Even small contractors can reap the benefits of online construction estimating tools. Jason Kirkpatrick, owner of Kirkpatrick's Construction in Centreville, Va, began using Clear Estimates for his boutique remodeling business last year and found that the estimating software saved him considerable time and money.

Before Clear Estimates, Kirkpatrick went through an elaborate process to get the final construction estimate to the customer. He would write the estimate up, calculate the pricing and send the estimate to the office manager, who would then send it to the bookkeeper to create the estimate in QuickBooks software.

Now, with Clear Estimates, Fitzpatrick is able to create the estimate and contract at the same time, which can be automatically imported into QuickBooks. This, he said, has eliminated handwritten drafts, proofreading, and mistakes.

"The savings are both financial and in time I get to spend in other desirable areas," he noted. The time savings are approximately two to three hours per estimate, which, over the course of the year, amounts to up to 240 hours and $24,000 in savings.

Another advantage to Clear Estimates is accuracy, Kirkpatrick said: "I am less prone to forget a particular variable when using the software because I follow the phases and simply pick out the parts from each phase. For example, I never used to charge for all the plastic and blue tape used for dust and carpet protection. I simply overlooked it."

Clear Estimates works with the RemodelMAX Unit Cost Estimating Database, which provides basic costs on materials and labor for more than 8,000 parts across the US. Although Kirkpatrick found the database easy to use and helpful, there was still some set-up time involved.

"Any company will need to go through and enter its pricing and its subcontractors pricing, as is true with any estimating software," he said. "While the regional pricing is helpful for materials, every company is structured differently for labor and labor costs. I am changing [information] a lot more because we do a lot of unique high-end projects and work for a lot of attorneys. So I need to be very precise with my contract scope of work and legal provision descriptions to satisfy our clientele."

One drawback, too, is the inability to drag and drop items in the parts database, which Kirkpatrick is used to doing in Microsoft Word. "It does not seem significant until you are changing 200 and more Part and category descriptions," he explained.

Overall, Kirkpatrick rated Clear Estimates' construction estimating software a 9 out of 10.