The Only Estimating Kit That Actually Matters On Site

Forget The App Store, Start With The Drawings

Every year there's a new piece of software promising to change how you price jobs. Most of it doesn't matter if the basics are wrong. The first thing that actually affects your price is whether the drawings you're working from are current, complete and consistent with the specification. No amount of clever software fixes a price built on drawings that were superseded two revisions ago.

A Take Off You Can Trust

Whatever method you use to measure a job, digital take off, on screen measurement, or working straight off paper, the output needs to be traceable. Every quantity should point back to a drawing reference and be measured under NRM2, so that anyone checking it later, your QS, your site manager, or the client's team, can follow how the number was reached. That traceability matters far more than which piece of software produced it.

Subcontractor Quotes, Not Guesswork

For most main contractors, the biggest single input into a price is the subcontractor package quotes, not the software used to add them up. Chase those quotes properly, compare them like for like against the same scope, and flag any package where you've had to use an allowance instead of a firm quote.

Current Rates, Checked Recently

A price built on rates that haven't been checked in months is out of date before it leaves the office. Whatever you use to hold your rates, spreadsheet, cost library, or a proper estimating package, it needs updating regularly against what you're actually paying on live jobs, not what a supplier quoted you a year ago.

The Kit That Actually Matters

Strip it back and the tools that make a difference are current drawings, a traceable take off measured under NRM2, real subcontractor quotes, and rates checked against live jobs. Everything else is a nice to have. If you want your next job priced this way, Send your drawings. If you want to see what the output looks like first, See a sample estimate.

← Back to the blog