What Is a Supplemental Estimating Service?
Estimating companies sell estimating hours to contractors who need more of them. You send the bid documents, they work the takeoff and pricing to the scope you agreed, and they hand back a file your estimator finishes and signs. Some work bid by bid, and others sit in as an extended part of your team on a monthly retainer.
The term covers a wide range, from a single estimator working remotely to firms with staff in several time zones. Outsourced estimating services and construction estimating outsourcing describe the same thing, and this roundup of construction estimating services compares the main types.
When Contractors Use One
- The bid board has more due dates than estimators
- A trade or job type comes up that the in-house team doesn't usually bid
- An estimator is out and the bids keep coming
- A budget or rough order of magnitude (ROM) estimate is needed fast and nobody can stop to build it
What to Check Before You Hire One
The estimate goes out under your name, so treat the service like a new hire on its first bid.
- Ask for a sample takeoff in your trade, marked up on the drawings
- Ask whose labor units they use and whether they can price with yours
- Confirm they read the specification and every addendum, not only the plans
- Agree the format, so the quantities drop straight into your estimate
- Agree the turnaround, and what happens when an addendum lands mid-takeoff
Supplemental Estimating Service vs AI Takeoff
| Supplemental Estimating Service | AI Takeoff | |
|---|---|---|
| Who builds the count | An outside estimator | The Takeoff AI, checked by your estimator |
| Turnaround | Days, set by their queue | Hours, on your schedule |
| Labor units and prices | Theirs, unless you supply yours | Your rates, inside the platform |
| Traceability | Depends on the provider | Every quantity highlighted on its sheet |
| Who owns the number | You | You |
A service adds outside estimators to your bid board, while an AI takeoff gives your own estimators back the hours they spend counting. Either way, the estimator still owns the number that goes in the bid.
How The Takeoff AI Handles Overflow Bids
The Takeoff AI reads the full bid package, including the drawings, the specification and the scope of work, and runs the takeoff end to end. It counts every element, measures every length, and prices the material takeoff (MTO) and labor takeoff (LTO) into a priced bill of materials (BOM) at your own rates. It also flags deviations between the drawings, the specification and the scope of work.
It is trained on more than 1 million drawing sets, runs at 95% accuracy, and highlights every quantity on the sheet it came from with an accept or reject option, so the estimator checks the count instead of building it. 113 estimators say The Takeoff AI is the best estimating platform they have used, and it helps them estimate projects in 3 to 4 hours that once took 40 to 50 hours.
