ProEst Reviews

“Data management hub”

Pros

The customization options, database features and custom reports are definitely the highlights.

Cons

Getting everything customized the way you want can be pretty tedious. I'd also like more control over the appearance of reports since borders and photos end up wasting space.

“Construction estimating solution”

Pros

It completely changed the way we handle construction estimating, leading to more accurate bids and better profit margins.

Cons

The reporting tool can be tricky to work with at first but once the core reports are set up, it stops being much of an issue since you can adjust them as needed on the fly.

“Customizing independence is absolutely cherry on top !!!”

Pros

Prousts most valuable features are the formula variables and algorithms you can use to rate your assembly. It also effectively enables the user to develop their take-off software within ProEst. Customization is wonderful.

Cons

ProEst runs on the cloud. Unfortunately, this means that you cannot use the application while offline, which can be not very pleasant. While most people wont find this an issue, you can forget about it if you dont have internet access or would like to work offline.

“great tool...”

Pros

Being able to turn a takeoff directly into an estimate is a huge advantage. The takeoff tool lets you upload drawings straight into the cloud platform, start measuring for the project right away and then automatically apply pricing using historical input data. The part I appreciate most is that quantities and line items can be uploaded directly into a report which makes it really useful for creating custom deliverables.

Cons

Since it's a cloud-based system, you need an internet connection to use it. That usually isn't a major issue but if you want software you can download and run offline, this probably won't be the right takeoff solution for you. Aside from that, the updates happen often and any downtime has been very minimal.

“Takeoff and estimating challenges”

Pros

Transferring takeoff data and having the software automatically build an estimate is really convenient. It saves us a lot of time during the bidding process and makes that part of the workflow much more efficient.

Cons

There are still quite a few areas that need improvement, fixes or added functionality. As you get close to filling up a full takeoff page, the system starts lagging badly which hurts productivity. Some tools especially the overlay feature, are also unreliable at times and do not always work as expected. It would be very useful to have templates for commonly used assemblies, along with the ability to select any or all takeoff items on a sheet or within a specific assembly at once so they can be deleted, reassigned to another assembly or copied and pasted to another part of the page or to a different sheet. On top of that, when plan sets are uploaded, the software tends to mix up the sheet order and there is no fast way to put them back in the correct sequence.

“appreciate it”

Pros

Using it has really helped us align estimating for our construction projects. We built a template that now serves as the starting point for every estimate, with codes, labor and material costs already included for most of our jobs. That setup makes putting together new estimates both quick and accurate.

Cons

I'd really like to see the option to generate customizable proposals directly from the estimates, along with more flexibility when creating custom reports. Help videos and a user manual would be useful too.

“Simple estimating workflow”

Pros

Navigating the software feels very easy and using it for project estimates is simple and efficient.

Cons

There really is not much I dislike about it and I have genuinely enjoyed using the software. It did take a bit of training to get comfortable with each function but once that was done, estimating became much more efficient.

“love the remote access”

Pros

Being able to sign in remotely is a huge benefit. If I'm away from the office, I can still pick up where I left off and keep working from anywhere as long as I have a reliable internet connection. The software also lets users organize estimates in whatever way makes the most sense for them and that structure is really important because anyone in our company who opens an estimate can quickly locate the information they need. On top of that, the support team has been excellent. Anytime I've had a question about a feature or run into a bug, they've responded quickly and helped me sort it out.

Cons

One issue early on was that using the software involved quite a bit of trial and error because there wasn't any documentation explaining how the features worked. That has since been improved with the knowledge base added in the version 16 update. It already includes a lot of useful information although it still needs some refinement to cover more specific details across the many features the software has.