# Honest comparison Papertrail is excellent for equipment owners — adventure parks, rope-access teams, wind farms — inspecting their own PPE and lifting gear. Core is built for the inspection service company going on site to inspect equipment for many different customers. ## For the Inspection Service Business. Not Just for Inspecting Your Own Kit. Papertrail is excellent if you own and inspect your own equipment — climbing centres, rope access, wind farms. Core is built for the inspection company going on site for many customers, with job scheduling, branches, technician utilisation, billing handoff, and a branded portal for every client. Book a 15-min demo [See pricing approach](/content/pricing/index.html) ## Which one is right for you? A straight call. We'd rather you self-select the right fit than push the wrong tool. ### Choose Papertrail if… - You are an equipment owner — adventure park, climbing centre, rope-access company, wind-farm operator — managing inspections of your own kit. - PPE and height-safety equipment dominate your inventory, with little crane, hoist, or proof-load workflow. - You want a frictionless 45-day free trial and published tiered pricing before talking to a sales team. - PartnerHub-style record sharing with your equipment suppliers is genuinely valuable to you. ### Choose Core if… - Your business is providing inspection and certification services to other companies, with technicians dispatched to customer sites. - You inspect cranes, hoists, lifting beams, and rigging alongside PPE — not just PPE. - You operate across AU/NZ, UK, US, or Canada and need ASNZ or ASME compliance, not only LOLER. - Branded customer portals at your custom subdomain are part of how you retain and grow accounts. - You need multi-branch job dispatch, technician utilisation reporting, and service-charge capture at the point of inspection. ## Where Core wins ### Three reasons inspection businesses switch to Core 1. **The service-company motion, end to end** Papertrail is built around an asset register an equipment owner manages — climbing harnesses they own, rope kit they inspect for themselves. Core is built for the loop that runs an inspection company: quote a customer, schedule a technician across branches, dispatch the job, enforce competency rules, capture time and service charges in-app, generate certificates, push them into the customer's branded portal, and hand off to billing. Different centre of gravity, different workflow design. 2. **Heavy-lift and rigging scope, not just PPE** Papertrail's customer base is strongest in adventure safety, rope access, arboriculture, and PPE management — and they're genuinely excellent in those niches. Core's scope is wider: overhead cranes, mobile cranes, tower cranes, hoists, lifting beams, shackles, eye bolts, plate clamps, vacuum lifters, magnets, and load testing — alongside PPE and height-safety equipment. AS 4991 below-the-hook device certification, AS 2550 crane major inspections, and ASME B30 retirement criteria are all native. 3. **Multi-region compliance, not LOLER-only** Papertrail's compliance focus is LOLER, IRATA, and work-at-height PPE standards. For UK adventure and rope-access operations, that's the right framework. Core covers LOLER alongside ASNZ 2550 (AU/NZ), ASME B30 (US/Canada), and the LEEA Code of Practice — first-class, not bolt-ons. Service companies with international customers or plans to expand don't run parallel systems per region. ## Side-by-side: Core vs Papertrail | Capability | Core | Papertrail | What this means | |----------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------| | Built for | Inspection service companies | Equipment owners (PPE/adventure focus) | Different centre of gravity drives different workflow design. | | Multi-branch service operations | Native (cross-branch jobs, branch dashboards) | Limited | Core handles the multi-location service-company motion. | | Crane / hoist coverage | Deep (overhead, mobile, tower, load testing) | Light | Core covers the heavy-lift family Papertrail under-serves. | | Timesheets and service charges | Captured at the point of inspection | Add-on or external | Job profitability data flows directly to billing in Core. | | Multi-inspect batches | Native | Limited | Batch capture for 100+ items per visit. | | ASNZ / ASME compliance | Native (AS 4991, AS 2550, ASME B30) | Light | Critical for AU/NZ and US/Canada operators. | | PPE product directory | Standard | 15,000+ pre-loaded items | Papertrail's onboarding accelerator for adventure / rope access. | | NFC scanning | Supported via standard mobile | Native focus | Papertrail's hardware-cost story for PPE owners. | | Restrictive competencies | Enforced at scheduling | Tracked | Core makes competency a scheduling constraint, not just a record. | | Free trial | Demo + scoped trial | 45 days, no credit card | Papertrail's evaluation flow is genuinely frictionless. | ## Why Core, in five lines ### Built for the inspection service business Quote → schedule → inspect → certify → bill is the workflow. Most competitors stop at 'inspection completed'. ### Multi-region compliance in one platform LOLER, ASNZ 2550, ASME B30, and LEEA Code of Practice ship together — not as separately purchased modules. ### Unlimited customer logins Every one of your customers gets a branded portal to view equipment and certificates — no per-portal-seat charge. ### Multi-inspect for batch capture Inspect 200 chain slings as a single batch with shared metadata. Drill into defects only. ### Restrictive competencies enforced Only certified technicians can be scheduled to certain inspection types — competency becomes an operational rule, not just a data field. ## FAQ Is Papertrail LOLER-compliant? Yes — Papertrail is a LEEA Associate Member and ships a thorough-examination workflow. Core also handles LOLER ROTE natively. The differentiator isn't LOLER itself — it's industry focus. Papertrail is strongest in PPE and adventure safety. Core is built for crane, sling, and rigging service operations. What does Papertrail cost? I run a wind-farm operator — am I Papertrail or Core? Does Core have a free trial?