Public roadmap
What is next for HoundBell
We build in the open. HoundBell ships improvements constantly, most of them suggested by the business owners who use it every day. No feature on this page is a promise with a date attached; it is an honest look at what we are building and why.
Have something you wish HoundBell did? Email support@houndbell.com. Real requests from real businesses are how most of what you see below got here.
Building now
On the bench today. These ship next.
One-click WordPress connection
Connecting your website will become a single click: press Connect in WordPress, approve in HoundBell, done. No application passwords, nothing to copy and paste.
The official WordPress.org plugin listing
Install HoundBell straight from your WordPress dashboard’s plugin search, with automatic updates from then on.
Staff logins with their own schedules
Team members will manage their own day: see their assigned jobs, set their working hours, and request their own time off, all flowing into the time-off records and the crew board your business already has. Owners stay in control with admin and staff roles.
More templates for every trade
New form, pipeline, and contract agreement templates are added as new trades come aboard, so setup keeps getting faster. Have a trade we should cover next? Tell us.
The official Zapier app: now in early access
HoundBell is live on Zapier with five instant triggers: new leads, accepted quotes, paid invoices, confirmed bookings, and signed contracts. Email support@houndbell.com for an early-access invite. The public Zapier directory listing comes next.
Zoom video calls, built in
Mark any booking Virtual and it gets a real Zoom meeting automatically: the join button rides the confirmation email and every reminder, for your client and your crew. Built, tested, and submitted to Zoom’s marketplace for approval; it switches on for every account the moment Zoom signs off.
On the horizon
Bigger swings, already on the drawing board. Order and scope can shift as we learn from customers.
Your Google reviews, inside your CRM
See every new Google review the moment it lands, get notified on your phone, and reply without leaving HoundBell, with suggested replies drafted for you in your business’s voice. Critical reviews always wait for your approval before anything posts.
Autopay for recurring invoices
Clients on recurring invoices save a card once and every cycle pays itself.
Text messages, built in
Booking confirmations and reminders by text, a heads-up the moment a lead arrives, and messages for clients who live on their phones. The text-consent checkbox on your forms is already collecting permission for it. Coming to the Team and Agency plans with confirmations, reminders, and review-request texts included.
QuickBooks, the full connection
The QuickBooks-friendly export has landed: one click downloads your invoices in QuickBooks’ own import format, plus a payments file for reconciling. Next up is the live connection that syncs automatically, with no file handling at all.
Email campaigns
Send an offer or an announcement to every past customer, or just the ones you filter to, right from the leads you already have.
An AI receptionist that answers when you can’t
You are on a roof or under a sink and the phone rings. An AI receptionist answers professionally, captures who called and what they need, offers real openings from your actual calendar, and books the job. The caller lands in your CRM as a lead with the full conversation attached. It will be available on every plan as a pay-as-you-go add-on.
An answer machine for your questions
A help assistant trained on every HoundBell guide, answering questions in plain language, day or night.
HoundBell on Google Play
The app already installs to any phone’s home screen; a Play Store listing makes finding it even easier.
Recently shipped
A taste of the pace. All of it built in the last few weeks, and all of it included. See the complete list on the features page.
- Team delegation with owner approvals: access checkboxes now grant full working rights per area, and every deletion or cancellation waits for the owner’s one-tap approval from the Daily Brief, reason included
- Reschedule in two clicks: move any confirmed booking to a new time and the client automatically gets an updated email with fresh calendar buttons while reminders follow the new time
- Security hardened across the platform: bot protection on booking pages, tamper-proof e-signature records, hashed API keys, and a full audit of every public door
- One-click QuickBooks exports: invoices in QuickBooks’ own import format, payments ready to reconcile
- An instant branded reply to every new request, with the client’s own words quoted back
- A complete booking reminder clock: hour-before and 15-minute heads-ups to the client, you, and your assigned crew
- An Overview dashboard for multi-business owners: portfolio revenue, leads, and bookings on one screen
- White-label booking pages on the Agency plan, no HoundBell branding
- Additional businesses purchasable on Agency, prorated instantly
- Returning customers recognized automatically, so a repeat client’s whole story lives on one card
- A permanent deal history with lifetime value for every client
- Multi-service jobs priced line by line
- Add a lead and book their first visit in one motion
- Booking requests straight from your website
- A shareable hosted booking page that takes bookings with no website at all
- A full calendar with recurring visits and crew scheduling
- Blocked-off time with permanent staff time-off records
- Contracts your clients sign from their phones
- Invoices paid by card
- Automatic review requests after every happy job
- Automatic follow-ups that chase your quotes and invoices so you don’t have to
- Webhooks that send your leads, payments, and bookings to other tools the moment they happen
- Smart spam screening on every form
- A phone field that refuses impossible numbers
Plans on this page reflect our current direction and can change as we build. When a feature ships, it moves off this page and into the product, usually with a help article the same day.
Help steer the roadmap.
The features above exist because owners asked. Tell us what your business needs next.