General Contractor Estimating Services
We produce full multi-trade estimates for general contractors — every division quantified, general conditions carried as real line items, and the scope gaps between trade packages identified before they become somebody's change order. Flat-quoted from your plan set before any work starts.
Get a Free QuoteWhy a GC Estimate Is a Different Product
A subcontractor estimates one scope in depth. A general contractor estimates the whole building plus everything that sits between the trades — and that second part is where the money is lost.
Trade estimates cover their own scope and stop. Every subcontractor prices what they read as theirs. Each reading is reasonable. Between them sit items that every trade assumed somebody else carried, and those items are the general contractor's problem by default.
General conditions are your cost, not a percentage. Supervision, temporary facilities, equipment, safety, cleanup, protection and the cost of simply being on site for the duration are real line items driven by the schedule. Carrying them as a percentage of the trade total is the most common way a GC bid goes wrong, because it makes duration free.
The schedule is a cost. General conditions run by the week. A twelve-month project and an eighteen-month project with identical trade scope are not the same bid, and a percentage-based approach cannot see that difference at all.
Scope gaps are found by comparison. You only find what nobody priced by laying the trade packages side by side and looking at the boundaries. That is a different exercise from estimating any one of them, and it is the one that protects the bid.
What a Full GC Estimate Covers
All divisions quantified. Sitework through specialties, organized by CSI MasterFormat so it reconciles against the trade bids you receive rather than sitting in a format nobody else uses.
General conditions built from the schedule. Supervision and staffing by role and duration, site office and temporary facilities, temporary power, water and heat, equipment and hoisting, safety, security, protection, cleanup and final clean, permits and fees where they are yours.
General requirements. Submittals, mockups, testing and inspection, commissioning support, closeout documentation and warranty administration — specified obligations with real cost that are routinely absorbed into overhead.
Scope gap identification. The items sitting between trade packages, listed explicitly so you can assign them before bid day rather than discover them after award.
Allowances and contingency stated. Every allowance listed with its basis and every contingency stated as its own line rather than buried inside unit rates, so you can see exactly what is carried and decide whether it is enough.
Assumptions and exclusions. Written out, because the value of an estimate depends on knowing what it does not include as much as what it does.
Where GC Bids Actually Lose Money
These are the recurring failures, and none of them is a measurement error.
General conditions as a percentage
A percentage makes duration free. Extend the schedule by three months and a percentage-based GC number does not move, while the actual cost of supervision, facilities and equipment moves by three months of spend.
Scope gaps between trades
Blocking and backing. Firestopping at penetrations. Housekeeping pads. Final connections to owner-furnished equipment. Access panels. Each trade reads them as somebody else's, and the GC absorbs all of them.
Bid coverage assumed, not checked
Going into bid day assuming three bids on every trade and getting one on the trade nobody wants is how a number that looked safe becomes exposed. Coverage is a risk you can see in advance if you look.
Alternates and unit prices priced loosely
Alternates get priced last and fastest, and an owner who accepts three of them is buying at whatever those numbers were. Unit prices carried into the contract are used against you later.
Escalation ignored on long projects
A bid held for months and built over years carries material and labor escalation. Not stating an assumption about it is a decision to absorb whatever happens.
Winter and weather not carried
Temporary heat, enclosure, protection and productivity loss are real and predictable where the schedule runs through winter, and they are systematically absent from bids prepared in summer.
Bid Leveling and Scope Comparison
Where you have trade bids in hand, comparing them properly is frequently worth more than re-estimating the work.
Bids are not comparable as received. Three roofing bids with a wide spread usually differ in scope rather than in price. One includes tear-off and one does not. One carries the tapered package and one allowed for it. Levelling means putting all three onto the same scope before comparing any numbers.
What levelling produces. A side-by-side comparison on a common scope, with each bid's inclusions, exclusions, alternates and qualifications listed, and the adjustments needed to make them equivalent stated explicitly.
Gaps become visible. When every trade package is laid out on one sheet, the items nobody claimed are the empty cells. That is the fastest way to find them and the only reliable one.
Low bids get tested. A bid substantially below the others is either a genuine advantage or a missing scope. Levelling tells you which before you carry it in your number rather than after you have signed the subcontract.
General Conditions — Built From the Schedule
What You Receive
- A full estimate in editable Excel, organized by CSI MasterFormat division
- General conditions and general requirements as their own detailed schedule, built from the project duration
- A marked-up plan set showing where every quantity came from
- A scope gap list — the items sitting between trade packages, identified for assignment
- An assumptions and exclusions schedule stating what the number does and does not include
- Allowances listed individually with the basis for each
- The pricing basis and the date that basis was current
- Where requested, a bid comparison sheet levelling the trade bids you have received
Documents We Need
- The full bid set — architectural, structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing and civil
- Specifications, particularly Division 00 and 01, which carry the general requirements
- The project schedule or expected duration, since general conditions are built from it
- Addenda issued to date
- The bid form, including alternates, unit prices and allowances
- Geotechnical report where site work is in scope
- Any trade bids already received, if bid levelling is wanted
- The contract form, where it affects what obligations are yours
How It Works
1 · Send your plans. PDF, DWG, DOC, images or ZIP, up to 100MB per file. Tell us the scope you need covered and any format you want it delivered in.
2 · Get your quote. A flat price for the scope with a delivery date, confirmed in writing. There is no charge for the quote and no obligation once you have it.
3 · Approve. Nothing starts until you confirm. If we think a different service would suit you better, this is the point at which we say so.
4 · We estimate the whole building. Every division quantified, general conditions built from the schedule rather than applied as a percentage, and the gaps between trade packages listed so you can assign them before bid day.
5 · Delivery. The workbook, the marked-up plan set and the assumptions schedule, with a walkthrough of anything that looks off to you.
How Pricing and Turnaround Work
Quoted flat for the scope you need covered, from the bid set you send. A general contractor estimate prices the whole building plus general conditions, so the quote tracks the number of divisions in scope and the project duration rather than the construction value.
What moves the quote: number of divisions, project size and duration, drawing quality and completeness, whether general conditions are in scope, whether bid levelling is wanted, and turnaround.
The price and the delivery date are fixed in writing before you approve anything. There is no hourly billing, no retainer and no monthly minimum, and we do not start work on an open-ended basis.
When This Is the Wrong Service
Worth saying plainly, because a service page that claims to fit everyone is not describing a real service.
If you self-perform most of the work and have solid historical cost data for your own crews, you may want a quantity takeoff instead and your own pricing on top. Paying for pricing you intend to overwrite is wasted money.
If you need a single trade priced in depth rather than a whole building, a trade-specific estimate is the better fit and costs less.
If you are testing feasibility long before a bid set exists, a conceptual or budget estimate from schematic information is the right product and this one is not.
If what you actually need is a second opinion on a number you already have, say so — reviewing and challenging an existing estimate is a smaller and faster piece of work than producing a new one.
Standards and Tools
Quantities, rates and assemblies are read against the published references that govern this work. Where a project specification conflicts with any general reference, the specification governs:
- CSI MasterFormat — the organizing structure for every estimate we produce, so it reconciles against the bids you receive
- AACE International cost estimate classification, where an estimate class needs to be stated
- ASTM E2516 — classification of cost estimate formats
- Every estimate states its pricing basis and the date that basis was current
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you handle general conditions?
As real line items built from the project schedule — supervision by role and duration, temporary facilities and utilities by month, equipment by how long it is needed, plus safety, cleanup, submittals and closeout. Not as a percentage, because a percentage makes duration free and a twelve-month and an eighteen-month project with identical trade scope are not the same bid.
Do you identify scope gaps between trades?
Yes, as an explicit list. Blocking and backing, firestopping, housekeeping pads, final connections to owner-furnished equipment and access panels are the recurring ones — each trade reads them as somebody else's, and the general contractor absorbs all of them by default. Finding them before bid day is the point.
Do you do bid leveling?
Yes, where you have trade bids in hand. Three bids with a wide spread usually differ in scope rather than price, so levelling puts them on a common scope with inclusions, exclusions and qualifications listed side by side. It also makes the gaps visible as the empty cells, which is the fastest way to find them.
Do you carry escalation on long projects?
We state an assumption rather than leaving it silent. A bid held for months and built over years carries real material and labor escalation, and not stating an assumption about it is a decision to absorb whatever happens. Tell us the expected duration and the assumption is written on the face of the estimate.
Can you estimate alternates and unit prices?
Yes, and they are worth doing properly rather than last. Alternates get priced fastest and an owner who accepts three of them is buying at whatever those numbers were, while unit prices carried into the contract get used against you later. Both are quantified on the same basis as the base bid.
What if we only have part of the set?
Tell us what you have and we will say what can be estimated from it and what has to be an allowance. If the set will not support the estimate you asked for, you hear that when you ask rather than after you have paid — and the assumptions we did make are written out rather than buried in rates.
Every Division, Priced the Way the Spec Is Organized
A cost estimate is only as good as the trade knowledge behind each line. These are the trades we quantify and price, grouped the way a specification is.
Project Types We Estimate
Cost drivers change with the building type. Each sector page covers what moves a number on that kind of work.
If You Need Something Narrower
A full priced estimate is not always what the job calls for. These are the adjacent services, including the takeoff-only options that cost less.
We Estimate in All 50 States
Labor rates, wage rules and material costs are priced to the job’s market, not to a national average. Pick a state to see how that works locally.
Send the bid set and tell us the date
Upload your plans or tell us what you need. We’ll reply with pricing and a delivery date.
Need to add trades, ZIP code, target date or project state? Use the full quote form ↗