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An Estimate Rocket alternative, and the four words that decide it
If you are here you are looking at estimaterocket.com, the all-in-one platform for service contractors, and working out whether to buy it. This is not a listicle. It says what Estimate Rocket does, what we do, and why for most remodelers the two are not after the same job.
No card. Two scans, then you decide.
Who is actually on page one for this
Search the phrase and count what comes back. Capterra, G2, SaaSHub, SoftwareSuggest, TechnologyCounter, ITQlick, SoftwareWorld, eBool, SaasRat. Nine software directories, and not one page written by anybody who has priced a remodel.
Those pages all work the same way. Eight products in a column with a star rating and a starting price, and it is broadly the same eight whichever directory you open. None of them says what Estimate Rocket is for, so none of them can tell you whether something else fits your week better.
The wall does prove one thing worth knowing. Directories only build pages for phrases people actually type, so there is real demand behind this one.
What Estimate Rocket is, said fairly
Estimate Rocket calls itself an all-in-one platform for service contractors. CRM, estimating, scheduling, project management, invoicing and payments on one subscription. It ships templates for 57 trades, collects e-signatures, chases sent estimates with automatic follow-ups, tracks crew time, reports on job profitability, and connects to QuickBooks Online and Zapier.
Pricing as published on their site: Launch at 139 a month with three full users, Accelerate at 259 with seven, Expand at 359 with fifteen. Extra field users are 10 a month. Onboarding and training are included on every plan. The homepage offers a 30 day trial and the pricing page carries a 90 day money back guarantee.
That is a real product, and the automatic follow-up on sent estimates in particular earns its keep. A finishing shop running several crews out of a spreadsheet and a phone would feel the difference inside a week.
The four words on their own homepage
Here is where the boundary sits, and they tell you themselves. Their estimating copy says the trade templates let you build an accurate estimate in minutes, and the instruction is: just measure, count, and click.
Measure. That one word is carrying the whole job. Everything the software does well starts after somebody has stood in the room with a tape and written numbers on a clipboard. The templates are fast because the quantities already exist.
On a repaint that is fair enough, you were going to look at the walls anyway. On a kitchen or a basement where you are one of three bidders and two of the three homeowners will not sign anybody this year, the measuring is not the small part. It is the drive out, the hour on site, the evening writing it up, and most of the time it is spent on work you do not get.
So the question is not which tool writes the faster estimate. It is whether you needed to be in the room at all for the first pass.
Where the two of us sit on one lead
| Estimate Rocket | ScanToScope | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | CRM, estimating, scheduling and invoicing for service contractors | The measure and quote step, and nothing after it |
| Where the quantities come from | You measure on site and enter them | The homeowner captures the room on her own phone, from a link you text her |
| What the homeowner installs | Nothing, she is never in the software | Nothing, it opens in her browser |
| What the price is built from | Your templates and your rates | Your own cost book, line by line |
| After the quote is signed | Scheduling, time tracking, job costing, invoicing, payments | Nothing. It hands the job off to whatever you already run |
| Published entry price | 139 a month, three full users | 79 a month, one user, and two scans free with no card |
Both columns are the vendors' own published descriptions, ours included. Read theirs before you sign anything, because pricing pages move.
How the first pass runs here
You send a link
The lead comes in and you text her a link instead of booking Tuesday evening. Nothing for her to install and no account to make.
She walks the room
On a recent iPhone Pro the room is measured with LiDAR as she walks it. On any other phone it falls back to photographs plus the room sizes she types in. Photos upload one at a time as she takes them, so a weak signal in a basement does not lose the lot.
You read the scope brief
A vision model reads her photographs and a model writes the scope brief. You read it, and you correct whatever it has got wrong, because you are the one who has built these before.
The number is your own arithmetic
The scope is priced against your cost book, line by line, with every quantity traceable to where it came from. No model sets the price. That is the part we will not hand to a machine.
Then you decide whether to drive
On the ones worth the trip you go out and measure properly, with Estimate Rocket or a tape or whatever you use now. On the rest you have sent a number and kept your evening.
What Estimate Rocket does that we do not
Worth being plain about, because a page that pretends otherwise just wastes your trial.
- Scheduling, crew calendars and time tracking. We have none of it.
- Invoicing, payments and progress billing. None of that either.
- Job costing and profitability reporting after the work is sold.
- Automatic follow-up on sent estimates, which is one of the better things they do.
- Templates for 57 trades, including plenty we have never priced.
- Onboarding and training by a person, included in the price.
Questions contractors ask
Do I have to drop Estimate Rocket to use this?
No, and most people should not. We sit in front of whatever you run. The scope and the number come out here, and the job that gets signed goes into your platform through Zapier.
Does this replace going out to measure?
On the first pass, usually. Before you build and order, no. Go and measure the job you won. What this removes is measuring the two you were never going to win.
What if the homeowner has an Android phone?
Then there is no LiDAR and it falls back to photographs plus the room sizes she types in. You get her pictures and her numbers, not a scan. Treat typed numbers as what they are, which is her numbers.
Does AI work out the price?
No. A vision model reads the photographs, a model writes the scope brief, and renders come from an image model. The price is arithmetic against your own cost book, and every line traces back to a quantity and a rate you set.
What does it cost?
Two scans free with 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. A job one of your own people captures on site is not metered on any plan.
Which of the two is cheaper?
Ours starts lower, but they are not the same purchase so the comparison is not much use. Estimate Rocket at 139 is replacing several subscriptions. We are replacing a drive.
Try it on one lead you have not driven to
Two scans free, no card. Send the link to the next enquiry that smells like a tire kicker, and see what comes back before you give up an evening to it.