About us

The pre-construction department behind trade contractors.

Innovate Estimating takes a commercial trade contractor from drawings to signed contract: measured quantities first, then the pricing, the tender submission, and coordinated specialist support when the contract lands. Fixed fee, 48-hour turnaround, every quantity verified by a trade-qualified estimator who has priced and run the work.

Why we exist

Commercial work is priced at the kitchen table.

In the carpentry, joinery, fitout, ceilings and flooring firms of five to thirty people that actually build the job, the preconstruction work lands on the people already running the crews. The same person measures, prices, writes the qualifications and reads the contract, at night, after a full day on site. So good work gets passed on for want of a weekend, some of it gets won at a number that hurts, and the contract gets signed because there was no time to have anyone look at it.

The majors run that work as a department. The usual alternative offered to everyone else is an offshore takeoff mill: cheap numbers, measured by someone who has never stood on a site, with no local accountability when a figure looks wrong at 9pm before the bid goes in, and nobody there at all once the job is won. We are the third option: the same preconstruction discipline the majors run in-house, taken job by job, from people who will stand behind the measure.

How we work

Human-verified is the product.

Every set is measured in professional takeoff software, with AI-assisted counting where it earns its place, never hand-scaled, never guessed. Speed comes from the tooling; trust comes from what happens next. Nothing leaves here until a trade-qualified estimator who has priced and physically built this work has checked every quantity line-by-line against the drawings.

That verification is what you are buying. A number a professional is prepared to stand behind is a different product from a spreadsheet nobody is accountable for, and it is the one thing the offshore mills structurally cannot produce. Automation makes us fast; verification is what ships.

How far we go

From drawings to signed contract.

Almost every client starts with a takeoff, because measurement is where trust gets earned. From there, take as much of the ladder as you want off your desk.

01 · Quantity takeoff The trade package measured from the drawing set, with colour-coded marked-up drawings so you can check every number against the plan yourself, and the crew hours to build it on a stated production-rate basis. Crew hours are standard, not an extra. The lead service, and the record the rest stands on.
02 · Tender support Full priced bills of quantities from your own rates or a recognised published library, and the numbers assembled into a submission-ready package, with inclusions, exclusions and qualifications written down rather than assumed.
03 · Contract support Before you sign, we check that what you priced is what you are being asked to agree to, and we can bring in specialist construction-law support to review the wording, coordinated around your deadline. The legal advice comes from the specialists; we make sure the review happens in time.
04 · Once you are on site Progress claims prepared and served, the variation register kept straight, variations priced and delay claims put together. Because we measured the job at the start, we can show what was in the original scope and what was not.

What lands with every job

Everything you need to defend the bid.

Quantity schedule (.xlsx) Your working pricing document, formulas intact.
Colour-coded marked-up drawings (PDF) See exactly what was measured, and where. Full traceability.
Assumptions & exclusions page The precise scope of what was measured, and what wasn't, in writing.
Labour-hours schedule (crew hours, standard) Crew size × elapsed days, production-rate basis stated per line.
Engagement terms Scope, one revision included, liability cap. No surprises.

Drawing revision and date recorded on every page of every deliverable, so there is never a dispute about which drawings were measured.

Standards we hold

The rules we don't bend.

Fixed fee, never hourly

Every job is quoted as a fixed-fee proposal off your actual drawings: the number you accept is the number you pay. No hourly meters, no per-square-metre pricing that punishes an efficient measure.

Nothing ships unverified

No measure leaves this office until a trade-qualified estimator has checked it line-by-line against the drawings. Software gets us there fast; a person signs it off, and that is the part you are paying for.

Your rates never leave your jobs

Any rates or pricing you give us are used on your work and nowhere else, on any tender. We measure quantities; what you do with them is yours alone, and it stays that way.

Your drawings stay confidential

Tender drawing sets are treated as commercially confidential, never shared with competitors or anyone outside the people delivering your job. We also never discuss who we work with, which protects you the same way it protects them.

Who's behind the work

People who've built what they price.

Josh Costin

Founder · Lead Estimator

Innovate Estimating was founded by Josh Costin, a trade-qualified commercial estimator who has both built commercial work and priced it. Years on the tools and running a trade business showed the same thing on every job: capable contractors carrying the measuring, the pricing and the signing themselves, at night, after a day running crews. The firm exists so that work has somewhere to go: the same preconstruction discipline the majors run in-house, available job by job, with every number verified by an estimator who has run the work. Every measure that leaves here is held to that standard.

Contact

Pricing a commercial tender right now?

Send your drawing set to hello@innovateestimating.com.au and you'll have a fixed-fee proposal within 48 hours. No obligation.

Send your drawings hello@innovateestimating.com.au 0494 779 423

Based in Melbourne · serving trade contractors Australia-wide.