Free construction estimating software: the arithmetic it does, and what it forgets
- Work order total
- $863.16
- Labour
- $510
- Parts, marked up
- $288
Every figure on this page is computed from the inputs entered, by the method stated below it. Jobcardo publishes no tax rate, no wage figure and no trade standard: the rate, the markup and the tax on the parts line are yours, and the defaults are a worked example to replace with your own figures.
Free construction estimating software does the arithmetic, and the arithmetic is genuinely the part most small builders want help with: quantities multiplied by unit costs, waste added, overhead recovered, margin applied, tax handled correctly on materials. What free tools almost never do is keep the result. They price a job and then forget it, so the estimate lives in a download folder and the job it became lives in your head. Knowing which half you are getting is the whole decision.
Try the free worksheet Free to use. No account, no card, no sign-up.
Use free estimating software for contractors for the calculation you do most
If your week is mostly the same three job shapes, a worksheet that prices them correctly is worth more than a system you never configure. Free estimating software for contractors is at its best as a calculator you trust, used at the kitchen table on the evening the customer asked.
Check how free cost estimating software handles overhead and margin
Free cost estimating software often applies a single markup and calls it profit, which quietly buries your overhead in the margin and makes every comparison between jobs meaningless. Recover overhead as a percentage of cost, then apply margin to the recovered total, and state both on the sheet.
Know where freeware construction software stops
It stops at memory, at the team and at the audit trail: no dated history of what was quoted, no record of the changes signed on site, no way for a second person to see the same figures. Those are the things you start paying for, and the point at which paying is cheaper than not.
Free construction estimating software: common questions
Is free construction estimating software safe to quote from? The arithmetic is as safe as your inputs. The risk is not the calculation, it is that the quoted figure is not kept anywhere the job can be checked against later, so a dispute becomes one person's recollection against another's.
What is the difference between free and freeware here? In practice, none that matters to you. What matters is whether the tool runs in your browser with no account, whether the file is yours, and whether anything about it expires. Check those three before you build a week's quoting around it.
When should a small builder pay for estimating software? When the estimate has to become a job that other people work from, when changes are being agreed on site and forgotten, or when you cannot answer which quotes are outstanding without opening a folder. Any one of those three is usually the month it stops being free.
Jobcardo Pro
Keeping what you raise
The worksheets are free forever. Pro turns them into the record: every order you raise kept against the customer with its status from raised to done to invoiced, every change dated, your company name and logo on the sheet, no watermark, and an export when the bookkeeper asks.
- Download as PDF
- No Jobcardo watermark
- Save every work order and sales order and reopen it later
- Your business name and logo on the sheet
- Export every order and worksheet in one go
- Job-done and balance-due reminders emailed to your customers
- Connect your own Stripe account and get paid online
- Connect your QuickBooks Online or Xero
$25per month, whole team
Start Jobcardo Pro Free for 14 days. No card needed. PricingThe first 14 days are free and no card is asked for. Add a card during the trial and the first charge is on the day it ends; do not, and your workspace becomes read-only with nothing deleted. Renews monthly at the price above until you cancel. We email you before any price change.
Will it do what you need for Free construction estimating software?
Tell us what your orders need and we will tell you straight whether Jobcardo Pro does it today, whether it is coming, or whether you need a different product instead. A person reads these and replies.