What is your favourite software for estimating construction costs?

[Laith Wark]

What is your favourite software for estimating construction costs?

[Theodore Tegen]

I don’t use anything special beyond a custom spreadsheet in ms excel. I fill the spreadsheet with pricing knowledge gained over the years. I update this periodically based on bid tabulations that I receive from contractors for various projects. I’m sure someone will chime in, but I don’t even know of any landscape specific estimating software.

[Laith Wark]

thanks for your input. Really appreciate it.

We also use Excel which is great for storing data like rates for each item. But we find it has limitations in managing complexity. Prices vary due to the scale of the project, location etc. We are looking for something more database-like to manage the data.

[Jason T. Radice]

A dartboard.

[Laith Wark]

Hi Keith

For the record we call an estimate an “Opinion of Probable Cost”. However we try to get these as close as possible, within 10% of the tender price, is good.

[Ryland Fox]

Worksheets in Vectorworks so that the quantities update themselves.

[Laith Wark]

We use data from past tenders. We want a tool to manage this data to use for new “estimates”. For example, we can extract a relevant rate for granite paving given a certain quanity based on rates from past tenders.

[Laith Wark]

For quanitity take offs this sounds good. We use LandFX which could be similar. Kind off BIM for site (SIM).

[Ricardo Librero]

Here in Spain I use Menfis 8. We use to work with specifical software for construction cost like Menfis or Presto, they can be join with CAD software and every price can be with a technical specification so when you finish your project you can have the final document of specifications accord with your messurement

[Doug Prouty]

Laith ifyour stillinterested in opinions I’ve used On Screen Takeoff for very accurate quantities takeoffs only. It has a worksheet tab but it is not exportable. This program is also favored by contractors here in Phoenix (I learned the program while working at ValleyCrest). I’m going to give Land FX a try.

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