Cost & Estimate

Estimating built for real fabrication, not a spreadsheet guess.

Quotestimate prices ASME B31.3 piping, ASME Sec. VIII Div. 1 pressure vessels, TEMA heat exchangers, AISC structural steel, and API 650 oil storage tanks the way your shop actually builds them — operation by operation, from cutting through PWHT and NDE to erection on site — instead of one flat rate per pound.

Free download, no obligation. 30 days, full access, no card required to install.

New in v1.0.6: Global currency selector ($, USD, CAD, AUD, SAR, AED, QAR, KWD, BHD, OMR) — quote in your currency.

Listed on G2 → · Listed on Capterra →

30-DAY TRIAL
Estimate — 6" Sch 80 CS Spool JOB 4471
Material$1,284.60
Cutting & fit-up$312.40
Welding (GTAW root / SMAW fill)$918.75
PWHT — furnace, 2 cycles$556.30
NDE — RT + PMI, 24 joints$744.00
Hydrotest & coating$266.10
Overhead + contingency$611.85
Sell Price $4,694.00
Built around the codes your customers already ask for
ASME B31.3ASME Sec. VIII Div. 1ASME Sec. IX AISC 360 / AWS D1.1API 650TEMASMACNANACE MR0175
See us on G2 → See us on Capterra →
Why it's different

Most estimating tools multiply weight by a rate. This one runs the job.

A flat $/lb number can't tell you why one spool costs three times as much as another that weighs the same. (Spoiler: it's the fourteen PWHT thermocouples.) Quotestimate breaks every line into the operations a shop actually performs, and prices each one.

Generic weight-based estimator

  • ✕ Material weight × a single blended rate
  • ✕ No distinction between welding processes
  • ✕ PWHT and NDE guessed as a flat add-on %
  • ✓ Fast to type in

Quotestimate

  • ✓ Cutting, forming, fit-up, welding, machining, priced separately
  • ✓ Weld process, size, and joint count drive labor and consumables
  • ✓ PWHT hold/ramp hours, thermocouples, furnace vs. local heating
  • ✓ NDE by type — RT, UT, MT, PT, PMI, VT — in-house or subcontracted

Guessing is free. Being wrong on a fixed-price bid isn't.

Capabilities

Everything that goes into a real fabrication quote.

Every parameter below feeds the same estimate — nothing is a separate spreadsheet.

Piping & Pressure Equipment

  • ASME B31.3 process piping costing, joint by joint
  • ASME Sec. VIII Div. 1, Pressure Vessel fabrication
  • Vessel head forming — torispherical, elliptical, or hemispherical — priced in-house by size and thickness, or as a subcontracted per-head cost, your choice per line
  • Design pressure/temperature, corrosion allowance, NACE MR0175 sour service
  • Hydrotest and pneumatic test hours, tracked per line
  • Hardness testing (P-No 4/5 alloys, NACE MR0175) and Charpy impact testing (UG-84 MDMT) — in-house or subcontract

Welding & Heat Treatment

  • Weld process, size, and joint count drive labor and consumables
  • Welder efficiency — a configurable efficiency factor so welding hours reflect actual shop productivity, not catalog rates
  • Joint prep — bevel/edge preparation time tracked separately from fit-up, so weld-prep labor isn't silently absorbed into the fit-up line
  • Purge gas — tracked per weld hour for root-purged joints, on top of shielding gas and filler wire consumables
  • Weld position, diameter, shop vs. field, and base material — flat, horizontal, vertical, or overhead; pipe size; where the arc actually strikes; and carbon steel vs. stainless vs. duplex — each carries its own productivity factor, so a 6" shop weld and a 24" field weld in duplex are never priced the same
  • PWHT — furnace, local induction, or local resistance, with heating, hold, and cooling time tracked as their own stages, plus thermocouple setup
  • NDE — RT, UT, MT, PT, PMI, VT, VB, combinable on a single joint (RT + MT on the same weld, for example) — in-house time or subcontract cost, with diameter, wall thickness, and shop-vs-field access each factored in, and a coverage % for random/spot examination instead of assuming every joint is tested
  • Preheat/interpass temperature and filler metal classification (AWS A5.x)

Heat Exchangers & Structural

  • TEMA Class B/C/R — tube-to-tubesheet joints, expanded or welded, with tube insertion tracked as its own step
  • Baffle fabrication (drilling the plate) priced apart from tie-rod bundle assembly (installing it) and from shell fabrication
  • Expansion joint (bellows) labor premium — thin-wall material costs differently than shell plate
  • AISC structural steel — bolt count and grade drive real install/torque time, beam coping is priced apart from straight cuts, and moment connections carry their own labor premium — plus complete shop-to-site costing (see Complete Structural Steel below): erection, decking, anchor bolts, fireproofing, misc metals, and detailing
  • Welder ID, heat/lot number, MTR reference, and CRN/National Board tracking

Machining & Precision Work

  • Drilling, boring, and CNC milling — cost keyed to hole count, hole size, and axis count (2/3/4/5-axis)
  • Lathe/turning, priced by diameter and length
  • Tolerance Class — standard, precision, or high-precision, each with its own time multiplier
  • Cutting — plasma, oxyfuel, saw, laser, or waterjet, each with its own speed and machine rate
  • Deep-hole boring for large forgings — bore diameter and depth, priced separately from routine hole boring
  • API 16A / 16AR well-control equipment (BOP bodies, rams, bonnets) — Temperature Class, PSL level, and rated working pressure tracked per line, with PSL driving inspection time
  • Outsourced machining priced as a flat subcontract cost, not forced through the shop rate

Sheet Metal & Finishing

  • Press-brake forming with accurate flat-pattern calculation
  • Pipe bending and polishing, priced per operation
  • Coating — standard, epoxy, or marine-grade — and cleaning — degrease, pickle/passivate, or sandblast
  • Galvanizing and dimensional/QC inspection, tracked as their own line items

Shop & Business Tools

  • Material nesting, cut optimization, and drop/leftover inventory
  • Import from Autodesk Inventor, AutoCAD, AutoCAD Plant 3D, Cadworks, and other CAD BOM/Material List exports (CSV/Excel) — keyword-based column auto-detection with malformed-row protection, and remembers a corrected layout so a recurring client format is never mapped twice
  • Standby connector for subscribers already on Autodesk Platform Services (BIM 360/ACC) — pull a model's properties directly once your own APS credentials are provided
  • QuickBooks Online sync, PO generation, and job travelers
  • Material Master — vendor, freight, and currency-converted pricing per grade, kept as a running price history instead of one static number, so a rate you set last quarter doesn't quietly stay in play this quarter
  • Labor rates that can vary by department or crew, not just one shop-wide number per trade
  • Business Intelligence dashboard — estimate vs. actual down to both dollars and hours per operation, job status tracked from quote through award, realized margin, and suggested rate adjustments when a cost category runs consistently high or low across completed jobs
  • Subcontractor Bid Comparison — invite multiple named vendor bids per subcontracted operation (NDE, PWHT, hardness testing, galvanizing, outsourced machining); the winning bid feeds the estimate directly instead of a flat shop-wide rate
  • Free steel PPI market reference (FRED / U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), auto-refreshed in the background — a trend signal for when it's time to revisit your own material rates, never applied automatically
  • Rate profiles taggable by region (e.g. separate Alberta/Texas rate sets), with a flagged warning when a profile hasn't been updated recently — the same "flag stale data" discipline serious commercial cost databases like RSMeans build their update cadence around
  • Local activity log — who saved, deleted, or bulk-applied what and when, for shops where more than one person shares the same installation
  • Cloud Sync presence notification — see who else recently worked on a shared project, and get warned before overwriting a teammate's newer save

Estimate Classification & Quoting

  • AACE 18R-97 Estimate Class 1–5 — contingency tied to the classification you actually pick, not a flat guess
  • Expected Accuracy Range printed on every quote (e.g. -20%/+30% for a Class 3 budget estimate)
  • Governing Code reference — ASME B31.3 / Sec. VIII Div. 1 / Sec. IX, AWS D1.1, AISC 360, API 650 / 620, CSA W47.1 / G40.21 / S16
  • Set per job, not per shop profile — never a stale classification left over from someone else's quote
  • Client Quote — a clean per-line price sheet with markup baked proportionally into each item, so nothing on the page reveals your underlying cost or margin
  • Rework/scrap allowance — a configurable % applied across the full direct-cost stack, not just material
  • Revision history — snapshot the full BOM at any point with a note on what changed, printed on the client quote, and restorable at any time
New in v1.0.4 — Structural Steel

Complete Structural Steel — Shop to Site

Shop fabrication through site erection in one estimate — from the steel frame to decking, fireproofing, stairs and platforms, and the site work that goes with them.

One Estimate, Shop to Site

  • One estimate that follows the job from the shop floor to the site — fabrication, erection, and the site work in between, priced as one coherent job, not separate guesses.
  • Shop work, field work, and the costs that connect them — handled together, so nothing falls between two quotes.

Erection, Your Way

  • Self-erect or subcontract erection, handled as one choice, not two charges — including the decking, anchoring, and fireproofing that go with the erected steel.
  • Site work priced with the steel it belongs to, so the erected job is quoted as a whole.

The Rest of the Package

  • Stairs, platforms, railings, and detailing — the parts of a structural package that are easy to forget and expensive to miss — are part of the same estimate.
  • Inspection and site preparation are covered in the same quote, so the price you send is the price for the whole job.

Built for Real Jobs

  • Built for commercial buildings and refinery structures — frames, pipe racks, platforms, and vessel supports.
  • Every dollar counted once — audited so your quotes stay reliable.
New in v1.0.4 — API 650

API 650 Oil Storage Tanks — Tank Calculator

Enter the tank's basic dimensions and roof type — get a complete API 650 estimate covering shell, floor, roof, accessories, and testing — without separate tank software.

What it covers

A complete tank estimate from basic inputs — the shell, floor, and roof, the accessories that go with the tank, and the testing the tank requires — priced by the same operation-by-operation engine as the rest of your estimate.

  • Whole-tank coverage — shell, floor, and roof in one estimate, fixed or floating roof.
  • Accessories included — the fittings, access, and anchoring the tank needs, quoted with the tank.
  • Testing covered — the shop and field testing a storage tank requires, in the same quote.
  • One engine, one estimate — no separate tank software, no second quote to reconcile.
New in v1.0.4 — Company Multi User

Company Multi User — Work together in the same project

Link your licences into one Company Group. See who is online, edit different lines at the same time, and keep the Master in control — strictly one company only.

One Company, One Team

  • Your team works in the same project — no emailing files back and forth, no wondering who has the latest version.
  • Each person has their own licence — everyone who joins has paid for their own seat.

See Who Is Working

  • See who is online at a glance — so you know who is working on what.
  • Work on different lines at the same time — without overwriting each other.

Master Stays in Control

  • The Master stays in control — only the Master can finalise the quote and change the rates.
  • Strictly one company only — your projects are never visible to another company.
Product lines

Priced for the work you actually quote.

Two focused product lines. Pick one at setup — and yes, you can change your mind later.

LINE 01

Welding & Fabrication and Machining Precision

Structural, piping, and pressure-equipment work — welding, PWHT, NDE, TEMA heat exchangers, and precision machining.

  • ASME B31.3 / Sec. VIII Div. 1 / Sec. IX costing
  • TEMA shell & tube heat exchangers
  • AISC structural steel
  • CNC machining, boring, turning
LINE 02

Custom Fabrication & Shop Work

Sheet goods, enclosures, and general shop fabrication — SMACNA ductwork, fire/smoke dampers, and custom assemblies.

  • SMACNA duct pressure & leakage class
  • Fire/smoke damper UL rating premium
  • Sheet metal forming & plate work
  • Enclosures and custom assembly costing
Why quotes stay reliable

No Double-Counting Guarantee

Quotes your customers can trust — no duplicate charges hiding in the estimate.

Every cent accounted for — so your price is the best price you can honestly offer.

Pricing

One license. No per-seat surprises.

Subscribe monthly or save with annual billing. Cancel anytime — no annual contract to break.

Free download — no obligation. Full access for 30 days. No sales call required.

One missed operation on a fixed-price bid — a forgotten PWHT cycle, an underestimated x-ray scope — can cost you thousands.
Quotestimate is $129/month. One accurate bid pays for years of it.
Try it free for 30 days on your next real quote. Compare the numbers yourself.

BILLED MONTHLY
$159/month
No annual commitment
  • Same full costing engine, no feature gate
  • One hardware-locked license, transferable up to 2×/year
  • PDF, Excel, and job traveler exports
  • QuickBooks Online sync
Start the free trial
Company

Who to reach

Quotestimate is a fabrication cost-estimating tool built around real code-driven shop work — ASME B31.3 piping, Sec. VIII pressure vessels, TEMA exchangers, and AISC structural steel — not a generic quoting app repurposed for the trade. Every rate category on this site reflects an actual step in a fabrication job, priced the way a shop estimator would price it.

Built by the trade, not sold into it. Quotestimate wasn't built by a software company selling into fabrication. It was built by someone with 20 years in design and fabrication — who knows the materials, the welding procedures, the x-ray and NDE requirements, and everything else that goes into a real shop job. He built the tool he needed for his own bids: one that prices the way a shop actually works, operation by operation, not weight times a rate. When it started winning work, it became Quotestimate.

Questions about a quote, a feature, or a bug in your trial — reach out directly using the contact below. We read every message ourselves; there's no ticket queue to sit in.

For anything urgent (a blocked estimate, a license transfer issue), the phone line is the fastest route during business hours, Mountain Time.

Minerva Zarza
COST & ESTIMATOR
ADDRESSEdmonton, Alberta, Canada
FAQ

Continuity & ownership

Straight answers about what happens to your work, your license, and your data over time.

What happens to my estimates if my subscription expires?
Quotestimate runs locally on your machine — your estimates, BOMs, and job travelers are stored on your own computer, not in the cloud. If your subscription lapses, nothing you've already built is deleted or locked away. What stops is the ability to create new estimates and receive costing-engine updates until you renew.
How exactly does the hardware-locked license work?
Each license activates on one machine. You can transfer it to a different PC up to 2 times per year directly from your account — no support ticket needed for routine hardware changes (new laptop, rebuilt workstation, etc.). Transfers beyond that are handled case-by-case; email [email protected] if you hit the limit for a legitimate reason.
Can I get my data out if I decide to switch tools?
Yes. Every estimate can be exported to PDF, Excel, and job traveler formats at any time, subscription status aside — this isn't gated behind an active plan. Your numbers are yours; nothing is locked into a proprietary format you can't leave with.
Quotestimate is newly launched — what if development stops?
If your subscription lapses, you lose the ability to create new estimates — that's expected, it's how the subscription works. But every estimate you've already exported as PDF, Excel, or a job traveler stays on your computer as an ordinary file, readable with or without an active plan. You're not locked out of work you've already paid for and finished. That said, an installed copy on an unrenewed license is still just an installed copy — we won't pretend that carries the same long-term backing as buying from an established vendor with years on the market. If that risk matters for your shop, better to weigh it now than find out later.