Case Study
A $376,426 concrete package, priced in two minutes.
A Virginia concrete contractor uploaded the architect’s plan set for a municipal fire station. Loadbare returned eight scope items with quantities, unit costs, crew hours and dollars. Here is the entire estimate, unedited.
Headline figures
$376,426
Total priced
8
Scope items
1,739
Crew hours
~2 min
To produce
Priced for an 8 person crew at $65 an hour with a 20 percent margin, which are this contractor’s own calibrated rates rather than a national price book. Change the crew rate or the margin and every line re-prices.
The Estimate
Line by line, the way an owner would check it.
| Work area | Scope item | Quantity | Unit cost | Crew hrs | Line total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Building perimeter / interior footing lines | Footing excavation and trenching | 650 linear ft | $3.00 | 78.0 | $7,020 |
| Continuous footings, formed and poured with rebar | 650 linear ft | $22.00 | 195.0 | $26,975 | |
| Interior slab-on-grade area | Stone base, compacted (4 to 6 in) | 17,048 sqft | $1.10 | 204.6 | $32,050 |
| Rebar and mesh reinforcement, slab | 17,048 sqft | $0.85 | 136.4 | $23,356 | |
| Concrete slab foundation | 17,048 sqft | $7.00 | 852.4 | $174,742 | |
| Exterior aprons, sidewalks, pads | Stone base, compacted (4 to 6 in) | 4,000 sqft | $1.10 | 48.0 | $7,520 |
| Exterior concrete flatwork (aprons, walks, pads) | 4,000 sqft | $5.50 | 180.0 | $33,700 | |
| Site entrance curb and gutter | Concrete curb and gutter | 300 linear ft | $18.00 | 45.0 | $8,325 |
| Subtotal, materials, subs and labor | 1,739.4 hrs | $313,688 | |||
| Overhead and margin, 20 percent | $62,738 | ||||
| Quoted total | $376,426 |
The slab alone is 17,048 square feet carrying 852 crew hours. Stone base, rebar and mesh, and the pour are costed separately rather than buried in a single square foot rate, so when an owner pushes back on price you can show exactly which line moves.
How It Ran
Three moves, no estimator.
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01 · UPLOAD
The plan set went in.
An architect’s PDF, the same file the general contractor sent out for bid. No takeoff software, no measuring wheel, no tracing.
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02 · PRICE
Eight lines came back.
Quantities read off the drawings, then costed on this contractor’s own rates. Roughly two minutes from upload to a sendable estimate.
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03 · SEND
Out for signature.
Client link with e-signature, deposit collected on signing, and a draw schedule with retainage tracking what is invoiced against what actually landed.
Bring a real bid to a call and we will price it live on your numbers while you watch. If the output is not close enough to send, you have lost twenty minutes.