If you searched for a kvCORE open house app or a BoldTrail open house app, here is the first honest thing to know: one already exists, it is free, and it comes with the seat your brokerage pays for. Plenty of comparison pages skip that part. We are not going to, because the interesting question is not whether Inside Real Estate built a sign-in app. They did. The question is what happens at the door on a Sunday afternoon, and whether the tool you hand a stranger holds up when the house has no signal, the visitor does not want to touch your tablet, and a disclosure needs to be acknowledged before anyone writes their phone number down.
This page covers what the built-in app actually does, where OpenHouse is different, where the built-in tool is the better call, and how agents who love their BoldTrail pipeline run OpenHouse at the door and keep every lead flowing into the CRM they already work.
Yes, BoldTrail and kvCORE ship an open house app
BoldTrail OpenHouse is a real product from Inside Real Estate, published on the Apple App Store and Google Play, free to download. It is the direct descendant of the kvCORE Open House app that Inside Real Estate launched back in 2018 and gave to kvCORE users at no extra cost. If you remember the kvCORE version, this is the same lineage wearing the BoldTrail name.
According to the BoldTrail helpdesk article, the flow goes like this. You install the app and sign in with your BoldTrail account. You type the MLS number or the address of the listing, tap start, and confirm the property is the right one. A setup wizard lets you switch visitor fields on and off, including a buyer agency question that asks whether the visitor already has an exclusive agreement with another agent. Visitors sign in on the tablet, and each one becomes a BoldTrail contact with a Prospect status and an automatic hashtag in the form of the MLS number and date, so the lead source is tracked. Anyone who says yes to the buyer agency question arrives Unsubscribed and stays out of your automated campaigns.
That is a competent tool, and it does the one thing a platform-owned app should do better than anybody: the lead is in the CRM the moment it is captured, tagged, and ready for whatever follow-up you already built. Credit where it is due.
OpenHouse vs the built-in BoldTrail and kvCORE tool
| OpenHouse | BoldTrail / kvCORE OpenHouse | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99/mo or $79.99/yr per seat, first month free | Free with your BoldTrail seat |
| Account to start | Not needed for the basic kiosk | BoldTrail login required |
| Starting an event | Type an address, start capturing | Look up the listing by MLS number or address |
| No signal | Offline-first capture, automatic sync later | Captures offline, then a manual sync |
| Visitor's own phone | Hosted QR self-sign-in, nothing to download | Tablet sign-in |
| Kiosk lockdown | Locked single screen | Standard app screen |
| Disclosure | Presented and acknowledged per visitor, stored with the record | One buyer agency yes/no question |
| Seller report | Built in, ready for the listing appointment | Reporting lives in the platform |
| Where leads go | Your account, plus BoldTrail, kvCORE, Follow Up Boss, HubSpot, Lofty, Sierra, Zapier | BoldTrail CRM |
| If you stop paying | Read-only mode, every lead stays exportable | Tied to your BoldTrail seat |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad, and any browser | iOS and Android |
Offline, and the part that is easy to overstate
We are going to be precise here, because "the built-in tool needs a connection" is the lazy version of this argument and it is not quite true. BoldTrail's own documentation says the app keeps collecting sign-ups when the internet drops, and that you reconnect, open the app, pick the completed open house, and sync the sign-ups yourself.
The gap is narrower than a marketing page would like, and it is still real. Getting the event started means logging into a cloud account and looking up a listing in the MLS, both of which want a connection before your first visitor arrives. The recovery is a manual step you have to remember on a day where you are also locking up, moving signs, and answering a call from your seller. Sync-later with a human in the loop is a different reliability story than sync-later that happens on its own.
OpenHouse is offline-first on iOS and iPadOS by design. The kiosk, the form, and every lead write land on the device first. Airplane mode is a supported configuration, not a recovery path. When the device sees a network again, leads sync to your account and onward to your CRM with nothing for you to tap. And because the basic kiosk needs no account at all, there is no login screen standing between you and a visitor who is already holding your pen.
The visitor's own phone
The built-in app is a tablet sign-in sheet. That was the standard when the kvCORE version shipped, and a lot of visitors still happily tap through it.
A lot of them do not. Some do not want to touch a device three hundred strangers touched, some are holding a toddler, and some will hand the tablet back with a fake name because a shared screen feels like a form you owe somebody. OpenHouse gives you a second path: a QR code that opens a hosted sign-in page on the visitor's own phone, with nothing to download and no app store detour. Print it on the flyer, prop it on the counter, and let people sign in from the driveway if they want. The tablet kiosk is still there when you want it, and it runs as a locked single screen so nobody wanders into your email while you are in the kitchen.
Disclosure, not just a checkbox
BoldTrail's buyer agency question is genuinely useful, and marking those contacts Unsubscribed is a thoughtful touch. It answers one question: does this person already have an agent.
Since the NAR practice changes, most agents need more than an answer. They need a record that a disclosure was presented and acknowledged, attached to the visitor who acknowledged it, with a timestamp. That is what disclosure capture does in OpenHouse, and it is the difference between a data field and a paper trail. Our guide to open houses after the NAR settlement walks through what brokerages are asking for at the door and why the acknowledgement matters more than the checkbox.
Leads you can take with you
This is the structural one. A lead captured in the built-in app is a BoldTrail contact in a BoldTrail account, and that account usually belongs to your brokerage. Agents who change offices find out what that means at the worst possible time.
OpenHouse never holds leads hostage. They are yours, they go where you send them, and we do not sell visitor data to anybody. If a subscription lapses, the app drops into a read-only mode where every lead you ever captured stays viewable and exportable. A lapse stops new events. It never locks the door on your own contacts.
Where the built-in app is the better call
- You want zero extra cost. BoldTrail OpenHouse is free with a seat your office already bought. That is hard to beat and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- You are on Android. OpenHouse's native app is iPhone and iPad. Our browser app runs on any device, but if you want a native Android tablet at the door, the built-in tool has it.
- Your automation is deep and your listings are connected. If your nurture sequences are built out in BoldTrail and your market has reliable signal, in-platform capture is the shortest path from sign-in to first touch.
- You never want to think about a second tool. One login, one system, one place to look. That has value.
Run OpenHouse at the door, keep your kvCORE pipeline
Here is the part that surprises people: choosing OpenHouse does not mean leaving BoldTrail. OpenHouse sends leads to kvCORE and BoldTrail natively, so a visitor who signs in on your iPad shows up in your BoldTrail contacts on its own. No CSV, no import wizard, no Monday morning data entry. Follow Up Boss, HubSpot, Lofty, Sierra, Zapier, and plain webhooks work the same way, and CSV, PDF, Contacts, and vCard export are still one tap away if you want a copy for yourself.
That is the whole pitch. Capture on a tool built for door duty, follow up in the CRM you already know.
How it works
- Open OpenHouse on your iPad, or on any browser, and start an event with the property address. No account needed for the basic kiosk.
- Turn on disclosure capture and pick your questions. Prop the QR card next to the tablet so visitors can choose either one.
- Run the open house. Everything writes to the device whether or not the house has signal.
- Connect your BoldTrail or kvCORE account once, and every lead flows there automatically from then on.
- Send the seller a report of the afternoon before you leave the driveway.
Pricing
OpenHouse is $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year per seat, and the first month is free. Teams pay per seat and share cloud sync and a leaderboard; solo agents can subscribe straight through the App Store. Full detail lives on the pricing page.
Set against a free app that comes with your seat, that is a real decision. The way we would frame it: if your listings always have signal, your visitors always tap the tablet, and a single buyer agency question covers your disclosure needs, the built-in tool is doing its job and you should keep using it. If any one of those three is false on a regular Sunday, the cost of the fix is about two coffees a month.
So which one?
BoldTrail and kvCORE users are in a better spot than most agents shopping for a sign-in app, because they already have one that works. The honest comparison is not "they have nothing, we have something." It is about what happens in the gaps: the dead-zone listing where a manual sync is one more thing to remember, the visitor who will not touch a shared tablet, the disclosure your broker wants on the record, and the day you change offices and want your contacts to come with you.
If you want the wider view, our OpenHouse vs BoldTrail comparison covers the two products row by row, the BoldTrail open house review digs into what agents say about the platform's door-duty workflow, and the roundup of the best open house apps lays out the rest of the field. And if capturing at the door while keeping your kvCORE pipeline sounds right, the first month of OpenHouse is free to try at a live event.
Frequently asked questions
Does BoldTrail or kvCORE have an open house app?
Yes. Inside Real Estate ships BoldTrail OpenHouse, a free tablet and phone sign-in app for iOS and Android, and it is the same product line agents knew as the kvCORE Open House app. You sign in with your BoldTrail account, pull up a listing by MLS number or address, and captured visitors land in the BoldTrail CRM as Prospect contacts.
Why use OpenHouse instead of the built-in BoldTrail tool?
Four reasons agents give us: the basic OpenHouse kiosk needs no account and no listing lookup to start, visitors can sign in on their own phone by QR code instead of touching your tablet, disclosure acknowledgement is captured and stored per visitor rather than as a single yes or no question, and your leads stay portable because they are yours to export at any time.
Do my leads still go into kvCORE or BoldTrail if I use OpenHouse?
Yes, automatically. OpenHouse has a native connection to kvCORE and BoldTrail, so a visitor who signs in at the door shows up in your BoldTrail contacts without a CSV in the middle. Follow Up Boss, HubSpot, Lofty, Sierra, Zapier, and plain webhooks work the same way, and CSV export is still there if you want it.
Does the BoldTrail open house app work with no Wi-Fi?
Partly. The BoldTrail helpdesk says the app keeps collecting sign-ups without a connection and that you then reopen the app and manually sync them. Starting the event still means signing into your BoldTrail account and looking up the listing, which are connected steps, and the sync is something you have to remember to run.
Does OpenHouse work with no signal?
Yes. The iOS and iPadOS app is offline-first, so the kiosk, the form, and every lead write happen on the device. Nothing blocks on the network, and captured visitors sync to the cloud and on to your CRM on their own once the device is back online.
What does OpenHouse cost next to the free BoldTrail app?
OpenHouse is $9.99 per month or $79.99 per year per seat, with the first month free. The BoldTrail OpenHouse app is free to download and comes with your BoldTrail seat, which your brokerage is already paying for.