I am interested in purchasing some sign estimating software and the three I have come across is Estimate, Cyrious, and Sign Tracker. All three offer alot but all three are very different in pricing. Could someone please explain why the prices differ so much? Is their honestly a big difference in them for the price? For those who have estimating software, what kind do you have and what are its pro's and con's? Thanks for your help!
for a single license(one computer), it is $1895, this is the silver version it gives you 100 invoices you can write a month, after you hit 100 it tells you to upgrade, i believe the unlimited invoices a month license is about $3400
Wow! I don't think so! I downloaded the demo for Estimate and signcalc last night and playing around with them last night and this morning and it seems like signcalc was a little to generic and not enough detail for what I am looking for. But for only $150.00 you can't beat it! Estimate though seems to be just about right, it seems to have things that would benefit my company nicely. I'm going to think about it a little more though, thanks for your help!
I went with Estimate and have had it for a week now and am loving it! I'm still fine-tuning some of the features but it is working out quite nicely! I get two hours of training so I'm working on making a list of things I need some help with and giving them a call, but as of now the the only thing I have a few questions about is the Quickbooks plugin and how to get that working seamlessly with Estimate, everything else though is pretty straightforward and easy to use! I definetely recommend it!
There is no magic, one size fits all estimating system.
Spend your money in better ways and stop looking for an easy fix.
You should be learning to estimate every job and calculate
every portion of the jobs expense. Not knowing that information
will keep you from being competitive and more importantly....
PROFITABLE!
Just make up your own paper spreadsheet listing all the products needed to complete the job and calculate in hourly costs and a profit margin.
These are the fundamentals of making money... you should know your
material cost like you know your way to work.
Signmasters
What you speak of is what I have been doing for years now....but their are so many variables that play into pricing I want to be consistent. With Estimate working for me now I am always consistent.
Uh,
(Material + Machine Time + Labor + Overhead)*profit margin = price
The problem comes in when the consumer is not willing to pay that.
If you know your business, then you can estimate by material + time.
Knowing your time comes from experience.
Start timing your operations. You'll soon know exactly how long it takes.
Example: I know that I can mount and laminate then trim a 4 x 8 sheet of foam board to yield 6 posters in about 30 minutes. Print time is about 30-40 minutes. So the machine can keep up with me. Each poster has $6.30 of materials not assuming a waste factor of 20%. So $7.56 is your real number per poster. The posters would sell for around $25 each.
Profit is $17.44 or $209 per hour.
They key is how many hours in a row can you make this? If you only have 6 posters to do, your admin time eats away at that $209
Wow Joe, you've made just about every post that has anything to do with estimating software.
Aside from that... I agree that you need to price every job manually. Getting rid of such software and doing this has increased my revenue by over 30% this past year. However, what I would like is a program that formats my proposals and tracks customers and estimates. I would never relinquesh the pricing and quotes to a program, but I would like my presentations to be more consistant and professional. Any suggestions? (Besides you Joe)
Cody
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I have used EstiMate, hated it, it seemed fairly generic, and didn't offer much more than a glorified spreadsheet.. i think they get about 400 bucks a license, might be wrong
i currently use SignCalc, is is also a spreadsheet based program, that is setup into a database, fairly basic, but gets us by, i think we paid about $100 for it
Cyrious, is an excellent program, have used it for years before starting my own shop and don't have the flow to pick it up yet. Cyrious offers complete job tracking, marketing, etc., it is basically a complete Shop Managment Software, and you pay for it.....
When the time is right, Cyrious will be at our shop, no question, it's ability to offer more than a calculation is the value to me, i can figure prices on my own, but streamlining, marketing and consistency are the goal, you can setup marketing flags, for instance, if a customer buys on a regular basis, and then goes for a long stretch without anything, it will pop up and remind you to give them a call, or to tell you to send them a thank you note, etc.
my opinion is Cyrious is our best way to go, but the cost will hold us back...kinda goes along with the corel is 200 bucks, and Omega is 5 grand..
it boils down to what you need....what it needs to do for you.....
my buck fifty