EstiMate Software

[cr.designs]

Anyone used EstiMate Software before? Like or Dislike?

 

[Vicg]

We use it and were right in the ballpark with other sign shops in the area.

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Been on it for about a year now. I don't use as many features as others may, but for what I use it for, it's been fantastic. Looking forward to their major new release next week. It is subscription only for the upgrade, but IMHO it is well worth it for the quality of product it is!

 

[TheSnowman]

Bought it, never used it. Never wanted to take the time to set it up...plus I was annoyed that to be able to price things, I had to keep buying add on's. I thought I bought quoting software, but apparently, it was more money to get the software that priced what I needed. I had a trial, just didn't research it enough, and figured I would be ok...but like I said, that kinda turned me off, and I wasn't willing at the time to get any more money into it.

 

[miguelon.lizarraga]

That's why you use www.sign-tracker.com!

Joe is a great guy and lives right here in Austin, TX where we are located.

I met with him and has an excellent product.

29 dollars a month for the software, and they put all the upgrades onto it, online so no more downloading no more add ons etc. No huge expense startuup wise, etc...

Check it out for free!!! He'll give you a 60 day free trial online!!!

 

[lbumbaca]

i have estimate love it no looking back

 

[Techman]

No more online powered software for me. Subscriptions are for cable TV and Satelite TV and netflix.

You can stop those without any problems. However if you stop your online business software you may be out your past records. You may be put into an inconvenience that you may find unfortunate.

 

[bob]

I ran Estimate for a brief period. Long enough to realize that is was a waste of my time. Far too much detail about things that do not need detail. The largest objection is that pricing the same work, or fundamentally the same work, produces different output depending on the state of an insanely large number of variables. Consistency is worth far more than micro-accuracy.

Besides, I know what I going to charge for something. If I use any automata to generate a price, it's merely to justify my price and act as a sanity check should I miscalculate.

If you use a wheelchair you'll never learn how to walk.

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Estimates new 2011 version will be subscription only... and it's not on-line, it resides on your PC. It can be gotten from $39 per month for EVERYTHING... nothing is locked. I've gone with the $69 per month Enterprise version and have gotten 30% off of that for the first year. As I see it, 69 bucks a month for a good estimating program is very well worth it. $828 for the year can be recovered easily by "charging for it" on each of your invoices throughout the year.

I run another software program from EFI for the print/copy portion of our business and I pay an annual maintenance of $1000 US. I recover this cost and more through through my hidden "order processing fee" that goes on each and every invoice we generate.

Just food for thought!

 

[Techman]

Estimates new 2011 version will be subscription only... and it's not on-line, it resides on your PC.

Then, if you decide to not subscribe anymore..What happens to the access to your data. Are you locked out of it? Are you denied the data of your business?

 

[Mosh]

Good old Signcraft pricing guide used here!

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Then, if you decide to not subscribe anymore..What happens to the access to your data. Are you locked out of it? Are you denied the data of your business?

That's a great question... and I'm going to find the answer quite soon. I'll post the response I get from them. I can totally understand the concern regarding retaining data, especially for those shops that only use a single system to store it. The things I price in EstiMate actually get invoiced out of my other software (PrintSmith), so I have a record regardless. It would be a headache however, if I did not have access to the specifics of how I generated the price.

Some may be wondering... the EFI PrintSmith software I use is very, very good at pricing print & copy services and managing our business, but even though EFI says it will price signs & decals... it actually sucks at it, and is extremely unreliable! That's why I use two systems.

 

[KevSign]

I won't update new version!!!!. I currently stuck with it. My estimate laptop crashed, and set-up with new one right now. They are only email help back and fort still not work right with version 2. I requested tech person to call but no answers. Beside New update may be too much money to using it.

 

[Tim Aucoin]

Then, if you decide to not subscribe anymore..What happens to the access to your data. Are you locked out of it? Are you denied the data of your business?

Here's the response I got from Estimate on your inquiry.... took them a whopping 22 minutes to respond!!

Hello Tim,

You can easily suspend your plan for awhile or stop altogether without losing any of your work. EstiMate 2011 will never lock you out. Instead, if you suspend or cancel your plan, it will simply go into a read-only mode so you can still see anything you’ve ever done in EstiMate. Unlike web-based software, with EstiMate you have your data on your own computers and can always get to it.

Thank you for your time and continued business! Have a great day.


Respectfully,

Nancy Peterson

VP of Operations