Estimating Software for Electricians: Options for Bid Work and Service Work

"Estimating software for electricians" means two different things depending on your work. An electrical contractor bidding a strip mall needs to count every device on the drawings, apply labor units and supplier pricing, and produce a bid. A residential service electrician needs to quote a panel swap or an EV charger install in the customer's driveway. The tools are different, and buying the wrong kind wastes money.

Prices below come from each vendor's own page as of October 1, 2026. We compare published information; we haven't run each tool on live bids.

For bid work: takeoff and estimating

ConEst IntelliBid

ConEst makes IntelliBid, dedicated electrical construction estimating software for electrical, low-voltage, datacom and solar contractors, along with SureCount digital takeoff, a cloud platform and analytics. IntelliBid includes pre-installed industry-standard labor units with labor difficulty levels and factoring, and connects to supplier pricing services (NetPricer, EPIC and TRA-SER, which are licensed separately). ConEst says IntelliBid is priced by edition and number of users; there's no public price list, so you request a demo.

Best for: electrical contractors who bid commercial and new construction work regularly and want a trade-specific database and labor units.

STACK

STACK is cloud-based takeoff and estimating used across trades. It offers a free version of Takeoff & Estimate; paid plans start at $249 per user per month, and the full platform including field management starts at $298 per user per month.

Best for: contractors who want cloud takeoff from plans without a desktop install, and teams that share takeoffs between estimators.

PlanSwift

PlanSwift sells annual seats: Essential at $2,000 a year and Core at $3,000 a year, with discounts on extra seats. Both include takeoff plus estimating with pre-built trade assemblies and AI counting tools (Auto Count is useful for devices and fixtures); Core adds an automated first-pass takeoff suite. There's a 14-day free trial.

Best for: estimators who do a lot of counting and measuring from PDF plans and prefer an annual price.

For service work: quoting in the field

Housecall Pro

For residential service electricians, a flat-rate price book in field service software usually beats a bid-style estimator. Housecall Pro's Essentials plan ($149/mo billed annually, 5 users) adds flat-rate pricing on top of estimates, invoicing and payments, and MAX ($299/mo billed annually, 8 users) adds a sales proposal tool for good-better-best options on panel upgrades or generator installs. See our Housecall Pro pricing guide.

Tradify

Tradify charges per user: Lite $47, Pro $51 and Plus $61 per user per month. It covers job management, quotes, invoices and online payments, with Xero or QuickBooks Online sync; Pro adds timesheets, bill tracking and subcontractor scheduling, and Plus adds kit bundles (parts and labor bundles for quicker quoting) and purchase orders.

Best for: small electrical contractors who do a mix of service and small projects and want quoting and job tracking in one place.

For design and permits: Kopperfield

Estimating tools generally don't do load calculations. Kopperfield handles load calcs, single-line diagrams and panel schedules, with an NEC chatbot. The Residential plan covers buildings with up to four dwelling units; commercial load calcs, fault current calculations and 3-phase work need Commercial Pro:

It's a useful complement for EV charger, solar and service upgrade work that needs permit drawings.

How to choose estimating software for electricians

1. Bid work from drawings: ConEst IntelliBid for an electrical-specific database, or STACK or PlanSwift for general takeoff.
2. Residential service: a flat-rate price book in field service software (Housecall Pro) or a quoting tool like Tradify.
3. Permit-heavy residential work: add Kopperfield for load calcs and diagrams.

For general contractors and other trades, see our broader contractor estimating software comparison.