Pricing
What a bid package costs, and what moves the price.
One price per bid package. Not per hour, not per sheet, and not a subscription. Your first steel package is free and your first concrete package is half price, yours to keep either way.
Steel & misc metals
Priced by the job, quoted before we start.
Starter
A full steel package on a smaller job.
$299–399
per bid package
+35% rush (24h)
Standard
Mid-size work — multifamily, commercial, a single building carrying full Division 5.
$549–899
per bid package
+35% rush (24h)
Complex
Master developments, large construction, major public works.
$1,200–2,500
per bid package
+35% rush (24h)
Every steel tier gets the same six deliverables. The tier changes what the job takes to build, not what you receive.
Concrete
Division 3, priced the same way.
Starter
A single scope: a foundation package, a slab on grade, one podium deck.
$550–750
per bid package
+35% rush (24–48h)
Standard
A typical commercial bid. One building, the full concrete set, footings through decks, with reinforcing.
$950–1,400
per bid package
+35% rush (24–48h)
Complex
Multi-building or phased work, or concrete spread across the structural, civil and landscape sheets.
$1,800–2,900
per bid package
+35% rush (24–48h)
Every concrete tier gets the same set: takeoff workbook, priced proposal, marked-up plan set, RFI list, PM task list. See what is in it.
Self-serve plans coming soon.
What moves the price isn't sheet count
It's how much of the job we have to figure out.
Two jobs can carry the same tonnage and the same number of structural sheets and be nothing alike to estimate. One has a complete set: the details are drawn and the schedules agree with the plans, and the stair and rail scope is clearly somebody's. The other has a stair section that contradicts the riser schedule, an embed called out on the framing plan but detailed nowhere, and a handrail shown on the architectural sheets that the structural drawings never mention. The second job is the expensive one, and it is usually the smaller one.
We price on how unique the job is, how many open questions it carries, and how much of the scope is ambiguous, not on a formula. What pushes a package up a tier is usually one of these:
- Drawings that don't agree. Plan versus schedule, structural versus architectural. Every conflict is a decision somebody has to make before the number is real.
- Details that aren't there. A connection, an embed, a stair tread — called out and never drawn. That becomes an RFI, and the RFI has to be written well enough to get answered.
- Scope that could sit with you or somebody else. Embeds set by the concrete sub, rail furnished by you and installed by the GC. This is where you lose money, and sorting it out is most of the work.
- Multiple buildings, phases, or bid packages. The same detail repeats with small differences. Each one gets checked, not assumed.
- Addenda churn. A set revised three times during the bid period takes longer than a clean one, every revision has to be reconciled against what we'd already counted.
The jobs that generate the most RFIs take the most work, and they're also the jobs where an estimating service earns its fee. Every question answered during the bid period is a question you aren't eating after award, when the answer costs real money and the GC has your signature. A takeoff that quietly assumed its way past four ambiguities is cheaper to produce and far more expensive to own.
You'll have the price before we start
The tiers are a judgment call, so you're never exposed to an open-ended number. Send the plan set and we'll come back with the tier and what put it there: the specific conflicts, the missing details, the scope splits we can see. If it lands higher than you expected, you'll know why, and you can tell us to narrow the scope or walk away. Nothing starts until you say go.
And on your first package it's moot anyway: the first steel package is free and the first concrete package is half price.
Why we cost more than a $200 takeoff
You can buy a steel or concrete takeoff online for $150 to $400. The arithmetic is usually fine. But what arrives is a quantity list, and a quantity list is not a bid.
You still have to price it at your own material and labor rates, write the scope letter, above all the exclusions that keep you off somebody else's steel or concrete: build the proposal on your letterhead, decide what to ask the GC before the bid closes, and set up the schedule of values you'll bill against for the next eight months. That's most of an estimator's afternoon, and it's the part where bids are won and lost.
A $200 takeoff
- A quantity list, usually one spreadsheet
- Priced at generic rates, or not priced at all
- No scope letter, no exclusions
- No proposal on your letterhead
- No RFIs written for the bid period
- No pay-app setup
- You still do the afternoon of work
A TopOut package
- Takeoff workbook, every row naming its sheet
- Priced at your material and labor rates
- The scope you carry and the scope you don't, spelled out in writing
- Branded proposal, your logo, ready to send
- Marked-up plan sheets you can hand to a GC
- RFI list written to actually get answered
- Pay-app templates and schedule of values (steel), or the PM task list (concrete)
Five or six documents instead of one, reviewed by an estimator who bids this work, every quantity traceable to the sheet it was measured on. If what you need is a quantity list, buy the quantity list, we'd rather say so than take the job. If you need a bid you can send this week, that's what the price buys.
Rush work
Steel and misc metals run 48 hours standard with a 24-hour rush; concrete runs 48–72 hours with a 24–48 hour rush. Either way the rush is +35% on whatever the package would otherwise cost. No rush tier, no separate rate card: the same package, moved to the front of the queue.
If your bid date is tighter than 24 hours, call rather than email. Sometimes we can help and sometimes we can't, you'll know in two minutes instead of waiting on a reply.
What the price does not include
A TopOut package, in either trade, does not include:
- Shop drawings or erection drawings
- Engineering, connection design, or sealed calculations
- A professional engineer's stamp of any kind
- Material procurement, mill orders, or buyout
- Erection labor, cranes, rigging, or field supervision
- Welding inspection, testing, cylinder breaks, or special inspection
- Mix design, formwork engineering, shoring and reshoring design
- Rebar placing drawings and bar-bending schedules for fabrication
- Ready-mix supply, placing crews, pumps, or field supervision
- Pricing for scopes that aren't shown on the drawings you send us
Some we may add later. None are hiding in the fee today.
What you own
Everything we send is yours in the original editable formats (Excel, Word and PDF), carrying your logo and your rates. No portal, no per-seat license, no export fee, and nothing stops working if you never send us another job. Change any number you disagree with, it's your bid and your name on it.
We don't publish your plans, we don't bid against you, and we delete your set on request.
Send one plan set and find out what it would cost.
The first steel package is free, the first concrete package half price, and you keep it either way. Email the set with the job name and the bid date, or call and talk it through with an estimator first.