Quoting software that knows what a sheet of ply costs you.
General quoting tools make a document look professional. They do not know about waste, sheet yield, shop overhead or the difference between margin and markup — which is where a woodworking quote is actually won or lost.
Most quoting software is a document builder. You type the number, it makes the number look good: line items, a logo, terms, a signature block, maybe a payment link. For a lot of trades that is the whole job, because the price came from somewhere else.
For a woodworking shop the price IS the job. Getting to it means sheet goods and offcuts, a waste allowance that is not a guess, hours by phase, shop overhead, and a margin calculated over the selling price rather than added onto cost — the single most common way a shop quietly underprices itself.
So this is a quoting tool with the estimating underneath it. The document at the end is the easy part.
General quoting software: a better-looking document
Templates, branding, line items, e-signature and payment links, usually alongside invoicing and CRM. Genuinely good at turning a number into something a customer will sign. It has no opinion about where the number came from.
PlankCAD: the number, then the document
Materials at your prices, labour by phase at your rates, a waste allowance applied to materials only, shop overhead, and true gross margin — then a PDF quote with scope, line items, tax, total and terms. Quote revisions are frozen at issue, so re-downloading last year’s quote never reprints it under this year’s terms.
Where the two differ.
| Dimension | general quoting software | PlankCAD |
|---|---|---|
| Where the price comes from | You, from somewhere else | Calculated from your costs |
| Waste | Not modelled | A percentage on materials, visible and editable |
| Margin | Usually markup on cost | True gross margin — profit over selling price |
| Sheet goods | A line item like any other | Nested onto real sheets with kerf and grain |
| Revisions | A new version of a document | Frozen at issue — terms cannot change retroactively |
| After the job | Invoicing | Estimated against actual cost, and margin per hour |
| Breadth | Every trade | Woodworking only, and priced accordingly |
When general quoting software is the right tool
- You already know your price and want the document to look good.
- You need invoicing, CRM and payments in one place.
- You quote across trades where a woodworking cost model would not fit.
- E-signature and payment collection matter more to you than how the number was reached.
Using both
Work the price out here and export the PDF, or carry the totals into whatever your business already invoices from. The estimating is the part that is hard to replace.
PlankCAD and general quoting software.
General quoting tools are document builders: you supply the number and they make it look professional. That is genuinely useful when the price came from somewhere else. In a woodworking shop the price IS the work — waste, sheet yield, hours by phase, overhead and margin over selling price. This calculates the number and then produces the document.
No. It produces the quote; invoicing and payment collection stay wherever your business already does them. If those matter more to you than how the price was reached, a general quoting tool is the better fit and we would rather say so.
It reprints exactly as it was issued. Payment terms, deposit and validity are copied onto the revision at the moment it is sent rather than read live, so re-downloading an old quote can never silently apply this year’s terms to last year’s customer.
No, and conflating them is the most common way a shop underprices itself. Margin is profit over the selling price; markup is a percentage added to cost. A 40% markup on cost is about a 29% margin. This calculates margin, and shows the arithmetic.
Build your first estimate free.
No credit card required. Price the job, save the draft, and export the customer quote.
Deterministic Estimate Math · Your Quotes On Your Account · No Hidden Fees