Brief review of Esticom

I have had nothing but great experiences with the team at Esticom, every call and email have been answered promptly and most of my questions were easy to implement the solution for.

Pros

Esticom has saved us a tremendous amount of time in our estimating process. With having auto-count and linear average I can get most plans done in minutes instead of hours now.

Cons

It took a little bit to dial in the percentages and cost for products in our area but now that that is done I only review costs with my vendors when they tell me their is going to be a change.

Esticom Review

Esticom allows us to do more takeoffs in less time. This is great because many programs out there are not geared to Structured Cabling and this is. It made my job and those of my estimators so much easier. Our time to push out takeoffs have been improved by 87% and counting.

Pros

I love the ease of use and how easy it is to teach team members to use the system. Anyone can get up and running in under 2 hrs at a moderate level from zero experience. They have done an excellent job with making the program user friendly.

Cons

There are features that the program lacks and it does not integrate with Autotask (our CRM). Hopefully it will in the near future.

Esticom review as requested

It has sped up my estimating process

Pros

Customer service was very good , useage was easy to get onto

Cons

The estimate submission - breakout of the pst is awkward . I would more flexability with my final price to submit to client .

“Review of Esticom ”

ESTICOM is a really great software.

Pros

The cloud bases structure and easy to use functions made this software power full.

Cons

Some recommendations are below. 1)If we can fix a color , legend size and shape for an assembly it would be great so that we dont need to select it all time. 2)Option to select a particular area for take off would be great. 3)Option to download all take off drawings to PDF at once.

One of the best estimating softwares we have used!

This has been a great experience working with esticom, i would definitely recommend it to others.

Pros

What I like the most about the software is that it remembers the rates and descriptions we use in each of our estimates. This makes it easier to keep our quotes consistant. We also like that we can bring in drawings and measure from there, before we had to either print them to scale and get the square footage or we had to upload them to a seperate software. Also like that there is margin as the percentage. Not mark up. Most other softwares use mark up.

Cons

The only con we have with this software is that you cannot put different percentage margin on the labor side per line item. We can only do that on the material side.

Good bang for the buck

It has given us a way to keep everything digital and increase our accuracy on counts.

Pros

The compiling of counts and bill of material creation. Along with scaling and doing linear runs.

Cons

The lack of being able to input deduct alternates.

Canadian

For now I only use as a material take off with my own list uploaded but only makes the system 40% effective to it's full potential.

Pros

Easy to use electrican friendly. Going from take off to plan to estimate is very easy.

Cons

To be able to use the system fully esticom needs to integrate a full Canadian data base with material and time with this change the system would be near perfect. Next step to integrate to a major while saler to get real life pricing.

9.5 out of 10! Esticom is big help.

With Esticom, we are definitely cranking out bids faster which is a huge plus. Thanks Esticom...I look forward to seeing what your updates will bring.

Pros

The take-off process (auto-count) and time saving are definitely the best features of the product but there are several others that make the product worthwhile. 1. Covering additional expenditures like overhead and waste is wonderful. 2. Ability to apply difficulty levels is nice. 3. Ability to export BOM saves time.

Cons

Here are few items that take away from the software but the techies at Esticom are very responsive so perhaps some of these can be improved on future updates. 1. Within the take-off process, it would be terrific if I could copy and paste take-off items and paste them to other groups. It's nice to be able to duplicate the take-off within the group but sometimes you just need specific items within other and not the whole group duplicated. 2. Not a big deal but it would be good if any quantities applied to take-offs within the 'estimating' phase could show up on the take-off phase to avoid confusion. 3. This has been mentioned by others but, it would be great to be able to customize the export bid PDF. Simple customizations to font and letterhead would be useful. 4. It would be nice to be able to copy the selected area of a legend or symbols and copy them other drawings. I see that there is a legend feature on the right side of the options on the take-off page but it doesn't seem to do anything but show a 'legend' word. 5. It would be great to be able to create a new 'group' within the take-off page without going to the estimating page. I know you can duplicate a take-off group but again, sometimes you don't want all the same items from other take-off items. 6. It would be nice to have the ability to multi-select items that you want to delete or copy.

Esticom Experience

Customer service has been great and the software has always worked as expected.

Pros

Esticom is very user friendly and easy to use.

Cons

There are not many icons for the fire protection industry I work in. This makes it difficult when creating mocked up drawings for the customer.

Great time saver!

This is a great software for anyone who wants to shorten the amount of time and money spent on estimating. It produces great print edits for workers and customers.

Pros

Speeds up the estimating process. They are always expanding and improving the software.

Cons

Not a lot of extra drawing functions for customization.

Is Esticom Right For Us

Being a creator of web apps I understand the amount of work that goes into creating and maintaining those applications. Esticom has been well maintained rolling out updates and new features on a regular bases. As for the overall, experience, it has severed us well allowing us as a company to quickly create estimates for bid or general quotes.

Pros

The ability to create and manage catalogs is a big deal for us. As a company, we have a large number of products across a wide range of technologies and have the ability to separate those into individual catalogs helps to make sense of what to quote. In addition, assigning a catalog item to a takeoff makes creating a bill of materials a cinch.

Cons

While I understand that making a profit is key to a business's survival I feel that the per-user cost is quite high. Also, a bulk selection for changing the creator of an estimate would be nice. I recently had to manually go through and change the creator of about 30 individual estimates. While this was due to us sharing a login between users and then purchasing more logins I could see this being an issue, later on, should you have to replace an employee and need a have someone take over their estimates.

A Better Way to Estimate

Overall the experience has been good. We are still in the process of dialing in all our labor costs and work times, but think the system will really shine once we get everything tested and adjusted. It would be nice to be able to estimate using more than one labor rate as well. Many times we will have 3-4 different pay rates for employees on a job and it's not always simple to average. Having those pay rates/labor costs by task might work well in those situations.

Pros

Esticom is very straightforward and intuitive. For a structured cabling business like ours, it couldn't be easier to place cable runs, supports, and mark our drops.

Cons

There are a few functions missing that would make it easier for us to use. One is the lack of a linear with drop only at the ends of the run. Instead it adds drops at every turn. Second is not being able to add temporary items on the estimating page. We have many items that we use but do not want in our catalog. Having to return to takeoff mode to add them is time consuming, especially if there are a lot of individual items we need for a project. Lastly, I have had one issue where my drawing rotated under my takeoff. When I tried to rotate the drawing back, I was told I could not because it was being used in a takeoff. Since I was not too deep in the process I just started over. Can't imagine how bummed I'd be if this happened after spending hours or more on a takeoff.

I can finally stop looking.

After searching for estimating software for almost 5 years, installing trial software, talking with tech support, even hiring a programmer to build our own system, the hunt ended with Esticom. Getting the system up and running was a breeze and my company now has a uniform database to build estimates from.

Pros

The ability to simply enter lines of product and adjust all elements across the board: unit costs, markup, labor hours and difficulty factors are the stand out elements! Finding software that accomplishes this simple but tedious (if using Excel) task has changed our company's workflow.

Cons

First and foremost this software is for estimating purposes. It dabbles in the process of automatically creating a quote to send to customers but lacks the customizability to make it your own. (In contrast to the many variables you can manipulate on the estimating side.) For now my team continues to use Word to provide our scopes of work with our personalized touch.

Features added regularly!

I “stomach” the price because the software is so helpful! Love the product, but would switch to anything comparable if the price was more reasonable.

Pros

It is highly functional!! If I could spend more time on customizing it, I would use it as my only tool for estimating from beginning to end.

Cons

Pricey. $99 per month is a lot considering there are critical things like Office and Adobe that cost so much less.

You get "more" than you pay for

Esticom has offered us a great option to push out more quotes. It is very cost effective for us. We did not need one of the big box sells that had ongoing costs, we needed something that would allow us to figure out "what" we needed without being locked into something. Not only did Esticom offer that, but I think it did meet our needs, and at this point in time, I am not interested in looking at any other products. I am very happy with Esticom.

Pros

The software is simple. It is a great set-up for a small business. The customer service is very hands on. You get a real person every time and they do a good job of helping explain things. There is not a charge for training. If there is something you are struggling with they seem genuinely concerned on making the software the best it can be for you.

Cons

It would be nice if we could customize some of the costs and if there were a couple more options with the quote set-up when it goes to the customer. It is time consuming for us (we are electrical contractors) to try to find "specific costs" for wire and other things. They have a lot of templates, but a lot of them are based on nationwide pricing.

Great estimating software for small to medium-sized electrical contractors

Estimating a project longhand would take a considerable amount of time. Time is money and with Esticom I can get more estimates out the door in the same amount of time which translates to more work generated. The ability to create or import databases of labour units is also extremely useful. Esticom has aggregated my material cost and labor unit information and allowed me to efficiently manage the costs of everyday and on-off take-offs.

Pros

Cloud based - I can estimate and track projects on any computer wherever I have a good internet connection Economical - Low monthly or annual costs allow a great ROI Intuitive - Assemblies are easy to customize/create Evolving - New features added monthly using real input from actual users Personal - Customer support staff have field experience as well as excellent product knowledge which translates to excellent on-boarding sessions and quick answers to questions.

Cons

The design build section could use some updating/expanding. I realize that this is not one of the main features of Esticom, but it would be nice to see a few more items in its database as it is not yet possible to add my own.

Esticom Value and Innovation

We have worked with several staff members, all our professional. They have taken our ideas and worked hard to accommodate our reporting and functional needs. You will not see that form of out of the box thinking from many other developers.

Pros

The team and I appreciated the ease of use. It has significant power to perform all the required work of the larger more expensive packages, but still gives you the flexibility to make it a custom fit for you.

Cons

Only cloud based at this moment. I hope in future releases they will issue a server based stand alone platform for our secure projects.

Esitcom for the Daily User

Every one that I have dealt with at Esticom has been friendly, professional, and helpful. Customer service has been exemplary.

Pros

The software is easy to use. As features are added, it becomes more and more useful. The fact that your customer and existing catalog data base can be uploaded to give it a tremendous value.

Cons

There are still some issues with the way it rounds and displays some of the cost information, but customer support has been working with me on that.

EstiCom for Telecom Estimating

EstiCom has been a great add to our business. The catalog feature keeps our quotes consistent, and the efficiencies it brings to the table have allowed us to increase the number of quotes each Estimator can send in a given time frame!

Pros

This software is affordable and cloud-based, so my team can access it from anywhere they have an internet connection. It's user-friendly, comprehensive and professional. The stock catalogs are also very helpful.

Cons

While the cloud-based software offers many benefits, it can also be a drawback if you need to be able to access your quotes while you're offline (such as in-flight or in a remote area). You're also at the mercy of the development team when you see functions/formats that could use an update, and when the software is updated (since updates are not optional).

Great easy software gets the job done right

I use this for estimating big jobs. It is made very simple to add the basic information and exporting the bid sheets. It has glitches at times. I don't know if its because I use IOS products or it needs to be fixed. I do recommend this to whoever is in need for big projects. I do like the idea that you could change colors when estimating for easy understanding.

Pros

I like that the software is easy to use.

Cons

I don't like that it has glitches at times. I did request for some changes.

Easy to Use and Suprisingly Powerful

My overall experience with Esticom has been wonderful. Having a tool that is so easy to use has let us focus more on how to improve our estimating rather than on how to use our software.

Pros

The intuitive nature of the interfaces and how easy it is to tweak my estimates.

Cons

There are a few quirks that take some getting used to. I'd say the two small things that bother me most are: 1. Not being able to add one-time-use items to the estimating section. 2. Not being able to switch between takeoff modes without deleting the entire item. (ie switching between linear and linear avg with drop)

Esticomm Saves You Time and Improves Accuracy!

I use it to prepare my larger quotes for the reasons I mentioned. I am happy with the current performance and look forward to continued improvements.

Pros

It saves me money from not having to print tons of project plans and then storing them. Esticomm saves me time by insuring I get accurate counts and distances the first time! Plus I can work from the office, at the job site or at home, which I prefer not to do, because all my files are on their site.

Cons

Esticomm does a good job of constantly upgrading the software and making improvements. There are minor improvements I would make to the functionality of the software but they usually end up doing that automatically.

Olson Electric Review

Having just gotten started with the program, I am happy with the experience. Got a great response from [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] for adding symbols to the design function database. Very happy to see that the input from users is welcome. Looking forward to really putting this software to use with some larger projects.

Pros

Design function Ability to easily jump between work stations and use at home Reports that can be issued are very professional looking

Cons

The database for devices in the design function is limited Limited database for parts that have been pre-entered

Review

Pros

I like the customer service based on the times i had called.

Cons

Not many features compared to other estimating software.

ACJ Electric

Overall time for completing bids has decreased drastically, to where we can complete several bids a day.

Pros

The ease of use. The software is very intuitive.

Cons

The break out portion in the estimation part of the software. There is no way to break out a certain task or job out of the bid whole to supply numbers to GCs. Also the markup calculations and profits don't add up to the percentages set in profit section.

Excellent Software tool for project design and estimation

Esticom did a great job of working with us to solve a very complex problem of engineers utilizing different platforms to design our systems. This makes our work seamless, shareable, and gives us the ability to create redundancy with our system designs.

Pros

It is very nice to be able to scale a map with ease either utilizing the common scale option or drawing a line as a measurement. Additionally, Esticom's team is fantastic about working directly with you to make the software suitable for your project type. It makes estimation and design easy when you have one centralized platform to work with.

Cons

I have no current complaints to speak of.

Esticom Software pone of the best

I am a low voltage estimator and have several customers. It is flexible enough for me to have all the various assemblies, rates, parts and reports that I can export out to my customers. In my opinion it is one of the easiest and most flexible low voltage software products on the market today.

Pros

The ease of use mainly. After a few quick tutorials I was able to start doing my take-offs on screen. I created assemblies that made the job much faster and accurate.

Cons

I have to go to the Estimating page to create or add parts and assemblies. It would be nice if I could enter them from the take-off page. Minor change but would help out with the speed of take-offs.

Esticom Review

We estimate telecommunications cabling installations. Once products are labored and imported into the program, the estimation process can be quite speedy. Item recognition when producing take-offs using auto-count can be spotty. There is no customization available for adding new overhead type items (ex: PM labor as a separate labor type). Overall, a nice improvement over printing drawings and marking up hard copies for takeoffs.

Pros

When properly set up, the speed of producing an estimate is greatly improved

Cons

Materials search functionality - often can't find product Lack of output options in spreadsheet format

Definitely makes my job easier

Great, 9/10 would recommend. Executive was very responsive and the price is super reasonable.

Pros

Being able to quickly and fairly accurately count, label, measure and itemize a project without having to print the plans, wait on the plotter or waste the paper. GUI is intuitive, streamlined and quick to use.

Cons

My only wish is to be able to save a template and apply it after I've started a project. I haven't gotten around to asking if that's an option but so far as I can tell, you have to copy a previous job or template and apply it before you create the project or upload plans.

year two

It's better than any other software I've tried or just using a pencil

Pros

Ease of use and the importing tool for inventory items, and drawings.

Cons

no option to feed updated pricing from vendor, or having to check pricing after quote has been completed.

Great Product for Smaller Contractors

We have been using the system on and off for over a year and its a great tool to use. I think if it were more expensive, we wouldn't have purchased it but is a great starting point. The user needs to take time to really go through the software to understand how to use it.

Pros

Inexpensive, lots of product support, constant updates & easy to use. You can upload your own pricing and make changes quickly & easily. For any company looking to move from using old school techniques to the digital, this is a great product to use. The system is already loaded with lots of materials & you can start estimating within a short period of time.

Cons

All prices on materials & labour are based on the US labour market. Yes it is averaged, but the prices are not valid in Canada. The labour factor is also a little bit confusing as we aren't sure how many minutes it takes to hang pipe. Takes time to setup & trust the software will output what you need. There are some features that could be created to make using the software easier but im sure this will happen over time.

Esticom Review

Very good

Pros

Ease of use-the software is very user friendly

Cons

I would like to be able to add shipping as extra at the bottom similar to sales tax-we order a lot of fixtures that require shipping and customer likes t see it broken out

Cost efficient&easiest software we've found!

Our bids are much easier to put together, download, and send out to clients. The look is professional and allows for more or less info as desired.

Pros

The cost is reasonable and it is very easy to maneuver between all screens. Training and communication with reps has been great as well.

Cons

We very frequently have to add "custom" products because we cannot find what we are looking for in the software.

Awesome Product for Predictive DAS Designs

Great and easy-to-use software, which allows my Sales Engineers to more-easily get their perspective projects done much quicker than before. Takes the guesswork out of the equation and definitely helps our customers understand precise needs for their installations. We enjoy working with the staff at Esticom and appreciate the support they lend to us, also.

Pros

It's very similar to other DAS design software programs I've used, where it scales and measures a link budget as a design is being worked on. Very simple to use and makes going from Microsoft Visio a very easy decision.

Cons

It would be great if our products were incorporated into the software, similar to .vex files in iBwave, so that a proper Bill Of Materials could then be created based on the design. Otherwise, a great product.

Project Help

We were marking up plans with a pen and a highlighter prior to getting esticom so this made that process much easier

Pros

Esticom has made quoting jobs much easier. The tool loads quickly and if you take the time to setup your assemblies it makes quoting jobs very easy.

Cons

The scale can be thrown off if the plans were printed via PDF

Review for Esticom

The experience has been good so far.

Pros

Ease of doing takeoffs, ability to change Material catalog

Cons

Breakdown of overhead that used to be on Esticom. No ability to overlay drawings from another page to compare changes on drawings from existing to new drawings.

Excellent Estimating Software

Pros

This software is easy to use. We have the ability to add items and organize them. We are able to integrate the information entered into this software into our project management software which reduces the need for time consuming processes of moving information between softwares.

Cons

We would like this software to include the ability to show reports of the information from proposals entered based on date entered etc... We would like to be able to delete default items from the software for trades not related to ours. We are otherwise totally satisfied with this software.

Great Software

Esticom has save me time and time is money in this industry. I cant see myself going back to printing out drawings a making soo many notes. This is more professional.

Pros

This has saved me lots of time count data drops on plans. Best of all, customer like seeing what they are being quoted.

Cons

Sometimes Lags, Sometimes the page wont load.

Esticom Quality

Pros

I like the fact that this software does what I ask it to do and much more. It allows me to customize everything as I need it and it comes with templates so it does some of the work for me already.

Cons

Maybe I need more training but I'm not sure if the feature for measuring homeruns is precise.

Esticom Review

Average

Pros

The software is very easy to use and accessible anywhere with internet.

Cons

Electrical components prices are off making it difficult to in smaller projects.

Great product!

It's been absolutely fantastic and I've really had no big issues with it.

Pros

Its super simple and makes life a whole lot easier to bid these big jobs!

Cons

I couldn't really find much that's to horrible about the product... Had many products already and some stuff just needed to be added which was super simple!

Esticom Cloud Estimating

I have NO regrets! Their development team is very responsive and open to input. They are constantly making improvements.

Pros

I love that it is in the cloud and accessible from anywhere. It also integrates with Zapier!

Cons

Is lacking some customization options. I wish I could change logo sizes or layout of the bid.

Finally a Low Voltage Solution

Once we were able to have the interactive demo to answer a few questions of how to do something the process of doing takeoffs became much easier.

Pros

Auto Search is amazing. You can select exactly what to search for and it actually works. You can turn off and on your takeoffs. After marking up your blueprints you can save the takeoff and print it for use in the field without having to hunt for everything all over again.

Cons

Can't merge pages of a floor yet to see the big picture. They don't have a takeoff template or a way of reusing what you have created already for new projects.

Great software

Pros

The auto-count feature for take-offs and the compatibility with excel

Cons

The formatting of the estimates you can create.

Very good. But could grow into better

Responsive tech support. Easy setup

Pros

Takeoff is fairly easy. Accurate. A time saver.

Cons

Has some cumbersome aspects. Grouping could be easier. The estimates are fine. But a better interface for cost/profit and The ability to export cost reports and part numbers would be fantastic.

Easy To View Estimating Breakdown

Really helps build budgets and build labor schedules

Pros

Easy to see cost break downs after takeoffs are complete, you can export your material lists.

Cons

assemblies are all in USD and there is no way to convert to CAD besides importing wholesale pricing and building all new assemblies.

GAME CHANGER!

Pros

It saves you a tremendous amount of time by building your estimate as you are doing your takeoff.

Cons

Sometimes there are slight quirks that need to be fixed, but this is mainly because they are adding new features and they always get fixed.

Easy software for takeoffs

Revolutionized our quoting for jobs! We know exactly how much time to budget for a job and can send marked up drawings to clients.

Pros

1. create custom items 2. markup and download drawings to send to clients 3. breakdown of labour and materials 4. ability to replace drawings that have been marked up (such as with construction set vs permit set) 5. customer service is very open to suggestions

Cons

1. must pay a full fee for each additional log in 2. cannot adjust descriptions in the quote page (must do it in the takeoff screen) 3. some odd quirks, which are not deal breaker but annoying.

Makes it so simple

Saves us a tremendous amount of time doing takeoffs. It also allowed us to finally move towards a built in labor rate for materials. So everything is calculated as we go. So nice!

Pros

This was our first go at doing digital takeoffs and man, it really could not of been more simple. The workflow flows in line with our old paper ways of doing things so it was a natural transition. We can also blaze through a takeoff!

Cons

Going digital and learning a new software was scary. But the team and support was there along the way. They never let us down and make sure we were using the software efficiently.

Great Telecom Estimating Software

Esticom has been great, there is some room for improvement and i would love to help collaborate with them. Having been in the telecom industry for over 20 years, and helped other companies create their own software i would be able to offer valuable insight.

Pros

I like that I can have a material database and organize them in a useful way.

Cons

I do not like the fact that i cannot manually input man hours towards scopes of work, and that there are not customizable admin fields (travel charges, project management hours fields, shipping ect) where i can capture typical back end admin costs. It only allows percentages.