Pricing, Explained Without a Rate Card
There is no price list on this page and that is deliberate. A per-sheet or per-square-foot number prices paper rather than work, and it is wrong on almost every job it touches. What you get instead is every input that moves a quote, what each engagement carries at no charge, and one fixed figure for your own drawings before a cent is billed.
What the quote itself tells you
- One fixed figure for the trades you named, never a range
- A delivery date scheduled against your bid date
- The scope it covers, written out as inclusions
- What it deliberately leaves out, written in the same breath
- How a change of scope would be handled and priced
Why there is no price list anywhere on this site
You came here for a number. Here is the reason you will not find one before somebody has read your set, and what arrives in its place.
A rate card has to price an average job, and there is no average job. Take two sets with the same page count. One is a repeat plan with clean schedules and a single wall type. The other is a phased fitout with six finish levels, three addenda already issued, and half its details referenced to sheets nobody ever sent. The work between those two differs by a factor of four. A single published rate either overcharges the first contractor or loses money on the second, and everywhere else that gap gets closed with a change order after you have already committed.
Per-sheet pricing fails the same test in the opposite direction. One division on a large hospital set is less work than every division on a small retail shell, because you are buying trades, not paper. Charge per sheet and the contractor who sends a complete, well organized set pays a penalty for it. Charge per square foot and a warehouse with four conditions costs the same as a laboratory with four hundred.
So the position is simple, and it is worth stating plainly rather than dressing up: we will not publish a number, because your job is not a number until somebody has looked at it. That is a real cost to us. A published figure converts strangers, and a page like this one has to work harder. What we can do instead is show you every input that moves a quote, tell you which way each one pushes, and give you the exact list of things to send so the figure comes back quickly.
The trade is that you get a total rather than a rate, and you get it before you are committed to anything. One fixed figure for the trades you named, one delivery date scheduled against your bid date, and a written scope statement saying what is in and what is out. Neither the figure nor the date moves unless the scope does, and if it does you see a revised quote before any extra work happens.
The ten inputs behind every quote, and which way each one pushes
Nothing in this list is confidential. Every quote is assembled from the same ten readings, so here they are with the direction each one moves the figure and the part of it you can change before you upload.
| Trades ordered | How many divisions you name and how deep each one goes | Up with each division added, and it is the single biggest lever | Name only the trades you are not already covering in house |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sheet count and set size | Plans, schedules, details and the specification sections that govern them | Up, but far less steeply than the page count suggests | Send the whole set and name the trades rather than trimming sheets yourself |
| Drawing quality | A stated scale, legible schedules, resolved details, no refitted or rephotographed prints | Down on a clean set, up when every sheet has to be verified before it can be trusted | Send the native PDF issue straight from the plan room |
| Sector and complexity | A repeat plan against a phased occupied renovation with six finish levels | Up with the count of unique conditions, not with square footage | Say where the job repeats, so repetition gets priced as repetition |
| Turnaround against your bid date | The working hours between your approval and your submission | Up when the date compresses the queue, flat when there is room in it | Send the set the week the invitation lands, not the night before |
| Quantities only, or quantities priced | Whether you apply your own rates or want a labor, material and equipment build-up | Up when pricing is included, because a build-up is a second pass over the same measure | Order both on one upload instead of weeks apart, so the set is only read once |
| Deliverable format | Standard trade units, your own spreadsheet template, or your internal cost codes | Flat on standard units, marginally up the first time a new template is set up | Send the template once, because after that it costs nothing on every job |
| Addenda volume | How many issues move the set between approval and bid day | Flat on unchanged scope, up only where an addendum genuinely adds work | Forward addenda the day they land rather than saving them to the end |
| Rulesets that are not CSI | A wage determination, or a carrier price list instead of a market build-up | Up, because the labor or the pricing basis is rebuilt from a different source | Flag it at upload so it is priced that way from the first line |
| Engagement model | One bid, a monthly retainer, or a named estimator sitting on your work | Down as your volume rises, which is the whole reason three models exist | Quote your real monthly bid count rather than your best month |
What is included at no extra charge, whichever model you are on
None of this is a tier and none of it is an upgrade. A single trade package on somebody's first job carries exactly the same controls as a retainer client's fortieth. Where something below takes real setup, it is read in the scoping pass and sits inside the fixed figure. Nothing here ever arrives as a charge on top of a quote you already approved.
Stop reading about quotes and get one
Attach the set, name the trades and give us your bid date. One fixed figure and one delivery date come back in writing, and you owe nothing until you approve them.
Three ways to buy the same work, and what changes between them
Try One Bid, All Bids Covered and Dedicated Estimator differ in commitment, in queue position and in what a month costs you. They do not differ in the QA, the deliverables or who measures. Read the three side by side and the one your bid volume already argues for is usually obvious.
Try One Bid
Prove the desk out on a single project. Quoted per bid, no commitment, no contract, nothing billed until you approve the price in writing.
- Takeoff, estimate, or both, with two-step QA either way
- Delivery scheduled against your bid date and confirmed in writing
- Revisions included on unchanged scope
- Direct line to the estimator who measured the job
All Bids Covered
A standing estimating desk on a flat monthly retainer. Every bid you send is covered, and the queue is priority rather than first come.
- 24-96 hour deliveries running across multiple bids at once
- Unlimited revisions and addendum updates inside the retainer
- A curated project-leads feed for your service area
- Your templates and coding loaded once, then used every time
Dedicated Estimator
One named estimator working your pipeline eight hours a day, five days a week, in your tools and your templates. An estimating department without the payroll.
- Works inside your tools, templates and naming conventions
- Backed by the full bench and the independent QA desk
- Daily standups and a direct line, on your hours
- Swap or scale without severance, recruiting or hiring risk
Running a whole bid department
At 200 or more bids a month the question stops being how a takeoff is priced and starts being who runs the board, chases the invitations, levels the subs and gets the package submitted. That one is scoped from a brief rather than from a drawing set.
What is never billed as an extra, and what genuinely is new scope
The line between a revision and new work is where a fixed price quietly turns into a surprise invoice everywhere else. Here is exactly where that line sits, in both directions, before you are anywhere near it.
Anything inside the scope you already approved
The quote names the trades, the drawing issue and the deliverable. Everything needed to produce that is inside the figure, however long it turns out to take. If a wall type turns out to have eleven variants instead of the three visible on the key plan, that is our estimating problem and not your invoice.
Being wrong, on our own clock
If a quantity is wrong because we misread a sheet, we rerun it and you are not billed for the rerun. That is not generosity, it is the only arrangement under which the two-step check means anything. A desk that charges to fix its own errors has no reason to catch them.
Talking to us before and after
Scope questions before you order cost nothing and commit you to nothing. Walking through the assumptions sheet line by line after delivery costs nothing either. Arguing with a quantity is free, which is the entire reason the markups ship next to the workbook rather than on request.
Scope that genuinely grew
Added trades. A drawing issue replaced wholesale. An addendum that moves conditions rather than clarifying them. All three are real work that was not in the figure you approved, and all three come back as a revised quote in writing that you accept or decline. None of them ever appears as a line on an invoice you did not see coming.
Work that is a different job, not a bigger one
Pricing quantities you had measured is a separate build-up: labor, material, equipment, burden, overhead and profit against the market the job gets built in. It is quoted alongside the measurement on one scope conversation, and ordering both on a single upload is cheaper than ordering them two weeks apart.
Construction estimating servicesScopes that price on somebody else's rules
A restoration scope priced from a carrier price list is not a CSI build-up with a different cover sheet. It runs on its own desk, in its own software, against the price list for the loss location and month, and it is quoted separately for that reason rather than as an upgrade to a bid package.
Xactimate insurance estimatesWhat the alternatives cost, counted the way an owner counts
This desk is not free and nobody here will pretend otherwise. The question worth asking is what it costs against the four things contractors actually do instead, priced honestly.
What do your own evenings cost?
Most small shops pay for measurement in nights. It looks free because it never reaches a ledger, and then it shows up as jobs you did not walk, calls you returned late, and a bid built by somebody who had been awake for sixteen hours. Nobody bills you for that, which is exactly why it never gets counted.
What does an in-house estimator really cost?
Take the salary you would actually offer, load it with payroll burden, software, training and the management time the seat consumes, then divide by the bids that seat puts out in a year. The figure is the same in a quiet February and a frantic May, which makes it the right answer for a steady pipeline and an expensive one for a spiky year.
What does a cheap overseas takeoff shop cost?
The sticker is the low half of the story. The failure mode is a flat total with no markups behind it and no exclusions sheet beside it, which your own estimator then has to rebuild before anyone can defend the number at buyout. Ask to see a marked-up sheet before you compare two prices, because paying twice is not a saving.
What does declining the invitation cost?
Every bid you turn down because nobody has an evening free is revenue awarded to somebody else, and it is the only option on this list with no invoice attached at all. A shop that caps its bid count at what one desk can measure has capped its revenue at the same number.
So where does this desk sit against those?
You buy capacity by the job instead of by the year, so the cost appears only in the months you bid. That is the whole argument, and no percentage printed here would tell you anything about your own set. Send one job, put the figure that comes back beside what that bid costs you today, and judge it on your own arithmetic.
Put the awkward question to an estimator
Whether your job is even worth outsourcing, what your set is missing, whether a retainer would cost you more than it saves. Ask before you upload a single sheet.
How to run a fair trial on one low-stakes bid
Do not test an outside desk on the job that decides your year. Run it on a bid you could afford to lose, head to head against whatever you do now, and score both on things you can actually see in a file.
Pick a bid you would otherwise have declined
Send both desks the identical package
Read the quote, then decide
Score both packages on the same six things
Decide on the second bid, not the first
Which model fits the way you bid today, including the answer that says none of them
Answer three questions about how many jobs you bid a month, who prices them today, and what you want back. What comes back is a straight recommendation with the reasoning written out, including the honest answer that says keep this in house for now.
Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is stored. This works out which of the three ways of working fits how you bid, and tells you why.
How billing works in practice, including when it goes wrong
Two things happen before an estimator opens your set and two things can happen after, and between them they decide whether a fixed price was ever fixed. Each one is set out below with the boundary it is measured against.
Before anything is drawn
Two events have to happen in writing before an estimator opens your set.
The fixed quote
EVENT ONEAn estimator reads the set, works out what the trades you named actually take, and sends one figure with one date and one scope statement.
Priced off your set, never off a table
The reading is of your drawings at the issue you sent, so the figure reflects what the set actually resolves rather than an average of jobs that look vaguely like yours.
No promised clock on the quote itself
Delivery of the work is 24-96 hours from approval. The quote comes back as fast as reading your set honestly allows, and anybody promising a fixed turnaround on a quote has not opened the drawings.
Your written approval
EVENT TWOWork begins when you send that figure back approved, and not one minute before it.
Declining costs nothing at all
Say no to the figure, the date or the scope and nothing has been measured, so there is no partial work to settle and no file to buy back.
The NDA can go ahead of everything
Ask for it with your first message and it is signed before drawings, client names, bid dates or pricing move anywhere.
The scope statement
THE BOUNDARYThe quote names the trades, the drawing issue, the addendum number and the deliverable format. That sentence is what a later disagreement gets measured against, which is why it is written before the work rather than reconstructed after it.
What a delivered package containsWhile the work runs, and when it goes wrong
The two situations that decide whether a fixed price was ever fixed.
A scope change mid-job
IN FLIGHTNew trades, a replaced issue, an addendum that adds conditions. Work stops at the boundary and a revised figure comes to you.
You approve or decline, and both are fine
Decline the addition and the original scope is still delivered at the original figure on the original date. Nothing gets held hostage to the extra.
Never discovered on an invoice
The only way extra work is billed is with your written agreement in advance. An invoice that surprises you is a process failure here, not a commercial tactic.
A date we miss
THE AWKWARD ONEIt is rare and it is not impossible, so it is worth writing down what happens rather than pretending it never does.
You hear it the day it becomes likely
A slipping date is flagged while you still have room to react, because a warning on Tuesday is worth something and a confession on Friday afternoon is worth nothing.
What will not happen is a rushed release
Skipping the second estimator to hit a date trades a late package for a wrong one. If the choice is genuinely between those two, you make it, not us.
The whole sequence, in order
THE WALKTHROUGHUpload, scope review, the fixed quote, measurement, the two-step check and delivery, with the real timings attached to each step and nothing skipped between them.
See how the engagement runsThree or more jobs a month changes the arithmetic
At that volume a flat monthly figure with a priority queue and addenda included beats paying per bid. Send your real monthly count and it gets sized against what you spend now.
What a retainer month covers, and what happens to what you do not use
All Bids Covered is a flat monthly figure for teams putting out three or more jobs a month. The mechanics matter more than the headline, so all of them are here including the one that is not in your favor.
Two ways a quote gets written, off a drawing set or off a brief
Almost everything on this page is priced from drawings. Once the volume is high enough that nobody is scoping individual sets any more, the unit of work stops being a package and becomes a program, and it has to be quoted a different way.
What to send today, if you want the figure back fastest
If you skipped everything above because you want a figure and not a philosophy, this is the section that gets you one fastest.
Almost every quote that comes back slowly does so for one of two reasons, and both are avoidable in the message you are about to send. Either the trade list was missing, so somebody had to ask whether you wanted the whole set or the one division you are short on, or the bid date was missing, so nobody could schedule the delivery against anything. Two lines of text sitting under your attachment removes both rounds of email.
The set itself matters less than people expect. A messy set is fine, an incomplete set is fine, and a set that is still being reissued is fine: the quote just names the issue it was priced against. What genuinely slows things down is a refitted or photographed print with no verifiable scale, because that has to be raised with you before anybody can commit to a figure honestly.
What comes back is one fixed number for the trades you named, one delivery date against the bid date you gave, and a written scope statement with the exclusions on it. There is no promised clock on the quote itself and you should distrust anyone who offers one, because a real answer requires somebody to have opened your drawings. What is promised is the delivery window once you approve: 24-96 hours, set against your date rather than against a queue.
Money questions, answered without a rate card
What contractors ask when a pricing page refuses to print a price.
Why no published prices
What moves the figure
Billing and approvals
Choosing a model
Committing, and comparing
Send the set,
and get back one fixed figure
Name the trades, give us your bid date and attach the drawings. An estimator reads the set, writes one price and one delivery date, and you owe nothing at all until you approve that figure.