Estimating guide
Getting a sharper estimate
Estval does the slow parts for you. These five habits get you from a fast draft to a number you'd put your name on.
Start with a clean plan set
The takeoff is only as good as what it can read. Upload the full, current plan set as a crisp PDF rather than a phone photo of a printout. If sheets are split across files, include the ones that carry the real scope — architectural, structural, and the relevant MEP pages.
Set the location you're building in
Estval prices by place, because material and labor don't cost the same in every market. Pick the job's location (or a saved location) before you generate — it's the single biggest lever on an accurate number.
Describe the scope in your words
Add a short note about what's actually included — a gut renovation prices very differently from a cosmetic refresh of the same square footage. A sentence of context steers the estimate toward the job you're really bidding.
Review the draft like an estimator
Read the estimate the way you'd check a junior's takeoff. Confirm the big quantities, sanity-check unit prices against what you're seeing in your market, and add anything site-specific the plans don't show — access, phasing, temporary conditions.
Turn it into a bid
Once the numbers hold up, set your overhead and margin, and export a clean proposal or CSV. From here you can spin up bid packages for your subs and track change orders against the same job.
Habits of a good estimate
- Bid the scope you can see, and flag the scope you can't — assumptions belong in writing, not in your head.
- Keep your saved locations current so pricing tracks the markets you actually work in.
- Treat the AI draft as a starting point, never the final word — your judgment is the value you add.
- Reprice when a job stalls; material costs move, and a three-month-old number is a guess.
Where estimates fit the rest of the job
An estimate in Estval isn't a dead end. The same job flows into bid packages you can send to subs and change orders you can track through closeout — so the number you built once keeps working as the project moves.
Ready to price your next job?
Send us your plans and our estimating team prices the job for you — a bid-ready estimate back, usually within a business day.