More: You pay MONEY in advance for something you may never use! Do you purchase tools a year in advance? Cement? Trucks? Computers? Of course not. Information is no different; you should purchase only after you are sure you need what you are being asked to pay for. With the LDI-Line On-Line, you can

• View the Drawing and Specification Indexes on-line for FREE
• View the actual drawings on-line for FREE
• Check the Bidders List for FREE
• If you decide not to bid the job, you pay nothing.
• If you decide to bid the job, you can purchase only the exact drawings and specifications you need for the bid on a pay-a-you-go basis through xpressfile.
• LDI guarantees the accuracy and printability of all digital files sent via xpressfile . Otherwise, you pay nothing.

More: You pay MONEY in advance for jobs to bid that may not be available. Because of this, do you have to check several sources to make certain that you know about all the jobs bidding that might interest you? Do you purchase more than one subscription in an effort to get ALL the information you need? Why doesn't your pre-paid service have these jobs? How much extra time and money do you spend filling in these information gaps? What does it cost you?

More: You spend MONEY to subscribe to the information portion of the subscription service, and then have to spend MORE MONEY to use the download services or get hard-copy prints. Did you know that you can subscribe to the information portion of most download sites without subscribing to the download service itself, savings thousands of dollars each year? You may actually be paying money in advance for download services that you MAY NOT WANT. Why pay extra for download service if all you want is job listings and other project information but not the actual plans? Check your subscription and see what your options may be in reducing expense by eliminating unwanted services.

More: Download services require you to load special software onto your PC.  Special software can cause problems (many customers have reported problems.)  Some download services change their software frequently. Why should you spend time doing this? Why take the chance that your local system may be corrupted? Xpressfile uses your current Windows (or MacIntosh) Operating System and the same Browser you use every day.

More: A pre-paid subscription is a FIXED EXPENSE that consumes cash. Ask your accountant which is better; FIXED or VARIABLE expenses? Pre-paid subscriptions are a FIXED expense; pay-as-you-go programs are a VARIABLE expense. Successful business people know that conversion of necessary cash outlays from fixed to variable expense is a better way to manage a business in slow times. FIXED expenses consume cash up-front; VARIABLE expenses conserve cash and enable you to tailor your expenditures to optimize your CASH FLOW. How has your CASH FLOW been lately? Is improved cash flow important to your company?

More: Pre-paid subscriptions do not allow for credits or rebates when problems occur or jobs that you want are not available. Once you have pre-paid for something, it is virtually impossible to get rebates or credits for the times when the "servers are down" or ""the Internet connection was not working right" or "sorry…we don't have that job uploaded yet" or “we are trying to get that job but we don’t have it yet.” Do you get credits for the times when the download service is not available and you have to go elsewhere for prints? Who and where do you call with a problem or complaint and how rapidly do they respond with answers and solutions when you complain about service? With xpressfile pay-as-you-go, you don't pay for what you don't get.

More: Pre-paid subscriptions allow little time for evaluation of the service before you have to pay. How much time were you offered to evaluate the service you are considering before you have to write the check? It takes time (perhaps months) to determine…

•  if they usually have the jobs you  want to bid?
•  if their download technology works smoothly?
•  if they actually have the drawings on the jobs they list, or is it a listing only?

More: Believe it or not; password-protected download sites are not secure; password sharing is common. There is nothing in the technology used by most of the download sites to prevent this. This means that those who actually pay for a subscription are subsidizing those who do not pay (or who are given free access as part of some other membership package.) Some of these “freebies” may be your direct competitors. The lack of security on subscription download sites is unfair to you, the paying subscriber. It is reasonable to expect that everybody who uses the service pays for it. If someone else doesn't pay, why should you ?

More: Subscription services are limited by geographical boundaries that make little sense in a regional economy such as we have in the Southeast. Selling subscriptions by state or by smaller sections of a state has no logical purpose; it is done only to generate more revenue from subscribers like you who need multiple subscriptions because you want to bid and build on a regional basis to keep up with your competitors. The LDI-Lie On-Line and our xpressfile service have no geographical limits; we bring projects to you from a multi-state area, all FREE.

More: Most subscription services make little effort to track ADDENDAS OR UPDATED DRAWINGS AND SPECIFICATIONS and yet in many cases these are the most important documents released by the architect during the bid process. Many addenda and replacement sheets are issued during the last couple of days prior to the bid when instant availability of information is most critical. Ask yourself;

• Do you worry about losing a bid (or making a costly bidding error) because you don’t know about last-minute changes on a job?
• Have you ever been disqualified from a bid because you missed an addendum on the project?
• When you pay for your subscription, what do they tell you about the availability and timeliness of addenda?
• How do you find out about addenda and changes when they are not posted on your pre-paid subscription site and what does this extra time and effort cost you?
• Can you get a refund from the subscription service to cover your costs of missing information that has to be gathered from another source?

More: Subscription services are not nearly as good at providing you with HARD COPY PRINTS as they are digital files, which they tend to favor. Some services do not offer hard copy as an option.  But, there are many times when you need actual hard-copy prints to do markups and complete a bid. You may or may not have your own in-house plotter and, even if you do, plotting your own prints may not be timely or cost-effective.

• Does your subscription service provide hard copy?
• How convenient is it to get prints from your subscription service?
• What does it cost? How do you pay? What is the turnaround time?

More: Pre-paid subscription services list lots of jobs but often have very few of those listed available for download. Is your time worth money? How soon after a job is released for bid is it available for download from your service? What percentage of jobs listed are ever actually available for download? Are your competitors getting a head start on putting a bid together because you are waiting for plans to be scanned and uploaded by your subscription service? Once you have pre-paid for the information, are you getting it on time? Do you ever spend money to get plans faster from another source (LDI, for example?)

More: Pre-paid subscription services often fail to update Bidders Lists as invited Bidders drop out and new ones are added. Does your subscription service do a good job keeping you updated on who is really bidding a job, or do they just show the preliminary list of invited bidders sent out by the architect? Do you waste time calling around trying to find out who is accepting bids? Do you ever send bids to GC’s who aren’t bidding the job? Do you ever miss sending a bid to a GC because you didn’t know they were an active bidder?

More: Each pre-paid subscription service is different; they have different jobs and may even have different information about each job. A sub-contractor may have to subscribe to multiple services (or borrow passwords) in order to bid jobs to a large number of General Contractors over a wide geographic area. Have you ever been disappointed by the quantity and type of jobs available each day on your subscription web site? What were you told about job listings (the type and quantity that would be available) before you subscribed? Did they exaggerate? How often do you hear about or find good jobs from some other source (another subscription service, the rumor mill, etc.) that you think should have been listed on your prepaid subscription service? When you contact your prepaid service to ask about a job you have heard about from some other source, how do they respond? Do they make an effort to get and list the job and, if so, how long does it take? Is this hassle part of what you are paying for?

More: Most of the pre-paid subscription services are owned by large corporations headquartered outside of the Southeast. When you have a question or problem, who helps you? An owner? A manager? A customer service rep? Where are they located? In your area? In your state? In your time zone? Do they know you? Is there a personal commitment by somebody to solve your problem in a timely manner? Does the person you are talking to have the authority to take action to solve your problem? Do you feel like a valued customer when they are through helping you?

More: Most subscriber sites have no set schedule for adding projects or updating information. How often is your subscription service web site updated? Is new information added regularly, or do you have to keep checking to see if a new job you are looking for is there yet? Do they notify you of new jobs, addenda, etc. or do you have to search for them yourself? How long does this take?