Everyone says a professional estimator pays for itself. This calculator makes it prove itself. Put in the numbers you already know — tenders priced, average job size, win rate, margin, and the hours you lose pricing after dark — and see the return on every dollar you'd spend.
Change any number and the result updates as you type. It starts on figures typical of a small Australian trade business, so you can see how the maths works before you put your own in.
Nothing is sent anywhere — the whole calculation runs in your browser.
for every $1 you spend on estimating — a net gain of $48,600 a year.
Break-even: the fees are covered if we help you win just 1 extra job in every 26 you price — before you count a single hour of your own time.
Estimates only, based on the figures you enter. Results are not a forecast or a guarantee of won work. Estimating fees are generally tax deductible for Australian businesses, so the real cost is lower again — check with your accountant.
The calculator adds up three of these and ignores the fourth, because it's hard to price and easy to feel.
Pricing happens after hours, on the laptop, when you should be done for the day. Hand the takeoff over and those hours go back to running the jobs — or to not working.
Most tradies knock back tenders they simply don't have time to price. More tenders submitted, and submitted on time, is the most direct path to more work won.
Measured quantities beat guessed ones. A missed item or a thin allowance comes out of your margin on every job you win — a full takeoff is how you stop paying for it.
No wage, no super, no leave, no software licences, no desk. You pay per tender, so a quiet month costs you nothing and a flat-out month scales with you.
The calculator gives you the theory. A real takeoff on a real tender gives you the proof. Send us the plans for a job you're pricing now and we'll do the first one at no cost — then you can judge the benefits on the work, not the maths.
Get My First Free Estimate →No lock-in contracts. Every tender after that is quoted up front, before we start.
Three ways to get your tenders priced. They cost very differently, and only one of them stops costing you when the work goes quiet.
| In-house estimator | Estimating software | Eagle Eye Estimations | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | A full salary plus super, leave, insurance, software and hardware | An annual licence — plus every hour you still spend driving it | A fee per tender, quoted before we start. First estimate free |
| Quiet month | You pay the same wage regardless | The licence keeps billing | You pay nothing |
| Flat-out month | One person, one desk — tenders queue up | Capped by the hours you personally have | Send more plans, we scale with you |
| Who does the takeoff | Your employee, once they're trained up | Still you, at night | A working construction estimator, in-house at Eagle Eye |
| Time to get going | Weeks of recruiting, then months to get up to speed | Days to install, weeks to learn properly | Email your plans today |
| Commitment | An employment contract | Usually an annual subscription | None — no lock-in contracts |
No black box. Here's every step, so you can argue with it.
Tenders a year × hours each × the share you hand over × what your hour is worth.
The win rate uplift you chose, applied to your tender volume, times the margin on an average job.
The slice of won revenue you currently lose to missed items, recovered by a measured takeoff.
Every tender is charged, won or lost. Subtract the year's fees and what's left is the net gain.
The uplift and leakage figures are assumptions you control, and you can set both to zero. Do that and the calculator falls back to the one benefit nobody can argue with: the hours you stop spending on takeoffs. For most tradies, that alone covers the fee.
"We've been using Eagle Eye on and off for over a year. No lock-in means we use them when we're flat out. The quality of estimating is excellent — like having an in-house estimator without the wage."
"Adam from Eagle Eye Quotes has been incredibly reliable with estimating our concreting projects. His pricing is clear, accurate and makes planning jobs so much easier."
"The sub-contract review was worth every cent. Eagle Eye flagged clauses that would have cost us dearly and helped us negotiate better terms."
Send through a live tender and we'll quote the estimating fee up front — your first estimate is free, with no lock-in contracts.
See exactly what we measure, what you get back, and how fast — with sample marked-up drawings.
Where estimating software genuinely helps, and where it just hands the work back to you.
The practical habits behind a better win rate — the input this calculator is most sensitive to.
Takeoffs and tender pricing for builders and subbies on housing and renovation work.
Larger packages, tighter deadlines, more documentation — priced properly.
The clauses that quietly eat the margin you just calculated, flagged before you sign.