Who’s killing the 2-hour devis in French construction in 2026?
Seven AI-native or AI-augmented startups are compressing the 2-hour-quote workflow in the French BTP (bâtiment et travaux publics) sector to 60 seconds in 2026: Renalto (Rita), Attix, Cegid Boby, Modulpro AI, Kelvin°, Argile.ai, plus the traditional incumbent Tolteck. The combined market is artisans and small construction companies — France has roughly 600,000 BTP businesses with under 10 employees, and the average artisan currently spends 5-8 hours/week on quotes and admin. The unlock: voice-driven and AI-augmented quoting that turns a site visit description into a complete devis (with materials, labor, margins) before the artisan leaves the parking lot. This article is the comparative landscape, the real adoption numbers, the API stacks each one rides, and who wins by use case.
The fact-check note: I’ve been digging into this market for a side project (progecko.ai), not as a current operator. The numbers below come from each company’s published material and a deep-research review across editor sites, comparison blogs, and trade press. Treat the user counts as company-stated until you’ve talked to a customer.
Why is the French BTP sector finally being unbundled by AI?
Three converging conditions:
- The voice unlock. GPT-4-class models (and Claude Sonnet 4) finally got good enough at French construction-specific vocabulary that “15m² de placo BA13 avec joints, isolation laine de verre 100mm” parses correctly into a quote line item. Pre-2023, this didn’t work in French at production quality.
- The catalog APIs are open. GECET (a BTP buying central) exposes >1 million product references with negotiated prices via API. Leroy Merlin, Castorama/Kingfisher (Mirakl-based), and Batiprix (Costructor’s pricing library) all have programmatic access. The AI doesn’t have to re-build the catalog — it just has to call it.
- The artisan smartphone is now the office. 80%+ of French BTP artisans use a smartphone as their primary on-site computer. Voice + camera + 4G is the input layer for the quote. The desktop “logiciel BTP” of 2015 is irrelevant on the jobsite.
When those three line up, the 2-hour-evening-at-the-desk workflow stops making sense. You record a 90-second voice memo from the customer’s bathroom, hit send, and the quote is on the customer’s phone before you reach your van.
“The artisan won the moment voice-to-devis broke 1 minute. Below 60 seconds, the cost-of-thinking is gone — they’ll quote everything they used to skip.” — A French BTP SaaS operator I spoke to off the record in March 2026
The 7-startup landscape at a glance
| Startup | Core unlock | Stated users | Time savings claim | Pricing | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Renalto (Rita) | “1ʳᵉ IA des pros du bâtiment” — describe the job by voice or text, quote in 1 min | ~5,000 artisans | 5h/week | TBD (subscription) | All-trades artisans wanting 24/7 mobile quoting |
| Attix | Voice-only assistant — dictate a memo, get devis in 60s | ~1,200 artisans | 4 days/month (~1 day/week) | TBD (subscription) | Renovation specialists, voice-first workflow |
| Cegid Boby | ”IA Copilote” embedded in Boby — voice-dictated devis + factures + emails | (Cegid base = thousands; Copilote rollout 2025-26) | 4h/week | Boby + Copilote add-on | Existing Cegid Boby customers, multi-trade |
| Modulpro AI | AI quotes + 3D rendering / virtual home-staging | (early-stage) | Not stated | TBD | Plumbers, electricians, finishing trades wanting visual quotes |
| Kelvin° | RGE / energy-renovation specialist — CEE simulation, energy savings | ~4,000 artisans (CSTB-sourced) | Not stated (seconds for simulation) | TBD | RGE-certified renovation companies |
| Argile.ai | All-in-one energy renovation — AI diagnosis, online simulator, API integration | (early-stage) | Not stated | TBD | Energy-renovation businesses needing diagnosis + quote pipeline |
| Tolteck (traditional, not AI) | Pre-built “ouvrages” library, devis in 5 min | (large existing base) | “5 min per quote” via library | ~€19-39/mo (per artisan) | Artisans who don’t want voice/AI, want a clean classic tool |
Six AI-native players plus the strongest traditional incumbent. The race is between the voice-first crowd (Renalto, Attix, Boby) and the vertical specialists (Kelvin°, Argile.ai for energy renovation; Modulpro for visual-heavy trades).
What does Renalto (Rita) actually do?
Renalto’s pitch: “the 1st AI of building professionals.” Rita is the agent — accessible by mobile app, web, or WhatsApp 24/7. The artisan describes the job in plain French (typed or voice), Rita generates the complete devis in roughly 60 seconds.
What sets it apart in 2026:
- Multi-channel input. WhatsApp is the killer detail. The artisan dictates from the customer’s bathroom into WhatsApp, gets the quote back as a PDF in the same thread, forwards it to the customer.
- Personalized pricing memory. Rita learns each artisan’s preferred margins, common ouvrages, and supplier prices. Quote 5 → quote 50 = much faster, more accurate.
- 5,000+ artisans. Renalto is the largest stated AI-quoting user base in French BTP at the time of writing. Maçons, peintres, plombiers, all-trades.
Reported time savings: ~5h/week per artisan, consistent across testimonials.
The weakness: it’s an all-trades tool, which means none of the trades get the deep verticalization that Kelvin° (energy renovation) or Modulpro (visual quotes) offer. If your trade has unusual requirements, Rita will get you 80% of the way and stop.
What does Attix actually do?
Attix is voice-only, by design. The artisan dictates a memo (90 seconds describing the job), and Attix returns a full devis in ~60 seconds. The headline math: “60 seconds, not 2 hours.”
What sets it apart:
- Voice purity. No keyboard input as the primary path. Faster than Renalto for an artisan who is genuinely on-site and hands-busy.
- Stated 1,200 artisans. Smaller user base than Renalto but growing fast on word-of-mouth in renovation circles.
- 4 days/month time savings. That’s roughly 1 day a week, which lines up with what users report on review sites.
The weakness: it’s narrower than Renalto. Voice-only is a feature for some artisans and a bug for others (you can’t easily review or correct a quote mid-dictation without restarting).
What does Cegid Boby (with the IA Copilote) do?
Boby is an established BTP software (part of Cegid since the acquisition). The IA Copilote is the new layer added in 2025-26: dictate a quote, the AI generates the full devis (materials, labor, market prices) AND can also dictate invoices, customer files, and follow-up emails.
What sets it apart:
- Distribution. Cegid has the existing customer base. Most of the 4h/week saved isn’t a new artisan adopting AI — it’s an existing Boby user gaining Copilote.
- Ecosystem. Customer files, invoices, accounting integrations are already there. The Copilote slots in.
- Multi-language adaptation. Cegid claims the Copilote handles regional vocabulary across electrical, plumbing, tiling specialties.
The weakness: you have to be a Boby customer to get the Copilote. For an artisan starting from scratch, the all-in-one path is more expensive and complex than starting with Renalto or Attix standalone.
The two energy-renovation specialists: Kelvin° and Argile.ai
The RGE (Reconnu Garant de l’Environnement) renovation segment is its own market. Insulation, heating retrofits, CEE (Certificats d’Économies d’Énergie) — quoting these is harder than a tile job because the quote must include energy-savings simulation, regulatory compliance, and CEE eligibility.
Kelvin° specializes here. The tool simulates work (lots, CEE, energy savings) in seconds with AI assistance. CSTB-sourced numbers indicate ~4,000 RGE-certified artisans use it. If your business is energy renovation, Kelvin° is the deeper tool than Renalto for this specific segment.
Argile.ai is the other player in this segment — an all-in-one platform with AI-driven diagnosis, online simulator, and API integration. Less voice-centric than Kelvin°, more focused on the diagnosis-to-quote pipeline.
The pattern: vertical specialists beat horizontal generalists in regulated, formula-heavy segments. Renalto is great for the maçon. Kelvin° is great for the RGE-certified insulation specialist.
What about Modulpro AI?
Modulpro AI’s positioning is broader than quoting — it’s a SaaS bundle for habitat artisans (plumbers, electricians, finishing trades) combining AI-instant quotes WITH 3D rendering and home-staging tools.
Why it matters: in finishing trades, the customer often needs to see what they’re paying for. A 3D render of the renovated bathroom alongside the quote closes deals at a higher rate than a quote alone. Modulpro is betting that the visual layer is worth as much as the voice layer.
Stated user numbers are modest at the time of writing (early-stage). Worth watching if your trade is visual-heavy.
What APIs are these tools riding on under the hood?
The AI is only as good as the catalog data it queries. The under-the-hood stack:
| Source | What it provides | Format | Used by |
|---|---|---|---|
| GECET | >1M product references, negotiated prices via marketplace API | REST | Most all-trades AI quoting tools |
| Leroy Merlin | Product catalog, prices, availability — official API + scraping (Piloterr) | REST/JSON | All-trades, retail-priced jobs |
| Castorama / Kingfisher | Mirakl-based catalog (ShopID + API key) for catalog sync | REST | Same |
| Batiprix (Costructor) | Comprehensive BTP price library, integrated into many tools (Sage, Codial, EBP) | API | Traditional + some AI tools, especially for full-trade pricing |
| 1build | US-focused GraphQL Cost Data API by region | GraphQL | (US tools mostly; some EU experimentation) |
| 2050 Materials | ~100,000 products with classification + carbon footprint data | API | Energy-renovation tools (Kelvin°, Argile.ai) |
What this means for the buyer (the artisan): the price accuracy of any AI quote depends on which catalog it queries. A tool that calls GECET + Batiprix has materially more accurate quotes than a tool that doesn’t. Worth asking the vendor explicitly.
Who wins by use case?
Decision tree:
| Your trade / situation | Best fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| All-trades artisan, want voice + WhatsApp, 24/7 mobile | Renalto (Rita) | Largest AI base, multi-channel, learns your pricing |
| Renovation specialist, voice-first, hands-busy on site | Attix | Voice-pure, 60-second target |
| Already a Boby customer | Cegid Boby + Copilote | Add-on to existing stack, cheapest upgrade path |
| RGE / energy-renovation specialist | Kelvin° | Vertical depth on CEE, energy savings simulation |
| Need diagnosis-to-quote pipeline for energy renovation | Argile.ai | API integration, all-in-one positioning |
| Visual-heavy finishing trades (kitchen, bathroom) | Modulpro AI | 3D rendering bundled with quote |
| Want a clean traditional tool, no AI | Tolteck | Mature, well-priced, “5 min per quote” via library |
Most artisans will end up running one of these as primary, plus their existing accounting/CRM tool. The AI quote tool is rarely the only tool.
What does this mean for the rest of the market?
Three predictions, hold me to them by 2027:
- The traditional tools (Tolteck, Amiba, ProGBat, Codial) all add AI Copilotes by end of 2026. They have to. Tolteck especially — they have the customer base, they just need the AI layer.
- One of the AI-native players gets acquired by a Cegid-class incumbent in 2026-27. Renalto is the most likely target given its user-base size.
- The next wave is multilingual. Spanish, Italian, German BTP markets are similar in shape. Whichever French AI-quoting tool ports their model to Spanish first (probably Renalto) takes the EU lead.
For solopreneurs watching this market: the BTP vertical is one of the few where a non-engineer founder can still build a leveraged AI tool, because the customer’s pain is acute and obvious, the catalog APIs are open, and the willingness-to-pay is already there.
Frequently asked questions
Are these tools available outside France? As of 2026-05, all 7 are French-first. Some have early Belgium / Switzerland / Luxembourg coverage (same language). Italian and Spanish versions are roadmapped at Renalto and Argile.ai but not shipped.
How accurate are the AI-generated quotes vs. a manually built one? Vendors claim 90%+ accuracy on materials and 80%+ on labor estimation. Customer reviews suggest the materials side is solid (because of API-driven catalog pulls); the labor side still requires artisan review and adjustment. Treat AI quotes as 80% drafts, not auto-send.
Do these tools handle complex multi-trade renovations (e.g., a full kitchen remodel)? Renalto and Boby handle multi-trade. Attix is best on single-trade jobs. Kelvin° and Argile.ai are RGE-only. Modulpro handles visual finishing trades. None of them currently handle a full general-contractor multi-trade quote without human compilation.
What’s the typical pricing of these AI quoting tools? Most fall in the €30-80/month per artisan range as of 2026-05. Cegid Boby + Copilote runs higher because of the bundled accounting/CRM. Tolteck (traditional) is the price-anchor at €19-39/month.
How do these compare to US tools like 1build or PlanHub? 1build and PlanHub serve a different customer (US general contractors with bigger jobs and different regulatory context). The French market is more fragmented (more sole-trader artisans), more regulation-driven (CEE, RGE, DTU), and more voice-friendly because of the on-site smartphone-first behavior.
Should I (as a startup) try to build a competitor in this market? Honest answer: probably not in 2026. The 7 above already cover most of the distribution channels, and the catalog APIs that matter (GECET, Batiprix) are not difficult to access but require relationships. The realistic plays are: (a) port one of these to a different EU language, (b) build a vertical layer for a specific trade not yet served (e.g., couvreurs), or (c) build the integration layer between AI quoting and the artisan’s existing accounting tool.
What does this mean for the artisans themselves? Net-positive. The 5h/week saved goes back into either more jobs quoted (revenue up) or fewer evenings working (life quality up). The downside risk is for artisans who don’t adopt — by 2027, the customer expectation of “quote in the same hour, not next week” is going to be the default, and the slow-quoters will lose deals.
Where to start tomorrow
Three steps if you’re an artisan or a small construction business:
- Pick one tool to test for 30 days. Renalto if you’re all-trades, Attix if you’re renovation, Boby if you’re already on Cegid, Kelvin° if you’re RGE.
- Compare 5 quotes built the new way vs. your usual way. Track time, accuracy (did you have to fix the AI quote?), and customer-side conversion (did the customer say yes faster?).
- Decide based on the 30-day data, not the marketing pitch. Most of these tools are 1-month free or low-commitment. Real numbers beat the founder demo.
For solopreneurs watching the broader vertical-AI market — what stacks of AI tools the next $500K niche-builders are running — see the $500K AI Stack. For the framework behind picking a niche this attractive in the first place, see the 23/30 Hormozi GOOD validation.