Steel Quote turns a take-off - every member on the job, with its size, length and quantity - into a total weight, then prices it at your rates for material, coating, bolts, drafting, fabrication and margin.
The workbench: a rail of buttons on the left (Workspace, Drawing, Load/Save, Reset All), the workspace in the middle, the Live Summary on the right. Same calculator and data as the classic version.
- Start the job. Type the Project Name - it names every save and export. Continuing an old job? Load/Save > Open reopens a saved Estimate Sheet PDF, Spreadsheet or marked PDF Drawing. Reset All clears the last job for a fresh start (it asks first).
- Set your rates before you take off. Each member copies the Item Variables (waste, cleats, $/tonne, bolt price, fab hours) at the moment it's added - changing them later leaves existing members on their old rates. Set them now, or open a Variables file saved from a past job. Project Variables (drafting, fabrication $/hr, margin, site costs) apply to the whole job and can change any time.
- Take off the members. Fill in the entry panel - Item, Quantity, Length (m), Type and Size (or a Custom weight), Coating, Bolts (prefilled for standard connections; tick Portal for knee/apex) - and click ADD. Weight and With Waste update as you type.
- Or measure them off the drawings. Open Drawing, load a PDF set, pick a sheet from the SHEETS bar and set the scale (or pick Custom… and click both ends of a known dimension). Then: Measure - click a member's two ends to add it to the schedule, and keep clicking to count identical members onto the line. Column - one click places a vertical member at the typed Length. Snap holds lines square; Rotate turns the sheet; + / − zoom it. The Colour swatch sets the colour new members draw in - with a member selected it repaints that member.
- Check and correct as you go. Click a schedule line to load it into the form: EDIT commits changes, REMOVE deletes it (with a few seconds of UNDO), ADD makes a new line. On the sheet, Select a mark to drag it (body moves it, endpoint re-sizes it - re-sizing one mark of a multi-quantity line splits it onto its own line), Copy places another, Delete removes it. The Live Summary keeps Quantities, Costs and Project Costs in view the whole time.
- Save the job. Load/Save > Save: the Estimate Sheet PDF and the Spreadsheet are both save files - each embeds the whole take-off and reopens it later. PDF Drawing saves the marked-up set. Variables keeps just your rates for the next job; Raw Text is a plain printable copy.
Work autosaves to this browser (green ✓ at the rail's foot) and is offered back next visit. Click any ? for help on a field. Enter adds the item, Escape clears the form, Delete removes the selected schedule line. The moon/sun button switches dark mode.
Note: don't edit the exported spreadsheet by hand - open it here, make the changes, and export again.
Prefer the layout you know? ← Switch to the classic calculator - it stays as it is, permanently.