Comparison
WHIG vs Encircle
Encircle is the adjuster's tool. WHIG is yours.
If you are comparing Encircle and WHIG as a homeowner, the most important thing to understand is that these two products no longer compete for the same job. Encircle has pivoted to become an exclusively B2B platform for the people who handle insurance claims: restoration contractors, adjusters, third-party administrators, and catastrophe response teams. Its current website shows no consumer home-inventory product at all.
Encircle did once offer a free consumer home-inventory app, and you will still find references to it around the web. But the company has moved on. Its feature set, its pricing model, and its sales process are all built for businesses now. You request a demo or a trial, and the tools you get are designed for a professional documenting someone else's loss after it happens.
WHIG sits on the other side of the claim. It is built for homeowners who want a complete, valued record of their contents before anything goes wrong, sealed and private and ready to hand over if they ever need it. This comparison lays out, fairly, what each does well and which one fits which person.
- Pricing
- Now B2B only. Pricing on request; no public consumer plan.
- Platform
- Web and mobile apps (for professionals)
- Based in
- Canada and United States
- Best for
- Encircle is genuinely right for restoration shops, insurance adjusters, third-party administrators, and catastrophe teams who document property losses on the job.
WHIG vs Encircle, feature by feature
Estimated values are exactly that. Not a professional valuation.
Who Encircle is built for now
Encircle today is a field-documentation system for the restoration and insurance trade. The work it streamlines is professional: an adjuster or contractor arrives at a damaged property, captures photo and video evidence, generates a floor plan from a phone walkthrough, records moisture readings and drying logs, scopes the mitigation work, and produces a structured PDF report for the claim. AI summarises the footage and drafts contents descriptions to speed the crew along.
That is a strong, mature toolset, and it explains why thousands of restoration shops use it. But every one of those features assumes a paid professional operating on behalf of an insurer or a property owner, usually after a loss. There is no self-serve homeowner product on the current site, and pricing is quoted to businesses rather than published. If you are a contractor or adjuster, Encircle is squarely aimed at you. If you are a homeowner wanting to document your own things, you are no longer the customer.
The adjuster's tool vs your record
The cleanest way to tell these products apart is timing. Encircle is used after a loss, by the professionals processing the claim. It captures the state of a damaged property so the mitigation and settlement can proceed. The evidence it produces lives in the contractor's or insurer's systems, as part of their job file.
WHIG is used before a loss, by you. You record a short video walkthrough of your home, and the AI identifies your items, estimates a replacement cost from current retail pricing data, and captures a timestamped frame for each one. The result is your own inventory, prepared calmly in advance rather than reconstructed from memory under stress. If you ever do make a claim, you walk in with the record already made, instead of relying on whoever turns up to document what is left.
Privacy: who holds your inventory
Because Encircle is a professional platform, the documentation it creates is held and managed by the business using it. That is appropriate for a contractor's job file, but it means the record of a property's contents sits inside a company's systems rather than in the owner's hands.
WHIG is built the opposite way. Your inventory is encrypted on your device with AES-256-GCM, the key stays on your phone behind Face ID, and the content is never sent to WHIG. It is delivered to storage you control: your Google Drive, iCloud, the device itself, or your own S3 bucket. WHIG's own database never holds your item names, brands, values, transcript, or item images, only room labels, cryptographic hashes, and anonymised aggregates. The processing video is handled in isolation and deleted within the hour, and within 24 hours at the latest.
Proof: a sealed record you control
A contents list is only as useful as it is believable. WHIG produces a cryptographically sealed Evidence Package: each step of processing is SHA-256 hashed and signed with ECDSA on the NIST P-256 curve, using a key held in AWS KMS that is never exported. That makes the record tamper-evident, so a later change to the file can be detected.
Anyone you share it with can confirm the seal at whig.app/verify, in their own browser, with nothing uploaded anywhere. The verification runs locally against the published signature. You hold the record, you choose who sees it, and they can check it is genuine without taking your data or trusting WHIG's word for it.
Cost and access for homeowners
Encircle does not publish consumer pricing because it is not selling to consumers. Prospective customers request a demo or a free trial, and the platform is sold to businesses on terms suited to restoration shops and insurers. For a homeowner, there is no straightforward way to simply buy it and document your own home.
WHIG is free to start, and the permanent Evidence Package is a one-time $38. There is no subscription and no renewal. You pay once for a sealed, valued record you keep. WHIG uses current retail pricing data and is available internationally, and it is coming to iOS and Android through the waitlist.
Who should choose Encircle, and who should choose WHIG
Choose Encircle if you run or work in the restoration and claims trade. If your day involves scoping mitigation, logging moisture and drying, generating floor plans on site, and turning all of it into professional reports for insurers, Encircle is purpose-built for that and is used widely for exactly those reasons.
Choose WHIG if you are a homeowner who wants your own private, verifiable, insurance-ready record of what you own, prepared before any loss and kept under your control. The two are not really rivals so much as tools for different people standing on different sides of the same claim. Encircle serves the professional. WHIG serves you.
What Encircle does well
- Professional loss documentation in the field: photo, video and note capture with AI video summaries, floor plans generated from a smartphone walkthrough, and polished PDF reports built for claims files.
- Restoration-specific workflows that no consumer app needs: water mitigation with moisture readings and drying logs, AI scoping for mitigation work, ROM budgets, e-signatures, forms, and job tracking.
- Scale and adoption across the trade, with the company stating that more than 3,000 restoration shops rely on it to standardise documentation across crews and sites.
Encircle is genuinely right for restoration shops, insurance adjusters, third-party administrators, and catastrophe teams who document property losses on the job.
Where WHIG pulls ahead
Your items never touch our servers
WHIG is zero-knowledge. Your walkthrough is turned into an inventory, encrypted on your device, and delivered to your own Google Drive. We hold room labels and cryptographic hashes, never item names, brands, or values. See exactly how on our security page.
A sealed record you can prove
Every step of processing is hashed and signed, so your Evidence Package is tamper-evident. Anyone can check it, including an insurer, at whig.app/verify. Encircle gives you a list. WHIG gives you proof.
One price, not a subscription
WHIG is free to start and $38 one-time for the permanent Evidence Package. No recurring fee to keep what is already yours.
Available internationally, not US-only
Where Encircle is tied to one market, WHIG works wherever you are. Replacement-cost estimates use current retail pricing data rather than one country's defaults.
The verdict
Encircle is an excellent professional platform that happens to share a history with consumer home inventory, but it has moved on. It now serves the contractors and adjusters who document a loss after it happens, and it serves them well. WHIG is built for the homeowner who wants to be ready beforehand: a complete, valued inventory from a short video walkthrough, encrypted on your own device, delivered to storage you control, and sealed into a tamper-evident Evidence Package you can prove is genuine. It is a one-time $38, with no subscription, for homeowners anywhere. If you handle other people's claims, look at Encircle. If you want your own record before you ever need it, WHIG is the one made for you.
Frequently asked questions
- Can homeowners still use Encircle for a home inventory?
- Encircle's current website shows no consumer home-inventory product. The company has pivoted entirely to professional field-documentation tools for restoration contractors and insurance teams. It historically offered a free consumer app, but that is no longer the focus, so homeowners do not have a clear, supported path to use it for their own contents today.
- Is Encircle free?
- Encircle does not publish pricing. It is sold to businesses, and prospective customers request a demo or a free trial. The free consumer app it once offered has been left behind as the company moved to its professional platform, so there is no straightforward free homeowner option now.
- Is Encircle for consumers or businesses?
- Encircle is now a business-to-business platform. Its customers are restoration shops, insurance adjusters, third-party administrators, and catastrophe response teams, and it states that more than 3,000 restoration shops use it. Its features, sales process, and pricing are all built for professionals rather than individual homeowners.
- What is a good Encircle alternative for homeowners?
- WHIG is built specifically for homeowners who want to document their own contents before a loss. It turns a short video walkthrough into a complete, valued inventory plus a sealed Evidence Package, and it uses current retail pricing data. Unlike Encircle, it is sold directly to you rather than to businesses.
- Does WHIG work like Encircle?
- They share the idea of capturing property evidence on a phone, but the purpose is different. Encircle is used by professionals to document a loss after it happens, as part of a claim file. WHIG is used by homeowners to build their own private, valued inventory before anything goes wrong, sealed and verifiable and kept under their control.
- Who actually holds my inventory data with each product?
- With Encircle, the documentation is held and managed by the business using the platform, which suits a contractor's job file. With WHIG, your inventory is encrypted on your device and delivered to storage you control, such as Google Drive, iCloud, your device, or your own S3. WHIG's database never holds your item names, values, or images.
- Does WHIG give a professional valuation of my belongings?
- No. WHIG produces estimates of replacement cost based on current retail pricing data, along with the documentation to support them, not a professional valuation. Specialist or high-value items are flagged so you can have them assessed by a qualified valuer. The goal is a strong, honest record, with clear notes on what is estimated.
- How can someone trust that a WHIG record has not been altered?
- Each step of WHIG's processing is SHA-256 hashed and signed with ECDSA on the NIST P-256 curve, using a key held in AWS KMS that is never exported, which makes the Evidence Package tamper-evident. Anyone you share it with can confirm the seal at whig.app/verify in their own browser, with nothing uploaded. If the file were changed afterwards, the check would fail.
See what you own, and prove it
WHIG is coming to iOS and Android. Join the waitlist for early access. Twenty minutes and your phone.
Join the waitlistCompare WHIG with other apps
See how WHIG measures up against the other home inventory apps, side by side.
Sources, as of June 2026
Competitor details are summarised in good faith from public sources on the dates shown and may have changed since. WHIG provides information and documentation, not a professional valuation.