What electrical shops need from estimating software
Start by being honest about what you bid. A shop doing new-construction rough-ins, tenant improvements and small commercial work lives on plan takeoff. Somebody has to count every receptacle, switch and fixture on a 30-sheet set, measure every conduit run, pick a wire size, apply labor units, factor for 14-foot ceilings or a third-floor walkup, and roll it all into a number the GC wants by Friday. That job needs a database of electrical assemblies, labor units you trust and material prices that move when copper moves.
A residential service shop prices differently. The work is a 100-to-200-amp service upgrade, a whole-house surge protector, a subpanel for a garage shop, an EV charger with a load calc, or GFCI and AFCI updates to get a house through a sale inspection. Nobody reads plans. The tech needs a flat-rate pricebook, a way to show two or three options, photos of what's there now, and a signature before they leave the driveway. Permit fees and the inspection trip need to be on the quote, not discovered later.
Most shops between 3 and 15 people do some of both. That's why this list mixes dedicated takeoff tools with field service apps. Pick by where most of your estimating hours go, not by what you wish you bid.
A few things matter regardless of which side you're on:
- Material pricing that stays current. Wire and conduit prices swing. A takeoff tool with a supplier pricing feed, or a pricebook you can bulk-update, saves you from bidding last quarter's copper.
- Labor you can defend. Labor is most of the risk on any electrical bid. You want units you can adjust to your own crew's history, not a black box.
- A clean handoff. Once the job is won, the estimate should become a budget, a material order and a schedule without anyone retyping it.
How the picks compare
The top two picks and the bottom four are different kinds of software, and the table above can make them look more alike than they are.
McCormick, ConEst and Accubid are bid tools. They read plans, count, measure, price and spit out a proposal. None of them will dispatch a truck or send an invoice. McCormick is our pick for most small shops that bid plans because it gives you takeoff, assemblies and NECA units in one product, without bolting on a separate takeoff license the way ConEst does with SureCount. ConEst wins if a real share of your work is low voltage, datacom or solar, where its assembly library is deepest. Accubid is the third name you'll hear, especially from estimators who came up through larger commercial shops. Trimble lists 42,000+ materials and 13,000 assemblies in Accubid Classic, and its LiveCount takeoff is cloud-based with a two-way link back to the estimate. Change orders are a separate product (Accubid ChangeOrder), so price that in if you do a lot of T&M and change work. All three are quote only, and you'll be sitting through demos either way. Bring the same plan set to each one.
Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber and Workiz are field service apps that happen to estimate. They're where service quotes live, and they're where a bid ends up once you win it. Housecall Pro is the best fit for a residential shop of two to eight techs: published pricing, decent proposals, and estimates that flow straight into jobs and invoices. ServiceTitan is better at flat-rate pricing across a big team, but you pay for it in money and setup time. Jobber is the budget option and is genuinely fine for a one-truck shop. Workiz suits shops whose day is driven by inbound emergency calls.
One tool we left off the ranked list but would look at: Knowify. It isn't a takeoff tool, but for an electrical sub doing commercial work it covers what comes after the bid: contracts, job costing, and AIA-style progress billing with QuickBooks sync. Core costs $99/mo billed annually (1 user) and Advanced $329/mo (10 users), as of October 2026. A McCormick-plus-Knowify setup covers a lot of ground for a small commercial sub.
If you run other trades besides electrical, our roundup of estimating software for contractors covers the general-purpose tools.
What to look for before you sign
- Run your own plans through the demo. Send the vendor a set you already bid and won (or lost). Compare their count and labor hours to yours. Generic demo jobs always look great.
- Ask what the quote actually includes. For the takeoff tools, get a written list: takeoff module, supplier pricing feed, number of estimator seats, annual maintenance or subscription, training. ConEst prices its takeoff and pricing feeds separately; others bundle differently.
- Check how labor units adjust. You should be able to apply a job-wide labor factor and edit individual units. If you can't make the software match your crew's real productivity, your bids will drift.
- Test the handoff to the field. Can the won estimate become a material list, a budget by phase and a schedule? If your takeoff tool and your field app don't talk, budget an hour of retyping per job.
- For service quoting, check options and pricebook updates. Make sure you can show good-better-best options and bulk-change prices when your supply house raises them.
- Watch the seat math. Takeoff tools are priced per estimator, not per tech. A 15-person shop with one estimator needs one seat. Field service apps charge for every user who logs in.
- Ask about contract length. ServiceTitan commonly sells annual contracts. Jobber and Housecall Pro offer monthly billing at a higher price than annual.
What it costs
Dedicated takeoff tools don't publish prices, so the table covers the field service apps and notes where the takeoff tools fit. Prices are as of October 2026, billed annually unless noted. Card fees are extra on all of them (Jobber, for example, charges 2.9% + 30¢ per card payment).
| Shop size |
Jobber |
Housecall Pro |
ServiceTitan |
Takeoff tool (McCormick, ConEst, Accubid) |
| 1 tech / owner-estimator |
$29/mo (Core, 1 user) |
$59/mo (Basic, 1 user) |
Not built for one tech |
Quote only, 1 seat |
| 5 users |
$149/mo (Connect, 5 users) or $229/mo (Grow) |
$149/mo (Essentials, up to 5 users) |
Roughly $1,225 to $2,500/mo (third-party estimate) |
Quote only, usually 1 seat |
| 15 users |
$299/mo (Connect) or $399/mo (Grow) |
About $544/mo (MAX $299 for 8 users + 7 users at $35) |
Roughly $3,675 to $7,500/mo (third-party estimate) |
Quote only, 1 to 2 seats |
The ServiceTitan figures multiply third-party estimates of $245 to $500 per technician per month; ServiceTitan doesn't publish prices and implementation fees come on top. Workiz is quote only as of 2026, so it isn't in the table.
Say you run five trucks, do mostly residential service, and bid two or three small commercial jobs a month. A sensible setup is Housecall Pro Essentials at $149/mo for the service side plus one seat of a takeoff tool for the estimator. Get the takeoff quote in writing before you decide; it's the number that will swing your total.
