VECTOR
Estimates that close. Bids that win.
Cockpit-grade estimating for contractors tired of fighting spreadsheets, losing margin to typos, and chasing approvals through email threads. Cost blocks, crew tracking, approval gates, and a live win-rate dashboard — in one fast app that grows with your team from first bid to full pipeline.
Built for trades that price by real costs and experience that made them masters of their trade — not by guesswork.
You shouldn't need a 40-tab workbook to know your margin.
Most estimating tools force you to pick a side: a glorified spreadsheet that breaks the moment a junior estimator touches it, or bloated software that takes months and a consultant to roll out.
Vector is the third option. A focused, fast, opinionated platform that grows with you — from your first solo bid to a team of estimators, salespeople, and approvers all working the same pipeline. You shouldn't lose a job because nobody saw the bid request. And you definitely shouldn't be guessing at your win rate.
See Vector in motion
Vector mitigates the risk of scope creep and scope gaps — so you qualify exactly what your contract price includes and enter every project from a position of power.
Three altitudes. One cockpit.
Vector adapts to where you actually are — not where a software vendor wishes you were. The data shape is always Pro under the hood, so move from Simple to Pro tomorrow and your data comes with you.
Simple
Owner-operators. Single-truck crews. Anyone who needs a number on a customer's email today.
A bid item, a unit price, one project-level markup. No cost blocks. No crew gymnastics. Just a clean line item, a tidy proposal, and a number you can stand behind.
Standard
Most contractors. Small to mid-sized shops who want to actually understand cost vs. sell.
Layer in labor and materials cost blocks. Override markup per line. Switch to the pie view to see exactly where your costs sit. Crew-hour tooling stays tucked away until you ask for it.
Pro
Estimating teams running a real bid pipeline.
The full cockpit. Every cost block, crew hours and days, per-line markup, rounding rules, profit and markup-percent breakdowns, pie views by dollars and crew-days, multi-role approval gates, full audit trail.
Finalized bids always render in the tier they were built in. A 2024 job looks the same as the day you sent it.
Inside Vector
Full Cost Block Engine
Labor, equipment, materials, subcontractor, misc, mob, and trucking — modeled the way real preconstruction offices put bids together.
Crews, Hours & Days
Crew hours and crew days roll up automatically. Pre-built rosters, regional rates, per-line markup overrides when one item carries unusual risk.
Branded Proposals
Generate clean, brand-consistent PDFs straight from the estimate. Versioned, audit-stamped, ready to walk into contract negotiation.
Tracer Integration
Pulls quantities directly from Tracer takeoffs — no double entry, no version drift, no scope gaps between bid and award.
Afterburner Speed
Real-time totals as you type. No F9, no recalc. Pages paginate, queries are scoped, lists virtualize. Flips like pages, not loads like a website.
Preflight Check
Missing client info, $0 lines, stale data, deadlocked approval gates — caught before the customer sees it.
The Manager's Dashboard
One screen with everything a sales or estimating manager actually wants. Five tiles, no PowerBI, no analyst on retainer. Drill into any number to see the underlying projects.
Pipeline & win rate
Open bids, conversion %, by client. Filter 7d / 30d / QTD / YTD / custom.
Velocity & cycle time
Average days from draft to sent. Overdue bids surfaced before they slip.
Margin & markup health
Flag won jobs at suspiciously low markup. Watch margin live during the bid.
Data hygiene
Drafts missing addresses, contacts, or stale > 14 days. Caught automatically.
Per-customer award rate
Which clients actually convert — so you can fire the bad ones on purpose.
Estimating Health Report
Approval-gate satisfiability, audit anomalies, deadlock risk — flagged on sight.
The old way vs. Vector
Role-Scoped Visibility
Estimators and salespeople see only what they own. Owners see the whole company. No leakage, no shoulder-surfing.
Audit Trail
Every change, approval, and status flip — logged with user and timestamp. When a customer disputes six months later, you have the receipts.
Mobile Review
Walk the site, review the bid on your phone. Purpose-built — not a shrunken desktop layout.
Built for preconstruction offices that refuse to settle.
- → Owner-operators bidding against fully-staffed estimating departments.
- → Civil contractors managing complex earthwork, site, and utility scopes.
- → Mid-market commercial GCs ready to retire spreadsheets and legacy estimating tools.
- → Estimators, PMs, and contracts teams who need one source of truth from bid to award.
FAQ
We're tiny. Is this overkill?
Not in Simple mode. There it's a faster, prettier replacement for your bid-proposal Word doc.
We're complicated. Will it bend?
Pro mode handles labor + equipment + materials + subs + misc + mob + trucking on a single line, with crew hours, per-line markup, and rounding rules. If your bids are more complicated than that, we want to talk to you.
Can my estimators see each other's bids?
No, by default. Estimators and salespeople only see projects they own or were assigned to. Owners and managers see everything.
What happens to old bids if we change tiers?
Nothing. Finalized bids carry a snapshot of the tier they were built in and always render that way. Tier changes only affect new and draft work.
Can we import our existing libraries?
Yes — CSV import for bid items, labor, materials, equipment, subcontractors, and misc cost lines.
Do we own our data?
Always. Full export, anytime, no friction.
Ready for Vector?
Access is gated. Request onboarding and a member of the team will get you set up.
Request Clearance