Landscaping estimating software for the install you actually build.
Hardscape and install jobs are job-costed like construction: square feet of paver and sod, cubic yards of base and mulch, plants by the each, and the dig nobody likes to price. billWright takes it off line by line, prices excavation and haul-off in, and runs from your own loaded crew rate. Approve the bid and it becomes an invoice and a job budget. Built by a working contractor, free through the beta.
Built for install and project work. Recurring mow routes are a scheduling job for a route planner - this is for the work you bid and build.
The money hides in the dirt and the depth.
Square footage is easy. Volume, the dig, and the warranty are where install jobs quietly lose money - and a spreadsheet only lists what the customer sees.
Cubic yards by depth, not area
A 300 sq ft patio at six inches of compacted base is about six yards of stone, and a yard only covers fifty square feet at four inches. Bid the area, forget the depth, and you under-buy a third of your bulk material.
The dig and the haul-off
Amateurs price pavers and plants and ignore that you dig the hole first and truck the spoil away. Excavation and haul-off are hundreds to over a thousand dollars that live nowhere on a sloppy estimate.
Cut base, callback, dead plants
Skip a base inch or the compaction pass and the patio heaves in a season - you rebuild it on your dime. Warranty a dead shrub with no replacement allowance and every truck roll is free.
Ballpark a paver patio, right now.
This is a takeoff for a 300 sq ft paver patio with a planting-bed refresh - excavation and haul-off, six inches of compacted base, bedding sand, mid-grade pavers, edge restraint, joint sand, eight shrubs, and mulch by the yard. Adjust the quantities and your own rates; in the app these become reusable assemblies in your price book.
billWright vs a spreadsheet, for a landscape bid.
Everything that makes an install bid fast, complete, and worth keeping after you win.
| For a landscape install bid | billWright | Spreadsheet / generic tool |
|---|---|---|
| Take off by sq ft, cubic yard & plant count | Built in - price book + calculators | Manual, and stale |
| Bulk material by depth (base, mulch, topsoil) | Built in | Area only, under-bought |
| Excavation & haul-off priced as real lines | Always there | Easy to leave out |
| Reusable assemblies (patio, bed, sod, wall) | Built in | Rebuild every time |
| Plant warranty / replacement allowance | Standing line | Manual, often skipped |
| Approved quote becomes an invoice + job budget | Automatic | Re-enter everywhere |
| Cost the real job against the estimate | Built in job costing | No |
| Recurring mow-route scheduling | Not what this is for | Use a route planner |
Different trade? See concrete or general contracting estimating, or compare billWright to the tools you know.
The estimate is the start, not the end.
Estimating
Price from your own numbers, send a branded quote, and watch the bid close.
Crew time
The crew punches in from a phone; you approve a whole week in one pass.
Invoicing
Bill from the approved estimate in one click, record payments, chase overdue.
Books
Expenses, income, and tax already coded - so you know the job made money.
Landscape estimating, answered.
What is the best estimating software for landscapers?
The best fit depends on which side of the business you are bidding. For install and hardscape work - patios, walls, plantings, sod, irrigation - you want software that does real quantity takeoff by the square foot, cubic yard, and plant count, and job-costs labor in crew-hours, so the bid matches what the job costs to build. billWright is built for that project and install estimating and job-costing, and is free through its closed beta.
Can it handle my recurring mowing and maintenance accounts?
Honestly, that is a different tool. Recurring lawn care is priced on route density and windshield time and managed as season-long contracts, which is a scheduling and route-optimization job. billWright is strongest on one-off project estimating, job costing, and invoicing; it will handle a one-time cleanup or install ticket, but it is not a route planner.
Will it catch the stuff I forget, like excavation and base depth?
That is the point of a line-item estimator over a blank spreadsheet. You build a reusable assembly for a paver patio that already includes excavation, haul-off, base by the cubic yard at your real depth, bedding sand, edge restraint, and joint sand, so you stop bidding the pretty stuff and eating the dig.
Does it track whether I actually made money on the job?
Yes, that is the job-costing half. You bid in labor-hours and material, then compare against actual hours and material spent, so you find out a six-inch base that ran long ate your margin before you repeat the mistake on the next twenty patios.
Bid the whole dig, hold your margin.
Built by a working contractor, answering to the people who use it - not a board chasing a quarterly number. Your data stays yours.
Prefer email? hello@billwright.app