Carpentry estimating that counts the hours honestly.
Most carpentry is quoted on materials plus a feel for the labour. This prices the labour explicitly — by phase, at your rate — then shows what the job actually earned per hour when it is finished.
Carpentry jobs lose money in the labour, not the timber. Materials are a price list; hours are a judgement, and the judgement is usually made at the end of a long day against a customer who wants a number now.
General construction estimating tools handle this by assembly — a rate per metre of stud wall, per square metre of floor. That works when the work is repeatable. Bespoke carpentry is not repeatable, which is why those tools get abandoned.
So the labour here is entered as hours against phases you name, at your own shop rate, and the finished job records what it really took. After a few jobs the shop is estimating from its own history rather than from optimism.
Assembly-based estimating: a rate per unit
Built for repeatable construction: a library of assemblies with labour and material rates per unit, totalled across a takeoff. Fast and accurate when the work matches the library, and increasingly wrong as the work gets more bespoke.
PlankCAD: hours you name, priced at your rate
Labour is entered by phase — design, milling, assembly, finishing, installation — as hours at the rate you charge for each. Materials are your own prices. Waste and overhead are explicit percentages. And when the job is done you record the actual hours, so the gap between what you quoted and what it took is a number rather than a feeling.
Where the two differ.
| Dimension | carpentry estimating | PlankCAD |
|---|---|---|
| Suits work that is | Repeatable, unit-priced | Bespoke, one-off |
| Labour | A rate per unit of assembly | Hours by phase, at your rate |
| Where the estimate comes from | A supplied rate library | Your own prices and your own past jobs |
| Margin | Often markup on cost | True gross margin — profit over selling price |
| After the job | Rarely closes the loop | Actual hours and cost against the estimate |
| Runs in | Usually a desktop install | Any browser, including on site |
When assembly-based estimating is the right tool
- Your work is repeatable enough that a rate per unit is genuinely accurate.
- You are bidding construction packages rather than pricing individual pieces.
- You need takeoff from drawings as the main input.
- Your customers expect a schedule of rates rather than a single price.
Using both
Plenty of joiners bid site work one way and bespoke pieces another. Nothing here needs replacing for this to be useful on the second kind.
PlankCAD and carpentry estimating.
Those price by assembly — a rate per metre of stud wall, per square metre of floor — which is accurate when work is repeatable and increasingly wrong as it gets bespoke. Here labour is hours against phases you name, at your rate, which is how a one-off piece is actually costed.
No, and it does not pretend to. Quantities are entered from your own measurements. If drawing takeoff is the main thing you need, a construction estimating package is the better tool.
Recording what the job actually took. After a few finished jobs you are estimating against your own history — the app shows estimated hours against actual, and what you earned per hour — instead of against optimism.
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Deterministic Estimate Math · Your Quotes On Your Account · No Hidden Fees