Comparison

A Clear Estimates alternative for shops that price off their own book

Clear Estimates is good at what it does. It prices a remodel out of a cost database they maintain for you, localized to your area, after somebody has already measured the room. Two assumptions sit inside that. If both of them bother you, keep reading. If neither does, stay where you are.

See what a sent link gets you

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Who is actually on page one

Search this phrase and you get a wall of directories. Capterra, G2, TrustRadius, SoftwareSuggest, SoftwareWorld and ITQlick all hold a slot, and most of them are the same list of ten products sorted by star rating.

Two real pages are in there, a Projul post and a hubservice listicle, and Clear Estimates defends its own name with a comparison page. That one is worth reading, because it is honest about what the product is not.

What none of them ask is the pair of questions that actually decides this purchase. Whose prices end up in your number, and who had to go stand in the room before the software could start. That is this whole page.

What Clear Estimates is, said fairly

Clear Estimates is remodeling estimating software and it has been at this for twenty years. You pick a project template, type your dimensions in, and it prices the job from a cost database they keep current. Their published figures: over 15,000 line items, localized across more than 400 areas in the United States, updated quarterly, with more than 500 templates. Out the other end comes an itemized proposal with your logo and pre written contract language.

It is not a takeoff tool and does not pretend to be. It is not a CRM or a project management suite either, and their own comparison page says so. Third party reviews list it as desktop only with no mobile app. Their comparison page prices the Basic plan at 79 dollars a month and Pro at 119, with a 30 day trial. Their homepage says plans start at 59, so check the pricing page before you quote a number back at anybody.

They have also added AI scope creation, including building a scope from a description, photos or a sketch. Worth knowing if somebody told you this was a dusty old product. It is not.

Whose prices end up in the number

	Clear Estimates	ScanToScope
Where the prices come from	A database they maintain, localized to your area and updated quarterly	Your own cost book. The prices you actually pay your crew and your suppliers
Where the dimensions come from	You type them in, so somebody has already measured	The homeowner captures the room from a link before anybody drives
When a price is wrong	Swap the part or adjust the markup on that estimate	Fix the line in your book and every quote after it is right
Where it runs	Desktop software. Reviewers list no mobile app	A link in a browser. Nothing for her to install
What comes out	A branded proposal with contract language	A scope brief and a priced quote, every quantity traceable
Who it suits	A remodeler who wants maintained pricing and the paperwork done	A shop that already knows its own numbers and is sick of driving

Read off clearestimates.com, their comparison page and third party reviews on 28 October 2026. Their own pages disagree on the entry price, so verify it before you repeat it.

Somebody still had to go and measure

Here is the part every listicle skips. Almost all of these products, theirs included, start after the measuring is finished. You open a template and it asks you for dimensions. The software was never what cost you the morning. The driving was.

Clear Estimates is upfront that it fits work starting from a description, photos or a rough sketch. That is true, and it is also the quiet admission. A description and a rough sketch are what you have when you have not been to the house yet. Pricing off them is a guess with a proposal wrapped around it.

We sit one step earlier. You send the homeowner a link. She opens it on the phone already in her hand, with nothing to install. On a recent iPhone Pro the LiDAR sensor measures the room. On any other phone she photographs it and types the room sizes in. A vision model reads her photos, a model writes the scope brief, and then the quantities get priced against your cost book, line by line, with every quantity traceable to where it came from.

The price is not a model. It is arithmetic. And nothing here measures anything from a photograph. If her phone has no sensor, the sizes are the ones she typed, and the page says so on its face so you know what you are holding.

Stay with Clear Estimates if this is you

You have no price book of your own

If you have never built one, their database is a better deal than anything we can sell you. Twenty years of maintained residential pricing for the price of a tank of diesel is cheap. Our entire argument depends on you having your own numbers, and if you do not have them yet, start there.

The walk is your sales call

Some shops only quote work they have stood in, on purpose, because the visit is how they close. If that is working for you, measuring is not your bottleneck and neither of these products fixes anything. Spend the money elsewhere.

You want the paperwork handled

Their pre written contract language and branded proposal PDF is a real feature and we do not match it. You get a scope brief and a priced quote from us. What wraps around it stays yours.

How one lead runs here

The lead comes in

Text or email her the link. You are still in the shop.

She captures the room

Opens in her browser. LiDAR measures it on a recent iPhone Pro. Otherwise photos, plus the room sizes she types.

The scope comes back

A model reads the photos and writes the brief. You read it in two minutes and fix whatever it got wrong.

Your book prices it

Quantities against your own lines. Arithmetic, not a guess, and you can see where every quantity came from.

You decide about the drive

Some of them are worth the trip. Now you know which ones before you burn the morning finding out.

Questions a remodeler asks here

Is this a straight replacement for Clear Estimates?

No, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. They price a job from a maintained database and hand you proposal paperwork. We get the room measured before you drive and price it off your own book. Plenty of shops could run both without any overlap.

Does it use my prices or yours?

Yours. You load your cost book and the quote is arithmetic against it. We do not ship a national average database and we are not planning to. If you want averages, buy theirs, they are better at it.

Clear Estimates has AI too. What is actually different?

Make every vendor in this category be specific about which part is a model. Ours reads the homeowner photographs and writes the scope brief, and an image model does the renders. The price is not a model. It is your book times the quantities. Ask where the number comes from and listen for whether the answer is your own prices.

What if the homeowner has an Android?

Then there is no depth sensor to use. She photographs the room and types the sizes, and you get her numbers labelled as hers rather than as a measurement. That is the honest version. It is still enough to tell you whether the job is worth a morning.

What does it cost?

Two scans free, no card. Solo is 79 a month for one user and 20 scans. Crew is 149 for five users and 60 scans. Shop is 349 for unlimited users and 200 scans. Extra scans are 4 dollars each and nothing locks when you run out. A job one of your own people captures on site is not metered at all, on any plan.

Do I have to cancel what I have to try this?

No. Run two leads through it and hold the numbers it gives you against the numbers you would have written yourself. That is the only test that settles anything.