as "almost impossible to exit," citing automatic renewal and price increases.
Two reviews is a tiny sample and worth exactly that much. But both point at the same structural feature, two and a half years apart, and the feature is real: you sign for a year, it renews unless you act, and if the leads do not convert for your trade in your area, you are still paying. For a business spending $200 a month on software, a bad annual commitment is annoying. At BCI's likely price points it is a real hole in the budget.
The Lite tier: real, but read the fine print
BCI does have a cheaper tier. LeadManager Lite is explicitly aimed at "subcontractors, suppliers, smaller businesses" per their own FAQ. Before you assume it solves the problem, three things to know:
- It only covers tender and construction stages. Early planning coverage, the stage where a project is a freshly lodged development application and nobody else is quoting yet, is reserved for the expensive Core tier. Lite shows you projects at the point where every other Lite subscriber in your trade can also see them.
- It is still quote-only. No published price, no self-serve signup, no monthly option. The path is still Book a Demo, and the contract is still an annual agreement.
- No API, no account manager. Support is an AI assistant.
The stage restriction is the strategic one. If you are a concreter or a framer bidding at tender stage, Lite may genuinely fit. If your edge is getting to a builder before the job goes to tender, Lite is structurally not for you, whatever it costs.
The realistic alternatives
| Option | Price | Stage | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| BCI LeadManager Core | Quote-only (one verified govt contract: A$26,364/yr) | Early planning to construction | Commercial teams selling by phone |
| BCI LeadManager Lite | Quote-only, annual | Tender + construction only | Subbies bidding at tender stage |
| Cordell Connect | From A$577.50/mo, 12-mo min | All stages | Same buyer as BCI Core |
| EstimateOne | Free registration tier | Tender stage | Subbies who want tender documents |
| DA Leads | $49/mo, cancel anytime | Early planning (DAs) | Small operators wanting early signal |
| PlanningAlerts | Free, non-commercial | Early planning | Individuals watching one address |
A few notes on that table. EstimateOne is the strongest free entry point if tender-stage is what you want; it is a marketplace model rather than a research database, and it actively courts BCI's subbie audience. PlanningAlerts is a 20-year-old volunteer-run public service, genuinely good for keeping an eye on your own street, but it has no trade filtering and no commercial-use allowance, so it is not a business tool.
Where DA Leads fits
DA Leads is built around exactly the stage BCI's Lite tier leaves out. We track development applications, the earliest public record of a project, across 367 councils nationally, updated daily, matched to trades, with estimated cost data where councils publish it. Pro is $49 a month, month to month, no contract, cancel from your account page, and there is a free tier so you can check whether your councils are covered before paying a cent. The whole pricing model is the opposite of a demo call: the price is on the website and it is the same for everyone.
Now the honest boundary. We do not employ researchers, and we do not publish applicant phone numbers or contact details. That is a deliberate line, not a missing feature. If your sales process needs a project decision-maker's direct dial delivered to your inbox, that is BCI's and Cordell's territory, their 200-plus researchers are what you are paying for, and for phone-driven commercial sales teams they are worth it. What a small contractor gets from us instead is the head start: see the DA the week it lands, look up the property, and make contact the way trades always have. For a lot of small businesses that is the workable version of "early planning access" at roughly 2% of the one verified BCI price point.
The decision comes down to two questions. What stage do you need leads at, and can your cashflow survive a bad year-long contract? If the answers are "before tender" and "no," start cheap and monthly, prove the leads convert for your trade, and only then consider whether a researched database earns its keep.
