ChatGPTTL;DR
- "Plumbing estimating software" is two products: a flat-rate book on a tablet for service work, and a takeoff program that counts fittings off a plan set for a bid. Every price here was read on the vendor's own page on November 1, 2026.
- Service quoting: Jobber from $29 a month for one user, Housecall Pro $59 to $299 billed annually, Service Fusion $208 to $533 with unlimited users, ServiceM8 free to $349 by job count. ServiceTitan and FieldEdge print no price.
- The book is a separate line: Profit Rhino $39 to $59 per tech a month, The New Flat Rate from $99 per tech, Craftsman's National Estimator Cloud $13.99 a month for the cost data alone.
- Bid takeoff: TurboBid $1,395 one time or $135 a month plus a $350 setup fee, FastPIPE $4,995 one time or $250 a month on lease, Trimble Estimation MEP Pro $1,950 a user a year, PlanSwift $2,000 to $3,000 a seat. McCormick, PataBid, QuoteSoft and On Center are demo-only.
- ServiceTitan's own platform data puts the median financed plumbing ticket 75 percent above the unfinanced one in late 2025, which is the number that decides whether a proposal tool pays.
- Skip the $5,000 commercial takeoff package for a service shop, and skip any residential bid program that takes 200 hours to set up, which is what one Reddit plumber reported for Plumbing Bid Pro.
A plumber who searches this term is one of two people. The first runs service trucks and wants the tech to quote a water heater on the tablet with three options and financing before the customer's coffee goes cold. The second bids new construction from a plan set and needs every fitting on the riser diagram counted and priced against MCAA labor before Thursday. Google serves both the same page of results, and the vendors on it range from a $13.99 a month cost book to a $4,995 estimating program that has shipped since 1995. ServiceTitan's own plumbing estimating page splits the market the same way we do, noting that "some plumbers use takeoff software such as Planswift, FastPipe, and McCormick Systems" while its product handles the quote. So this post is in two halves, service first, with every price read from the vendor's page on November 1, 2026 and the request-only vendors quoted on exactly what they print instead. The plumbing CRM guide covers the dispatch side of the same platforms, and if the problem is how few estimate requests come in rather than how long each takes, the free website audit is the place to start.
Two products share one name
A service estimate is a price book and a presentation. The tech taps "replace 50-gallon gas water heater," the book returns a flat rate with overhead and margin already inside, and the customer sees good, better and best on the screen with a monthly payment next to each. The software is a field service platform (Housecall Pro, Jobber, ServiceTitan, FieldEdge, Service Fusion, ServiceM8) and the book is usually a second purchase from Profit Rhino or The New Flat Rate, or a cost database from Craftsman if you build your own.
A bid estimate starts with a plan set. Someone measures every run of supply, waste and vent, counts the fixtures and the fittings, picks ProPress or sweat, applies labor units and prices the material from the supply house before the number goes out. TurboBid, FastPIPE, McCormick, PataBid, QuoteSoft, Trimble, PlanSwift and STACK sell that, and none of them does a flat-rate drain cleaning ticket. The two halves are priced below in the order a plumbing company grows into them, and a shop that does both will own one of each. Whichever half you buy, the estimate only matters if the phone rings, which is the part our plumbing marketing work and the plumber SEO playbook cover.
Service and flat-rate quoting, priced
Annual-billing prices first where the vendor prints both. Ratings are Software Advice and Trustpilot on the same day; Capterra, GetApp and G2 block our reads, and Software Advice shares Gartner's review pool with both.
| Tool | Price as printed | Quoting features that matter for plumbing | Ratings, Nov 1 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber | Core $29, Connect $99, Grow $149 a month for one user billed annually ($49, $139, $199 month to month); Grow for five users $229 or $299; $29 per added user | Jobber AI "drafts a detailed estimate using information from past jobs"; good-better-best quotes; optional line items it names as "water heater upgrades, expansion tanks, drain pans, valve replacements, pressure regulators"; Home Depot pricing inside the quote; Wisetack financing | 4.6 across 1,487 on Software Advice; 4.2 across 234 on Trustpilot |
| Housecall Pro | Basic $59, Essentials $149, Max $299 a month billed annually ($79, $189, $329 monthly); $35 per extra user on Max; 14-day trial, no card | Price book with AI import on every plan; flat-rate pricing on Essentials; good-better-best proposal tool on Max; Profit Rhino book at $199 a month per the help center; "AI Pricing Insights" benchmarks each job | 4.7 across 2,749 on Software Advice; 2.9 across 700 on Trustpilot |
| ServiceTitan | No price printed; "per-technician pricing," "Request Pricing" and "Get Demo" | Pricebook and mobile estimates on every plan; Pricebook Pro with supplier catalogs and good-better-best templates, no price printed; names PlanSwift, FastPipe and McCormick as the takeoff tools its customers use | 4.3 across 342 on Software Advice; 4.0 across 423 on Trustpilot |
| FieldEdge | No price printed; "Request Pricing"; "does not offer a free trial" | Pricebook and flat rate on every tier; Proposal Pro good-better-best is "Call for Pricing" below Elite; FieldEdge Flat Rate is the former Coolfront book | 4.2 across 314 on Software Advice; 2.8 across 47 on Trustpilot |
| Service Fusion | Starter $208, Plus $325, Pro $533 a month billed annually ($245, $382, $627 monthly); unlimited users; month to month | Single estimate option on Starter, multiple options and job costing on Plus, eSign and customer portal on Pro | Not read |
| ServiceM8 | Free at $0 for 30 jobs a month and one user; Starter $29, Growing $79, Premium $149, Premium Plus $349 a month by jobs per month (50, 150, 500, 1,500 and up), unlimited users; 20 cents per extra job; 14-day trial | Proposals, bundles, job costing, markup billing and an AI writing helper on the feature list; no plumbing-specific page | Not read |
| Profit Rhino SmartPrice | Starter $39, Plus $49, Pro $59 per tech a month; coaching and implementation fee required, amount not printed; Integrate data license $299 a month to feed another platform | Prebuilt flat-rate book covering what it says is 90 percent of common repairs, quarterly updates, OEM search, 300-plus plumbing and HVAC manufacturers; Pro adds the tablet sales tool for presenting options | No profile on either site |
| The New Flat Rate | "Pricing starts at $99/month per tech"; six plans that differ by onboarding depth with no dollar figures printed | Five-option menus built for you, bolted onto ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro or FieldEdge; a plumbing module; "Trusted by 1,200+ Plumbing Companies" | Not read |
| Craftsman National Estimator Cloud | $13.99 a month or $167.88 a year; the 2025 National Plumbing & HVAC Estimator eBook is $59.13 one time | Ten cost databases with US and Canadian area modifiers, including plumbing and HVAC manhours and material costs; a cost source, not a quoting app | Not read |
| Verdict | Jobber Grow at $149 for a one-truck shop that sells optional line items; Housecall Pro Essentials at $149 for two to five trucks on flat rate; Service Fusion at $208 once user count is the problem. Add Profit Rhino at $39 to $59 a tech the day the book is still a spreadsheet. | ||
One caution on Housecall Pro. Its plumbing industry page embeds plan cards that print different numbers from its pricing page, including an Essentials card at $229 or $299 and a Max card at $349 or $649 with $100 and $75 per extra user. We quote the pricing page, which is the one with the billing toggle, and which printed $35 per extra user on Max on November 1. Get the figure in writing on the trial.
Why the proposal tool is a plumbing feature first
Every platform above sells options and financing as add-ons or upper tiers, and plumbing is the trade where the vendor data says they pay. ServiceTitan's State of the Trades page, built from its own platform data for the second half of 2025, reports that financed jobs carry a median ticket 64 percent higher than comparable unfinanced jobs across the trades, and that "plumbing contractors see the largest median increase at 75%," against 66 percent for HVAC and electrical. ServiceTitan labels the finding correlational, and it is: the customer who finances was buying the bigger job. It is still the gap between a repair and a replacement, and a quote that shows the monthly payment next to the better option is how a tech gets to ask. ServiceTitan's contractor playbook sets the target for a plumbing service tech at a $500 average ticket, which is a goal it publishes rather than a measurement, and The New Flat Rate's own testimonial is a tech who "sold a water heater for $2,795" the first time he used the five-option menu.
higher median ticket on financed plumbing jobs than on comparable unfinanced ones, the largest lift of any trade in ServiceTitan's second-half 2025 platform data
Bid and takeoff software, priced
These programs price a plan set. The two oldest names print the whole lifecycle on one page. The four most plumbing-specific print nothing and route you to a demo.
| Tool | Price as printed | What it does for plumbing | Term and trial |
|---|---|---|---|
| TurboBid Plumbing | $1,395 one time on sale from $1,620; or four payments of $399; or $135 a month plus a mandatory $350 setup fee; electrical database add-on $1,395; support plan $350 a year after the free six months; TurboCloud pricing sync $99 a month | Residential and light commercial assemblies with weekly Trade and Target price updates, TurboPricer supply-house pricing, flat-rate and remodel work; Windows only, Mac needs Parallels | 14-day trial; "we do not offer refunds"; also resells PlanSwift at $1,750 |
| FastEST FastPIPE | $4,995 one time for the first application, $2,495 each additional, $7,490 with FastDUCT; or lease at $250, $105 and $355 a month; maintenance $1,250 a year after year one | Catalog of more than 150,000 items with MCAA and PHCC labor; Auto Connect measures the pipe between two fittings you place; assemblies for boilers, pumps and VRF; Excel export; shipping since 1995 | Lease owned after 36 payments; 60-day money-back guarantee; no trial printed |
| McCormick Plumbing | No price printed; "Request A Demo"; the pricing link resolves to a 112-pixel icon | "Over 40,000 items and 20,000 prebuilt assemblies, including fixtures, ProPress, CPVC, Uponor"; cloud-based; national average labor with MCAA or PHCC as options; Design Estimating Pro takeoff built in; claims "50% faster" with no method | Not printed; 4.6 across 38 on Software Advice |
| PataBid Quantify | No price printed; "Book a Demo"; the only figure on the site is a "$588 value" for the bundled Tenders tool | "60,000+ item database with real-time supplier pricing"; Rapid Count AI takeoff that "can search your drawings and complete takeoff for you in seconds"; AI table extraction; "built for mid-size and enterprise mechanical contractors" | Trial mentioned by reviewers, length not printed; 4.9 across 21 on Software Advice |
| QuoteSoft Pipe | No price printed; "Contact Sales," "Live Web Demo"; the site banner offers "Limited Time Savings" with no figure | "Over 110,000 standard items," MCAA labor shown during takeoff, Harrison and Allpriser pricing by subscription; licensed by USB security key; claims "four times faster than manual estimators" with no method | One year of support, training and maintenance included; 4.31 across 37 on Software Advice |
| On Center On-Screen Takeoff and Quick Bid | No price printed; "Book a Demo," "Free Trial" | Takeoff Boost AI counts "toilets, sinks, bathtubs, and other fixtures" and claims to cut takeoff time "by up to 95%" with no method; eQuote keeps pipe and valve pricing on supplier rates | Trial length not printed |
| Trimble Estimation MEP Pro | $1,950 per user a year, US only, "Buy now"; AutoBid Mechanical is "Request a demo" | AI 2D takeoff, estimating, Trade Service material pricing and labor in a web app for small MEP contractors; AutoBid Mechanical carries the 100,000-item mechanical and plumbing catalog | No trial printed |
| PlanSwift | Essential $2,000 and Core $3,000 a year per seat | Linear takeoff for CPVC, drain and supply; Division 22 plumbing assemblies in the starter pack; Core adds Auto Takeoff, with the page's own line "It is your responsibility to verify results to ensure accuracy" | 14-day trial of Core, no card; annual only |
| STACK Takeoff & Estimate | Free tier; Premium $299 and Pro $349 per user a month billed annually | Autocount for plan symbols including sinks and toilets; an Everflow Plumbing case claims a 30 percent win-rate lift; the plumbing page still carries flooring and roofing copy | 12-month terms; free tier allows one project and 50 measurements a month |
| Bluebeam Revu | Basics $260, Core $330, Complete $440, Max $590 per user a year | Measurement and markup only, no plumbing database or labor; Max's AI review flags "missing door or plumbing fixture tags" | 14-day trial of Max |
| Verdict | TurboBid at $1,395 for a residential plumber bidding new homes and remodels. FastPIPE on the $250 lease for a commercial shop that wants the MCAA catalog and ownership at the end. Trimble Estimation MEP Pro at $1,950 a year if you want the web app and distributor pricing in one seat. | ||
TurboBid and FastEST are the two vendors in this market that let you do the math without a sales call. TurboBid's one-time price is $1,395 on sale from $1,620, with six months of updates and a month of TurboCloud thrown in, and the $350 support plan after that keeps the material prices current. Its subscription is $135 a month plus a $350 setup fee that is refunded if you later convert to a purchase, so year one on subscription is $1,970 against $1,395 to own. It is also the only program on this list that advertises flat-rate and remodel work alongside new construction, which is why a residential plumber who occasionally bids a custom home lands here. The Software Advice reviews, 4.6 across 29 and mostly from electrical contractors, run from "cut my time spent on estimates to a fraction" to "a glorified word or excel template," and one Canadian reviewer says the supply-house pricing does not work north of the border.
FastPIPE is the commercial pick for the same reason FastDUCT is on the HVAC estimating software list: the page prints $4,995 to own with the first year of maintenance, $1,250 a year after that, or a $250 a month non-binding lease that ends in ownership after 36 payments. The 129 Software Advice reviews average 4.7 with customer support at 4.92, the highest support score on this page. McCormick, PataBid and QuoteSoft are the three the plan-and-spec estimators argue about, and all three print nothing. Software Advice lists McCormick at $1,700 and PataBid at $2,460 a year, but neither figure appears on the vendor's site, so treat them as a reviewer's recollection until the demo.
Faster estimates need a fuller estimate queue
We build the plumbing website and the search program that fills it, then wire every request straight into whichever quoting tool you pick.
Where AI shows up, and the one Reddit thread that asked
On the service side the AI drafts. Jobber's plumbing page says "Jobber AI drafts a detailed estimate using information from past jobs and the quote templates you've created," and leaves you to review and send. Housecall Pro's price book imports a service list with AI and benchmarks a job's price against what it calls millions of real jobs. ServiceTitan's Pricebook Pro seeds a new book with a few hundred common services. None of these prices the water heater; they fill the form faster.
On the bid side the AI counts, and the vendors hedge it in their own words. PlanSwift's plumbing page prints "These features use Artificial Intelligence to provide results. It is your responsibility to verify results to ensure accuracy" under a claim of an "80% head start." On Center says Takeoff Boost "gives you a strong, fast starting point while keeping estimators in control of final quantities." PataBid's Rapid Count completes a takeoff "in seconds" and is aimed, by its own page, at mid-size and enterprise contractors. The r/Plumbing thread titled "Plumbing AI Estimating Software," started in August 2024 by an estimator at a plumbing manufacturer asking whether anyone used AI that "automatically provides pipe and fitting quantities," collected three replies and not one from a person who had, which is still where most of the trade sits. We cover what the AI takeoff tools claim and what Claude and ChatGPT can do with a plan set in the AI estimating software post.
The other Reddit thread worth reading is from December 2025, a plumber who came over from roofing asking about Plumbing Bid Pro for a company doing commercial, residential and apartments. His own update in May 2026: "It takes a while to set up, only good for residential. It works smoothly but set up is a pain. Took me over 2 months (about 200 hours) and counting to get it set up," and "we mostly use it for parts lists at this point." Two hundred hours is $10,000 of an estimator's time at $50 an hour, which is more than every self-serve program on this page costs.
Three to skip
The first is a commercial takeoff package for a service company. FastPIPE at $4,995, PlanSwift Core at $3,000 a year and STACK Pro at $4,188 a year all price a plan set, and a drain and water heater shop never opens one. If a custom home lands twice a year, TurboBid's 14-day trial and STACK's free tier cover it.
The second is building the flat-rate book yourself inside the platform. The cards above all say "price book," and an empty one is a month of evenings. Profit Rhino ships a prebuilt plumbing book at $39 per tech a month and The New Flat Rate bolts its menus onto ServiceTitan, Housecall Pro and FieldEdge from $99 a tech. Craftsman's $13.99 a month cost data is the floor if you want to price your own book from published manhours.
The third is any program with a 200-hour setup. The Plumbing Bid Pro thread above is one plumber's experience, not a benchmark, but the pattern is common to residential bid tools that make you build every assembly before the first estimate. Ask the demo rep how many assemblies ship in the box and how long the last customer took to send a real bid, and TurboBid, with its "no learning curve" claim and weekly price updates, is the one to hold the others against.
Want more estimate requests to price?
Ten-minute Loom and a written audit of your plumbing website within 48 hours, free. Then we fix what is leaking before you buy another tool.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best plumbing estimating software?
For a service company, Jobber Grow at $149 a month billed annually for one user, or Housecall Pro Essentials at $149 for up to five users with flat-rate pricing, plus a Profit Rhino book at $39 to $59 per tech. For a plumber bidding new construction, TurboBid at $1,395 one time for residential work or FastPIPE at $4,995 one time or $250 a month for commercial. Prices are the vendor pages on November 1, 2026.
How much does plumbing estimating software cost?
Service platforms with quoting run $29 to $533 a month billed annually: Jobber from $29, Housecall Pro $59 to $299, Service Fusion $208 to $533, ServiceM8 free to $349 by job volume. ServiceTitan and FieldEdge price per technician on request. Flat-rate books add $39 to $99 per tech a month. Bid takeoff software runs $1,395 one time (TurboBid) to $4,995 (FastPIPE), $1,950 a user a year (Trimble Estimation MEP Pro) or $2,000 to $3,000 a seat (PlanSwift), with McCormick, PataBid and QuoteSoft on request.
Can ChatGPT estimate a plumbing job?
It can draft the proposal, read a spec book and check your arithmetic, and it cannot be trusted to count fixtures on a drawing. Anthropic's own documentation says Claude's object counts are approximate, and the takeoff vendors print the same warning about their AI: PlanSwift says "it is your responsibility to verify results." Use a chatbot for the words and a takeoff tool or a person for the quantities.
Does ServiceTitan do plumbing takeoffs?
No. Its plumbing estimating page says some plumbers "use takeoff software such as Planswift, FastPipe, and McCormick Systems" and others use Excel, and its product handles the quote from the pricebook, line-item estimates imported from a takeoff, and good-better-best proposals with financing. It prints no price on any plan.
What is a flat-rate price book and what does it cost?
A prebuilt list of repairs with a fixed customer price that already carries your labor rate, overhead and markup, so the tech quotes without doing math on the driveway. Profit Rhino SmartPrice is $39, $49 or $59 per tech a month with quarterly updates, Housecall Pro sells that book for $199 a month, The New Flat Rate starts at $99 per tech a month, and FieldEdge includes its Coolfront-based book on every tier with no printed price.
Is there free plumbing estimating software?
ServiceM8's free plan covers 30 jobs a month for one user with proposals included. STACK's Takeoff & Estimate free tier is permanent, with one active project and 50 measurements a month after seven days of Pro. TurboBid, PlanSwift and Housecall Pro all give 14 days free, and FastEST offers a 60-day money-back guarantee instead of a trial.