What a TopOut steel package contains

Most outsourced estimating hands you a quantity list and stops. You still have to price it, write the scope and build the proposal. TopOut ships all six files, editable, with your logo and your rates.

Takeoff workbook (.xlsx). Quantities by member type and by mark, each row naming its sheet. Open the workbook.
Branded proposal (.docx / PDF). Your letterhead, your lump sum, ready to send.
Marked-up plan sheets (PDF). The counted sheets, bubbled and measured.
Scope of work (.docx / PDF). What you carry, and what you don't.
RFI list (.docx / PDF). The questions the drawings raised, written to send as-is.
Pay-app templates (.xlsx). A schedule of values off the same line items, so billing matches the bid.

Nothing goes anywhere until you send it. See how the process runs.

What we take off, by member type

Plenty of services advertise “beams, columns, joists, decking” and leave you to find out what that covered after you win. Here's the real list, with the unit an estimator counts it in. The unit is where scope goes missing.

W-shapes: beams, columns, girders: By mark, with length, weight per foot and the connection type the detail shows. W4 through W44, including the light W6 and W8 posts at canopies and mezzanines. Columns split where the drawings splice them.EA · LF · LBS · TON
HSS: round, square, rectangular: Tube columns, braces, canopy and screen frames. Wall thickness off the schedule, not the plan — an HSS6×6×1/2 weighs nearly twice an HSS6×6×1/4.EA · LF · LBS
Channels, angles, WT and ST: C and MC channel, equal- and unequal-leg angle, tees cut from W- and S-shapes. Loose lintels, kickers, ledger and shelf angle, edge angle at slab openings.EA · LF · LBS
Plate: base, cap, shear tab: By thickness and finished outside dimension so the shop can nest it, hole pattern noted. Shear tabs counted per connection detail.EA · SF · LBS
Bent plate: Pour stops, closure and edge-of-slab bent plate, drip angles. Taken by developed width, the flat blank before the brake, not the finished leg.LF · SF · LBS
Gusset and stiffener plate: Brace gussets, web and flange stiffeners, doubler plates. Counted off the details one at a time, never as a percentage of frame tonnage.EA · LBS
Composite deck and form deck: 1½", 2" and 3" composite deck, 9/16" and 1" form deck, by gauge and finish. Net square feet off the plan; side lap, end lap and bearing added to the order.SF
Shear studs: Counted beam by beam from the framing plan and stud schedule: diameter, length after weld, and the per-rib limit at the deck flutes.EA
Embed plates and weld plates: By mark off the embed schedule and sections. Headed studs and deformed bar anchors counted separately: shop-welded to the plate, they carry hours the plate weight doesn't show. The assembly is normally steel's to furnish and the concrete sub's to set; we flag it either way.EA · LBS
Anchor-bolt assemblies: Rods by diameter, length and projection, with nuts, washers and setting templates. Flagged where they ship loose ahead of steel — that's a date on your schedule.EA · SET · LBS
Leveling nuts and setting plates: Two nuts and two washers per rod wherever the detail levels on nuts, plus setting plates, shim packs and the grout note. Routinely dropped.EA · SET
Metal-pan stairs: By flight and landing: riser count, tread width, stringer depth, soffit condition. Pan-filled treads counted as risers, not square feet, that's how a stair shop buys them.EA (riser) · LBS
Stringers, landings and stair framing: Channel or plate stringers by length and section, landing platforms by area with framing and pan, plus the hangers and kickers holding them off the structure.EA · LF · SF · LBS
Guardrail, handrail and wall rail: Level guardrail in linear feet. Sloped stair rail taken twice — LF and riser count — because plan LF understates the true run and the cost sits in posts, returns and terminations. Wall rail in LF, brackets each.LF · EA (post · return · bracket)
Ladders, cages and roof access: Ship's ladders by rise and width, fixed rung ladders with cages and walk-through extensions, roof hatch curb rail and safety posts.EA · LF (rise)
Bar grating, floor plate, covers: Serrated and plain bar grating by panel and bearing-bar size, banding and cut-outs counted; checker plate by thickness and area; trench, pit and sump covers with frames.SF · LF (banding) · EA
Elevator and hoistway steel: Divider beams, hoist beams, sill angles, pit ladders and hoistway support steel. Off the elevator drawings and shaft sections, which the framing plan rarely shows.EA · LF · LBS
Bollards, site and garage metals: Pipe bollards with fill and cap, dumpster enclosure frames and gates, wheel stops, garage bumper and knee rail, and the loose steel on the civil and landscape sheets.EA · LF · LBS

Scope weighted toward the bottom half of that list? Read the miscellaneous metals page. Same package, different center of gravity.

What we exclude, and why we say so up front

An exclusion list that arrives after the bid is a change-order argument. One that arrives with the bid is a scope letter. These are our defaults; your proposal prints the ones that apply to your job.

Included

Takeoff of everything above, by mark and by sheet
Material, shop labor and field labor at your rates
A branded proposal with your lump sum
A written scope of work, inclusions and exclusions
Marked-up sheets showing every count and measured run
An RFI list from the gaps and conflicts in the set
Pay-app templates keyed to the same line items
Addenda re-priced against the takeoff already built, quoted as an addition

Not included

Shop drawings, erection drawings and detailing
Engineering, connection design and sealed calculations
Any PE stamp — nothing we produce is sealed
Material procurement, mill orders and buyout
Erection labor, cranes, rigging and field supervision
Welding inspection, testing and special inspection
Pricing for scope not shown on the drawings you send

Where the drawings are silent on something the job clearly needs, it comes back as an RFI and an allowance you can accept or delete, never a quiet assumption buried in a total.

Every line traces back to a sheet

Every row in the workbook carries the sheet number and detail callout it came from (S2.1A, 5/S5.02), and the marked-up PDF shows the same count bubble in the same place on the same sheet.

A GC asks where the 38 embeds came from and you answer in seconds. An addendum lands at 4 p.m. and only the affected sheets get re-priced.

Why every row names its sheetAn unreferenced quantity is an opinion. A referenced one is a claim anyone can check: your PM, your detailer, the GC's estimator, you the night before a bid. That's why the marked-up sheets ship to you instead of staying internal.

Reference

What a steel sub says about the marked-up set.

I can open it and see the members and the sheet they came off. When a GC questions a quantity, I answer with the drawing in front of me rather than taking a number on faith.

And the limit, in his words: “It is not an autopilot, and I would be skeptical of anyone who sold it that way. I review every package before it goes out. I set the wage basis, I set the rates, and I make the scope calls.”

DiAngelo Gleaves

Principal · Gleaves Contractors, Inc. · San Francisco

Read the full reference

What we need from you

A PDF plan set, Drive, Dropbox, WeTransfer, a GC's plan room, any size. No portal to learn, no software to install. Four more things help, all optional:

Your rates. Material per pound, shop and field labor, markup. Send a past proposal and we'll read them out of it.
The bid form and invitation. They name the alternates, unit prices and bid items the GC expects, often more precisely than the drawings do.
Addenda issued so far. Cheaper to build in than to price around.
The county and awarding agency. Tells us whether the job sits under prevailing wage or in a district that makes it a union bid: flagged before you price, not after you win.

Send only the plan set and you still get a complete package, priced at published market rates and labeled as such for you to overwrite.

Turnaround and rush

48 hours is standard, measured from when the plan set lands. A 24-hour rush is +35%. Tell us the bid date up front and we confirm delivery before starting. If a date isn't workable we say so then, not three hours before it.

Geography changes nothing: the set is a PDF, so Redding and Chula Vista take the same two days. We work from offices in San Jose and San Diego across every county in California, and take out-of-state sets, we just won't pretend to know your local labor market.

Addenda issued after delivery are re-priced against the takeoff already built and quoted as an addition, not absorbed into the original fee. Send the revised sheets and we price the delta before starting.

What it costs

Your first steel package is free. No card, no contract, no trial that quietly converts. After that it's concierge pricing per bid package, not a subscription and not a per-sheet meter:

Starter, $299–399. Small scopes: a stair and rail package, a canopy, a tenant improvement.
Standard, $549–899. A typical commercial bid: one building, a full structural set, deck and studs, stairs and rail.
Complex, $1,200–2,500. Large or multi-building work, phased packages, or metals spread across the architectural, civil and landscape sheets.

Add 35% for a 24-hour rush. Full tiers sit on the pricing section. Not sure which band? Send it and we'll tell you before any work starts.

Questions steel subs ask

What if the drawings are incomplete?

They usually are. Where the set is silent we don't guess into the total: the gap comes back as an RFI you can send as written, plus an allowance on its own line you can keep or strike.

What happens when an addendum drops?

Send it. Every row is tied to a sheet, so we re-price only what the addendum touched.

Do you price union or open-shop labor?

Whichever the job is. Send your rates and we use yours. Name the county and awarding agency and we'll flag a project labor agreement or an Iron Workers district that makes it a union bid.

What about prevailing wage jobs?

Priced at the applicable determination for the county and craft, with the proposal naming which one. If the awarding agency isn't obvious from the cover sheet, that goes on the RFI list rather than into a guess.

What if I disagree with a quantity?

Open the marked-up sheet, find the bubble, tell us. It's a two-minute conversation about one detail, not an argument about a total. If we got it wrong we fix it and reissue.

Can you match my existing spreadsheet format?

Usually. Send a workbook you've used before and we build the takeoff into your columns, your line-item order, your markup formulas.

Do you work with fabricators and erectors both?

Yes, and with misc-metals shops that do neither. A fabricator's package weights material and shop hours; an erector's weights piece count, crew days and crane time. Tell us which side you bid from.

Is my plan set confidential?

Your plans are never shared, never used to bid against you, and deleted on request.

Send one steel plan set. See what comes back.

The first steel package is free, and you keep it either way. Email the set with the job name and bid date, or call and talk it through with an estimator.

Email your plan set (408) 306-0094