Sep 16, 2026
We Ran Estim8 Pro Against a Real $914,000 Bid
A five-sheet residential plan set, a GC's actual signed bid, and one question: how close does the AI get?
Every estimating tool says it's accurate. I wanted a number, so I ran one.
The test
A two-story, 2,784 square foot Florida home. CMU first floor, wood-frame second, trussed roof, 25 windows on the schedule. The GC's real bid, with overhead and profit, was $914,000. I uploaded five sheets of the set to Estim8 Pro and let it run with no hand corrections.
What it read right
The 28 by 68 footprint. Both floor areas. The block-to-frame transition at the second floor. The truss roof. Twenty-two to twenty-seven windows across runs, against 25 on the schedule.
Doors were the weak spot. The reader over-counted, and the app did what I want it to do when it isn't sure: it flagged those lines for review instead of hiding them in the total.
The number
Direct materials and labor came back at $534,000 to $677,000. Back the O&P out of the GC's bid and his materials-and-labor was in the $550,000 to $680,000 range. The AI's range brackets the real job.
What I fixed because of it
This one plan set is why Estim8 now adds site prep from the footprint, treats a pool or any separate-permit scope as an allowance instead of a guess, reads the dimension callouts before it trusts the picture, and checks each floor against the plan's own area table. Three of those came from a single run.
Why I'm publishing it
Because the alternative is a page that says "accurate" in a nice font. If you have a plan set with a bid you already know, send it to info@dvcapps.ai. I'll run it and tell you what happened, hit or miss.
