Resources · Calculator
What does a takeoff actually cost you?
Most yards have never put a number on it, because the cost is buried in a salary. Move the sliders to your own numbers.
Your numbers
Framing takeoffs per month12 bids
Hours an estimator spends on one6 hours
Fully-loaded estimator cost45 $/hour
Typical house size3,000 sq ft
Fully-loaded means wage plus payroll tax and benefits — usually a third above the hourly rate.
Estimator time, per month
$3,240
12 bids × 6 h × $45/h = 72 hours
BidLoggers, same volume
$3,600
12 bids × 3,000 sq ft × $0.10 = $3,600
At this volume BidLoggers costs $360 more than the hours it replaces
Worth a conversation anyway — the argument at your volume is turnaround time and catching errors, not labour cost.
This compares takeoff labour with what BidLoggers bills. It deliberately leaves out the harder-to-price things — bids you can now answer, and the cost of a short load caused by a missed line. We'd rather show a number you can check than one you can't.