comparison
EstiWright vs. the spreadsheet
Spreadsheets got you here — but they leak margin, drift out of date, and break at the worst moment. Here's how purpose-built estimating compares.
Almost every estimator starts in Excel, and for a first quote it's fine. The trouble starts when there are ten estimators, a hundred line items, and a rate that changed three files ago. This is where the two approaches diverge.
| Where it counts | Spreadsheet | EstiWright |
|---|---|---|
| Rate library | Copied between files — stale the moment a price moves. | One versioned catalog, reused across every job. |
| Pricing consistency | Every estimator prices the same part differently. | list → discount → duty → margin, applied to every line. |
| Margin control | Markup and margin get confused; profit quietly leaks. | Margin rules baked in per system — nothing ships under-priced. |
| Errors | One overwritten formula silently breaks the bid. | Formulas can't be clobbered; the math is the engine. |
| Take-off → BoQ | Quantities re-keyed by hand between sheets. | Take-off flows straight into a costed Bill of Quantities. |
| Proposals | Copy-paste numbers into a Word doc and reformat. | Clean, client-ready proposal generated from the BoQ. |
| Variations | Re-derive the change by hand, hope it reconciles. | Reprice from the same catalog in minutes. |
| Defensibility | “Trust me” when the client's QS interrogates the number. | Every line traces to a catalog item and a margin rule. |
the bottom line
A spreadsheet is a calculator you have to babysit. EstiWright is the estimating engine underneath it — the same fast pricing, but consistent, reusable, and defensible. Get on the early-access list.