Estimating Software build from the point of view of the contractor

Pros

The software is easy to understand and it truly meets and exceeds all of our expectation when it came time to turn in a bid . We are a building and design firm, the range of the work we bid goes from electrical, plumbing, HVAC to complete turn key. We appreciate the fact ProEst is constantly improving its functionalities and overall performance.

Cons

The issues we had over the years are the same issues we get with other software in our systems, updates sometimes fix one program but conflicts with others. Happy to said the issues were not critical nor catastrophic in our daily use of the program nor cause major delays in our bidding process.

ProEst Review

My company has recently purchased the Enterprise Version of ProEst. We have only started learning the system but have so far been very impressed with the functionality, ease of use and product value. The ability to do digital takeoff straight from the program, as well as the flexibility to edit / modify just about every piece of information on the system gives it an advantage to other programs i have used.

Pros

This is by far the easiest estimating program i have used thus far. Other pros include - Flexibility to edit almost everything; the large cache of report templates; the large database and pre-built assemblies; the built in digital takeoff; the bid day summary to use for sub-contractor bid tabulation

Cons

The preset costs are very generic (i.e. labor costs) - for large projects with heavy labor, this could throw off the labor estimate. In addition, the digital takeoff module, albeit very handy, is somewhat limited. It would be nice to have more flexibility to manually manipulate takeoffs, even after associating it with a digital takeoff. It would also be nice to be able to switch between different forms of measurement, right now you are only limited to the unit of measure determined by the line item for which you are taking off.

Great potential, poor execution

Our experience with ProEst started good, and went downhill quickly. The salesman attached to our account was helpful and able to demonstrate the product well, but did not fully address any limitataions of the product he was selling, even after we described our intended use case. The big red flag was, when asked to be able to trial the software for a week (or less!), they were not able to honor that request. After purchase, the support was extremely lacking from the account management positions. Our trainer was showing us basic features that were explained many times in the purchasing process, and we were able to fully configure and understand the software without their help. The reason we will not be customers of this company is due to the absolutely disconnected support and development efforts. The company prides itself on it's future roadmap (including "AI"), but when confronted with low level usability issues (lack of keyboard shortcuts, copying data) they stated "it is not a priority... could be resolved in two weeks to six months". I have never had such a poor customer experience.

Pros

Our company is transitioning from self hosted, installed software to cloud SaaS products. This is one of the few estimation softwares that is completely cloud based. The ability to route estimations through workflows, maintain a shared cost database, and produce good looking reports from the system were all high points. Even the user interface was clean and uncluttered.

Cons

The software lacks KEY features that limit it's usability. Our core issue was the inability to copy takeoff or assembly information from one page of a drawing to another. 100% of multifamily developments have shared elements between levels of the building, and to recreate these from scratch every time instead of copying them from another page wiped out all the time savings of assemblies and workflows. There is NO other estimation/ takeoff tool that lacks this functionality. Additionally, there are no keyboard shortcuts (... in 2019). This is a significant slowdown when estimating large projects.

Excellent Software

I was looking for a powerful software that we could use to build a system for our estimating process. ProEst was exactly what I was looking for. We are able to build a custom database that we can use to quickly and easily estimate projects with accuracy and consistency. I am very happy with my choice.

Pros

Ability to create a custom database and can be used to consistently produce quick estimates. I love the onscreen take off.

Cons

It takes a long time to set up the database, but this is to be expected with any software. It is a lot of work up front, but then makes things more efficient on the back end. I would like to see a year off free tech support included to answer question about how to use the product. Most of it is intuitive, but there are somethings I would like to do, but it takes me a while to figure out how to do them. It would have been nice to be able to pick up the phone and quickly get answers for the first year while I learned how to use all of the features.

Overall good for the money

Pros

Ease of use Reporting Predefined database's to fit specific company needs Onscreen takeoff and estimating software in one Cloud or Desktop

Cons

No live tech support or chat support. Must submit a support ticket and wait for a call back. No way to change database and have it reflect on templates without updating templates individually Training is not free