Design brief · Market pricing · Milestone escrow
Your money moves
when the work does.
Voli turns photos of your space into a design brief, prices the work against your ZIP code, drafts the milestone plan, and reviews every bid you get. Then it holds the budget in escrow and releases it one approved milestone at a time.
Free to post. You fund escrow only after you accept a bid. Bank transfer costs nothing; card and Apple Pay add a 3% processing fee. Voli charges no fee of its own today.
Kitchen & primary bath remodel — Seattle, WA
ActiveIn escrow
$57,100
33% released · on budget
$3,100 held back · releases at completion
Milestones
Voli review · Change order #2
Additional waterproofing behind the tub surround, $1,800. Priced 4% below the regional average for this scope.
Legitimate
Recommended to approve
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
House rules
$0
To post a project, get an AI price review, or use the estimator
3%
Card and Apple Pay processing. Bank transfer is free, and Voli adds nothing today
10%
Held back from every release until you mark the project complete
0
Milestones that release on a timer or a schedule
Voli is new. Every guarantee on this page is a mechanism you can inspect, not a number we're asking you to take on faith. A milestone pays out when you approve it — or, if you open a dispute, when Voli mediates one.
The arc of a project
Voli is not a payment button. It is the whole job.
Upload photos of the room. Voli writes the brief a designer would — what it sees, a direction for the space, ideas to consider, and the questions to put to your contractor.
Your description and your photos, priced against your ZIP code. You get a range, a recommended budget, and a verdict on the number you had in mind.
Four to eight milestones in build order, each priced to your market and sized to work you can stand in front of and photograph. You edit every line before it becomes real.
Every bid carries a Voli review — Competitive, Fair, or Overpriced — with the reasoning in plain English. Same on every change order.
Escrow is funded before work begins. You approve each milestone against the photos. 10% of every release stays behind until you call the project done.
Voli Design Studio
Most people know the room is wrong. Not what to ask for.
Upload photos of the space as it is today. Voli reads them and writes a designer-grade brief: what it can see in the room, one concrete direction for it, ideas that fit your budget, and the questions worth asking before anyone starts.
The brief attaches to your project, so every contractor bidding is reading the same intent you are. Fewer bids that price the wrong job. Fewer arguments about what you meant.
The studio writes; it does not draw. Rendered concepts are in development.
Try the Design StudioDesign brief
Primary bath · 4 photos
What Voli reads
IMG_2841 · north wall
IMG_2843 · vanity
IMG_2847 · tub surround
What we see
A single-window bath, roughly 5×8, with an alcove tub-shower, a builder-grade vanity, and 4×4 tile that reads early-2000s. Grout at the tub base looks failed rather than dirty.
Design direction
Warm minimal, not clinical. Keep the plumbing wall where it is and spend the budget on surfaces and light: a wider vanity, a single large-format tile, and a mirror that returns the window.
Ideas to consider
- Swap the tub for a curbless shower — requires contractor verification of the joist run.
- Move the vanity light above the mirror rather than beside it.
Questions for your contractor
Is the subfloor sound under the tub, and what does it cost to find out?
Can the existing vent handle a larger fan?
Every contractor bidding on this project reads this brief.
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
Before anyone bids
Walk into the bidding already knowing the number and the plan.
The two things homeowners normally learn too late — what this should cost, and what order it gets built in — Voli hands you at intake, before a single contractor sees the project.
A price check that has seen your room.
Describe the project and add your photos. Voli prices it against your ZIP code market — condition, scale and age included, not just square footage — and returns a range, a recommended budget, and a straight verdict on the number you had in mind: below, within, or above.
Voli price review · Primary bath · 78704
$42,000 – $61,000
Recommended budget $52,000
Below-market budgets don't attract the contractors you want. Better to know now than after three bids come back high.
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
A payment schedule built from the work, not the calendar.
Voli drafts four to eight milestones in construction order, each priced to your region and each one a piece of work you can stand in front of and photograph. The budgets sum to your total exactly. You rename, re-price, merge, or delete anything before you apply it.
Milestone plan · draft
Demo & haul-out
1 wk
$6,200
Rough plumbing & electrical
2 wks
$11,400
Tile, waterproofing & fixtures
3 wks
$22,000
Punch list & final
1 wk
$8,400
A draft. Edit every line before it becomes your contract.
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
Voli review
Three bids, three numbers, no way to tell. Until now.
Every bid that lands on your project gets scored — Competitive, Fair, or Overpriced — with one or two sentences explaining the call against your budget and typical pricing for your market. Change orders get the same treatment mid-project, scored Legitimate, Questionable, or Red Flag, so a $1,800 surprise in week six is something you can judge instead of just absorb.
And the contractor behind the bid is checkable. License and insurance are verified on their public profile, with the dates. Reviews come only from projects that were funded through escrow and finished — nobody can buy a rating here, because a rating requires a completed job and released money.
Cedar & Ash Builders
$46,900
Under the market range and consistent with the milestone plan. Line-item detail on tile and waterproofing is unusually specific.
Kolb Remodeling
$54,200
Mid-range for this ZIP. Carries a larger contingency than the other two, which is defensible on a bath of this age.
Vantage Home Group
$71,500
Roughly 30% above the top of the estimated range, with no scope beyond the other bids to account for it.
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
Where your money is
How your money moves.
One $85,000 kitchen and primary bath, start to finish. Every row below is a state the money actually passes through — not a schedule, not a promise. It's the sequence the platform enforces.
Bank transfer, no fee. Card or Apple Pay adds 3%. Shown fully funded for clarity — you can also fund milestone by milestone as work progresses. Escrow only ever needs to cover the next milestone plus the holdback already earned.
Notice the second-to-last row. Every milestone is approved, the work is done, and $8,500 is still sitting in escrow. That's the holdback — and it's why the punch list gets finished.
The contractor received $85,000. You pressed approve five times and signed off once. Voli never moved a dollar you hadn't moved first.
What actually goes wrong
The three ways a remodel ruins someone's year. And what stops each one.
“They take the deposit and disappear.”
The money is never theirs to take.
Your contractor is paid out of escrow, not out of your bank account. They can see the balance; they cannot reach it. A release requires you to approve a specific milestone by name — and even then only 90% of it leaves. Escrow refuses a release that would dip into the holdback already earned on earlier work.
Funded before work begins
Processed and held by our payment partner, released on your approval
Released per milestone, by you, by name
“The price doubles once they're inside the walls.”
Every dollar above the contract has to be argued for, in writing.
Extra work becomes a change order — a reason and a number you approve or decline. Voli scores each one Legitimate, Questionable, or Red Flag with a plain-English explanation before you decide, and runs the same review on every bid you receive. Your budget was priced against your ZIP code at intake, from your description and photos of the actual space, so you knew what normal looked like before anyone quoted you.
Voli review on every bid and every change order
Priced against your ZIP market at intake, from your photos
Nothing joins the contract without your approval
“It's finished, badly, and now I'm the one who's stuck.”
You hold the last 10% and the entire record.
Milestones are submitted with photographs of the finished work, and you see those photos inside the approve dialog before you release anything. If no photos were attached, Voli says so and tells you to inspect in person. 10% of every release accrues in escrow until you mark the project complete — so the final walkthrough still has money behind it. If you go quiet on finished work, a contractor can ask Voli to decide; nobody can simply take it. If it goes wrong, one tap freezes escrow and Voli mediates on the documented record.
Photo evidence prompted at submission, shown in the approve dialog
10% holdback until your sign-off
A dispute freezes escrow — nothing moves during review
The record
Every dollar leaves a paper trail you didn't have to keep.
Money events post themselves into the project thread, in order, in between the ordinary messages. Nobody can quietly retell the story later, because the story is the thread.
Funding, approvals, releases, change orders, edits to the scope, a dispute being opened — Voli writes each one into the thread the moment it happens, timestamped, in the same place you argue about tile. If it ever comes to a dispute, this is the record Voli reads: messages, photos, milestones, and payments, in the order they occurred.
Bid accepted — $85,000 contract. Next: agree on milestones, then fund escrow.
Escrow funded — $85,000 deposited and locked with Voli.
Demo starts Monday, dumpster lands at 7.
Work submitted for approval: "Demolition & prep" — $12,000.
Photos look right. One question on the north wall before I approve.
Milestone approved: "Demolition & prep" — $10,800 released from escrow, $1,200 held back until completion.
Project completed — $8,500 holdback released. Reviews are now open for both of you.
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
For contractors
Funded jobs. Real scope. Paid on approval.
Every project you bid on has a homeowner whose budget has already been priced against their market. No tire-kickers, no net-60, no chasing a check.
The money is in escrow before you break ground
Photo submission → buyer approval → release. No invoicing cycle.
You see the buyer's design brief and price review before you bid
Every bid gets a Voli review, so a well-scoped bid wins on merit — not on being cheapest
Scope, milestones, and money agreed before you start
10% of each release is held until the buyer marks the project complete
Escrow-verified reviews only: a buyer must have funded and completed a project to review you
License and insurance verified and badged on your public profile
No lead fees. No subscription. No platform fee today — the only charge is the 3% card and Apple Pay processing fee, and it is shown before anyone funds anything.
Payment pipeline
Example project
Demolition & prep
14% of contract
$12,000
Paid
Rough-in
22% of contract
$19,000
Paid
Cabinetry & tile
31% of contract
$26,000
In progress
Fixtures & finish
21% of contract
$18,000
Locked
Paint & punch list
12% of contract
$10,000
Locked
Each release pays out 90% on approval; the 10% holdback releases when the buyer marks the project complete.
Free tool · No signup
Know the number before anyone bids.
Pick your project type, ZIP, and size, and the estimator returns a market range, a cost-per-square-foot band, a phase timeline, and the red flags to watch for in a bid. No account, no email.
Run a free estimateThen, inside Voli
The estimator works from project type and ZIP. When you post a project, the AI price review reads your actual description and your actual photos, and returns a range plus a verdict — below, within, or above market — on the budget you set. You see it before any contractor does.
Kitchen remodel · Seattle, WA
8–12 weeks
$48,000 – $82,000
The Voli interface, rendered with sample project data.
Trust, earned the slow way
We won't show you reviews we haven't earned.
Voli is new. You will not find a wall of five-star quotes on this page, because a review on Voli can only be written by someone on the other side of a completed, escrow-funded project — and it stays on that contractor's public profile permanently. That's a slower way to build a reputation. It's also the only kind worth reading.
We could have put four big numbers and a row of logos up here. We'd have had to invent them. Read the mechanism instead, and decide whether it protects you.
Escrow-verified reviews
A review unlocks only when a project completes and the holdback releases. Both sides review each other. Every review on a Voli profile came from money that actually moved.
License verified by Voli
We check the state licensing record and show the date we checked it. A contractor we haven't verified carries no badge at all — absence is the signal.
Insurance on file, with an expiry
Coverage is recorded with the date it lapses, shown publicly. When it expires, the badge expires with it.
Live today
Design briefs written from your photos
AI price review against your ZIP market
AI milestone plans you edit before applying
Voli review on every bid and change order
Milestone escrow with a 10% holdback
Photo evidence prompted at every submission, with a warning to you when none is attached
License and insurance verification
Reviews only from completed, escrow-funded projects
Project chat where every money event auto-posts
Free public cost estimator, no signup
In development
Rendered design concepts. The studio writes a brief today; it does not produce images.
Free for homeowners to post and bid out a project. Bank transfer is free; card and Apple Pay add a 3% processing fee, shown to you before you confirm. Nothing else.
Questions
The things people ask before they fund anything.
- What does Voli cost?
- Posting a project, the AI price review, milestone plans, the Design Studio, and the public estimator are free. Voli charges no platform fee today. Funding by bank transfer costs nothing; card and Apple Pay add a 3% processing fee, so most people use bank transfer. No subscription, no lead fees.
- When does my money actually move?
- Not on a schedule and not on a timer. Your contractor submits a milestone with photo evidence; you see those photos inside the approval dialog and release the funds yourself. The one exception is a dispute: if you open one, escrow freezes and money moves only according to Voli's written mediation outcome.
- Do I have to fund the whole budget upfront?
- No. Post the project free, review bids, and fund as work progresses. Escrow only needs to cover the next milestone plus the holdback already earned on earlier work — and nothing goes into escrow until you've accepted a bid you're happy with.
- What if something goes wrong?
- Don't approve the milestone — the funds stay in escrow. Work it out in the project chat, where every money event auto-posts as a system message, so the thread is a chronological record of what happened and when. If you can't resolve it, open a dispute: money movement stops the same second, and Voli reviews the full record and mediates. A mediation ends one of four ways — the disputed milestone releases, it reverts to in progress, the project is completed and the holdback released, or Voli writes a resolution note and no money moves.
- Is Voli a bank or an escrow agent?
- No. Voli is a technology platform — not a bank, not a licensed escrow agent, not a law firm, and not a party to your construction contract. Deposits are processed and held by our payment partner and move on your approval. AI analysis is guidance, not professional advice.
Nothing moves
until you say so.
Post your project free, get your budget priced against your market in minutes, and fund escrow only when you've accepted a bid you trust.
Post
Describe the job, upload photos of the space, set a budget. Free, no card.
Price
Voli reads your photos and description and tells you whether your budget lands below, within, or above your ZIP's market.
Fund
Accept a bid, fund the first milestone, and release it when the photos show the work is done.
Bank transfer is free; card and Apple Pay add a 3% processing fee. Posting, pricing, and the estimator cost nothing.