Illustration. The screening conversation runs in the applicant’s browser from your link today; the text-in keyword and its number arrive with the SMS side.
You are not short on applicants. You are short on the right ones showing up.
Indeed bills a sponsored post per click or per started application, and the price depends on your market and the job (Indeed (opens in a new tab), checked October 2026). The clicks are not the problem: say three people tell you Tuesday, one comes, and he wants $34 an hour to hold a level.
Meanwhile the guy you actually want has never made an Indeed account. He is working. He is not sitting at a laptop building a resume for a job that involves a post-hole digger. But he does have a phone in his pocket and he can text at a red light.
CrewFunnel puts a keyword where he already looks — your tailgate, your yard signs, the corkboard at the supply house — and does the first interview on his phone before you ever pick up yours.
From tailgate to interview in about four minutes
Four steps. You do not touch the first three.
Put the keyword where they look
Your keyword goes on tailgates, doors, trailers, yard signs, job-site banners, the back of your card, your Facebook post. The keyword is texted to your own texting number, a local number in your area code rather than the business line people call. That texting number is issued when the SMS side goes live; until then the screening link does the same job. Downloadable QR codes that pre-type the message are on the roadmap.
They answer your questions, one at a time
Plain language, answerable at a light. No account, no app, no upload. It is built to take under four minutes. Today that conversation runs in their browser from your link; it moves onto SMS when carrier registration clears, with the same questions and the same scoring.
You get a scored one-pager
Every answer, a fit score against the rules you set, and the time they applied. Knockouts get a polite decline on the spot so nobody sits waiting.
Two taps book the interview
You publish your open slots and claim one from their one-pager — the slot locks so two people cannot take it. A confirmation text is written for them and an .ics invite downloads for you. Automatic morning-of reminders are on the roadmap.
Six questions. Yours, not ours.
You write every question yourself, in the order you would ask them on the phone. Add a seventh if you need one; cut it to four if you do not. Trade starter sets — roofing asking about heights and harness work, cleaning asking about a vehicle, landscaping asking which equipment they have actually run — are on the roadmap; for now the fastest route is to copy the six you already ask.
Here is a worked example for a fence crew, so you can see the shape of it:
- How many years have you done this kind of work?
- Do you have a valid driver’s license?
- Can you lift 80 pounds repeatedly, in July?
- How far are you from the yard?
- Can you make a 6:30 AM start?
- When could you start?
Illustrative example. Real summaries carry the applicant’s own name and answers.
What $69 a month gets you
One flat price a month, not a bill per click.
Your own keyword
CREW, HIRE, JOBS — pick the word. The screening conversation opens instantly, 24 hours a day, including at 9:40 on a Sunday night — over the web today, over text once your registration clears.
QR codes today
Links & QR in your portal draws the QR code that opens your screening page, on a Now Hiring sign you print yourself. Applicants scan it and answer in the browser, which works on everything with a phone in it. Scan-to-text codes that pre-fill a message come with texting.
Print-ready signs — the QR ones today
Links & QR in your portal prints a Now Hiring sign whose QR code opens your screening page, plus yard signs, truck doors, door hangers and cards for your quote form. Signs with a text keyword are not built yet: texting has to clear first, and that generator comes after it.
Editable screening script
Write as many as you need — we suggest six, and the builder will take up to forty. Knockout rules and 0-10 scoring weights you control, with an optional Spanish label on every question.
Fit scoring
One number, built only from the answers to your job-related questions. No personality quizzes, no black-box ranking.
Two-tap interview booking
Publish your open slots and claim one from the applicant one-pager; the slot locks the moment you take it. A confirmation text is written for them and a standard .ics downloads for you. Morning-of reminders are on the roadmap.
Persistent applicant pool
Everyone who applies stays on your list with their answers, score and date, and you can narrow it by job, status, score and how recently they applied. July emergencies get a warm list instead of a blank page.
Scored before you look
Everyone lands with a fit score already on them, so the pool sorts itself and you open the ones worth opening. Every finished screening emails you within minutes, score and knockout included (switch it off on your Account page); the Monday summary counts the week's applicants; a score threshold is on the roadmap.
Compliance built in
They come to you first, which is the cleanest consent there is. Opt-out language in every thread, and on the signs once they carry a text keyword. Your A2P 10DLC registration will be assembled from your setup and filed for you once carrier filing opens; you pay the carriers’ own fee at cost. Nothing has been filed for anybody yet, and nothing texts before it clears.
Someone quits on a Wednesday. You needed them Thursday.
Trade hiring has cruel timing. The day you need a body is never the day you were recruiting, and starting a job-board campaign from zero in the middle of the busy season is how you end up working Saturdays through August.
Nobody falls out of the file
Every person who has ever answered your screening stays in the pool with their full answers, their score and the date they applied. The guy you passed on in March because you had no opening is still there in July, and he is still qualified.
Filter to who you can actually use
Score at least 7, applied inside the last ninety days, still in the pool — the score and the window save as your defaults so the pool opens pre-filtered, and you narrow to a role per search. Every answer is on the one-pager, so the last cut is a glance, not a search. Filtering on distance needs geocoding and is on the roadmap.
Reach the shortlist
Filter the pool, export it to CSV, and reach back out one thread at a time from the inbox. They came to you first, so you are picking up a conversation they started, not firing off a bulk campaign; the texting rules on the compliance page are why it is one thread at a time, not a blast.
Honest ageing, not hidden ageing
Every record shows how old it is. Somebody who applied five months ago probably has a job now, and we would rather show you the date than let you assume the pool is fresher than it is.
A three-truck fencing outfit runs the keyword on both trucks and two yard signs from March. Over the spring, a couple dozen people work through the screening; most are knocked out on the spot, a handful are interviewed, one is hired. In July the lead installer gives notice on a Wednesday. Instead of posting a job at 9pm and waiting, the owner opens the pool on a saved filter — score 7 or better, applied in the last ninety days, still in the pool — reads the six one-pagers that come back, and has two interviews booked before Friday. This is a scenario, not a case study. We will publish real pilot numbers here when we have them, with the customer’s name on them.
Mock-up of the sign copy. The QR Now Hiring sign prints from Links & QR in your portal today; the text keyword and your texting number, the one the keyword is texted to, are issued when the SMS side goes live.
We hand you the sign copy. You pay the print shop once.
Your account gives you the exact keyword, your screening link and a printable Now Hiring sign whose QR code opens the screening page; once your signs carry a text keyword, the opt-out wording that goes with it comes too, so the sign is compliant before it leaves the printer — hand that copy to whoever does your vehicle graphics. The number applicants text is your own texting number — a local number in your area code, registered to your business, and not the business line people call — and it goes on the sign once your registration clears, which is the one line worth waiting on before you order a hundred magnets. A generator that produces the print-ready PDFs and QR codes for you, in the sizes below, is on the near-term roadmap and will never be a paid add-on.
Where contractors actually put them
Tailgate and both truck doors. The trailer. The job-site sign in a good neighborhood. The corkboard at the supply house, which is free and where everybody who does your work buys their material. The shop door. The back of the card you hand the homeowner, because her nephew needs work.
Budget reality: a yard sign from an online printer starts at about $11 (Vistaprint (opens in a new tab), October 2026), and truck magnets are a one-time buy too. That is the ad spend. It does not renew every month, and it works while you sleep.
Against the other hiring tools
Team Engine’s price and plan features from its own price page (opens in a new tab) and how candidates apply, its signs and its saved candidate pool from its text-recruiting page (opens in a new tab), both checked November 2026, and how Indeed bills from Indeed’s “How Paid Job Posts Work” (opens in a new tab), checked October 2026.
| Feature | CrewFunnel | Team Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | $69 | $400–500 (Growth plan: $400 billed annually or $500 monthly, up to 50 employees) |
| How someone applies | Answers on their phone, no account — by the QR on a printed sign today; a text keyword once texting clears | By text: a keyword or code sent to a dedicated number, from a jobsite sign or a flyer; also a branded careers page, and job boards such as Indeed, Facebook and ZipRecruiter |
| Screening | Your questions, one at a time on their phone | “Smart screening”, in its own words |
| Sized for a 1–5 truck shop | Yes | Its Growth plan is built for a team with an office manager or HR lead who uses it every day |
| Re-contactable applicant pool | Yes — their number stays on file; texting them waits on texting going live and their opt-in | Yes: it texts updates to a saved candidate pool, and has two-way texting with candidates and employees |
| Truck and yard-sign artwork | The QR signs print from your portal; keyword signs not built yet | QR codes to add to your signs, and “Text to Apply” signs at jobsites or on vehicles, on its text-recruiting page; it does not say it makes the artwork |
| Ongoing ad spend required | None | Not stated on its price page; it posts jobs to Indeed, Facebook, ZipRecruiter and more |
| Bundled with quotes, missed calls & reviews | Yes, $199 for all four | Not on its price page |
The fair version: Team Engine does considerably more than we do — full applicant tracking, onboarding paperwork, e-signature, retention messaging. If you are hiring thirty or forty people a year across multiple branches, that is probably the right spend and we are not the tool for you. CrewFunnel is built for the shop that needs two good installers by spring and does not want a hiring platform to administer. Indeed is not a competitor so much as a bill: a sponsored job is billed per click or per started application, at a price set by your market and the job, and Indeed says there is no fixed public price list (Indeed, checked October 2026).
Legally, this is the easy one — they come to you first.
An applicant who answers your screening off your own sign has opted in about as cleanly as anyone can. We still put the opt-out line in every thread (and on the signs once they carry a text keyword), and an opt-out permanently blocks that number the moment STOP lands. Registering your A2P 10DLC brand and campaign with the carriers is our job: it will be assembled from your setup and filed for you once carrier filing opens (nothing has been filed for anybody yet) — the carriers’ own fee for it is yours, at cost with nothing added, and nothing texts until it clears, which is exactly why the screening runs on the web in the meantime rather than sitting in a queue.
The other half is employment law, and here we are deliberately boring. The questions are yours, you are the employer, and the score is nothing more than the answers to your job-related questions added up.
Read the Compliance DetailsThings we deliberately do not build
One plan, everything
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The Tailgate Office™ Bundle
Only need the hiring? After the trial you can keep CrewFunnel on its own at $69/mo.
Want to see the applicant flow before you buy? Start the free trial, set up your keyword, and run the built-in screening preview yourself — the same conversation an applicant gets, right in your browser, no phone required. It is built to take about four minutes, and you will know within two whether your guys would finish it.
The office your truck never had.
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