IdeaRadar
LienBuddy
Get tradespeople paid by automating liens and small-claims paperwork by state
Score 7.3/10 · Worth testing
Money
23 July 2026
Proof at a glance
7.3 out of 10. Score 7.3/10 · Worth testing
The problem
A small painter or electrician finishes the work, then the general contractor stops answering texts and the invoice just sits there. Three months later he finds out the deadline to file a mechanic's lien — the one legal tool that actually forces payment — may have already quietly expired, because every state counts the clock differently. This crushes owner-operators: subcontractors wait an average of 74 days to get paid and some wait 120, per a PYMNTS construction-payments report, and 68% of subs said they had to file a lien due to slow payment, per Rabbet's 2024 Construction Payments Report. Nothing easy fixes it: a construction lawyer costs more than a $4,800 invoice is worth, and the big lien platform (Levelset, now owned by Procore) is built and priced for multi-job firms, not a one-truck shop. Why now: slow payments cost U.S. construction $280 billion in 2024 and 82% of contractors reported payment delays over 30 days, up from 49% just two years earlier (Rabbet), while 28% of mechanics liens in 2025 were tossed on procedural grounds like missed deadlines (Subcontractor Audit) — the squeeze is real and the paperwork is the trap.
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