Why we don't sell to GCs

A general contractor's estimator and a sheet metal contractor's estimator are doing two fundamentally different jobs. It's worth being explicit about what separates them, because the software tools built for each are - correctly - shaped very differently.

The GC estimator is a stacker

Invitations go out, trade numbers come back, gaps get filled, the bid form gets typed, and the package goes to the owner at 2pm on Thursday. Their job is leveling twenty subcontractor quotes against a scope matrix they didn't draw themselves, flagging what's missing, and deciding whether to carry a plug or chase a sub for a revision.

The tools they reach for - BuildingConnected, iSqFt, project-management systems with bid-form generation bolted on - are correctly built for that job. Good tools, mature category, well understood. We're not in that market and we don't want to be.

The sheet metal estimator is a generator

They start from a set of drawings that has 600 linear feet of 24x14 supply on the north side of a warehouse and they end with a number. Every step between those two points is work: counting diffusers, measuring runs, selecting fittings, assigning labor units, picking pricing, running prefab splits, generating a recap, leveling vendor quotes for equipment and insulation.

The number at the end has to reconcile to the penny against the assemblies that generated it. If it doesn't, something is wrong, and a sheet metal estimator in a hurry will find it at 11:45pm.

One tool cannot do both well

These are not the same job. We figured that out early and committed to staying on the sheet metal side of the line. Every feature request we get to broaden the audience - schedule of values management, subcontractor prequal, bond tracking, CPM scheduling - we log and decline.

That restraint is the product. A shorter tool that fits the estimator's hand is worth more than a longer one that fits nobody's. The tools that try to do both end up as project-management systems with a takeoff module that doesn't know what 22-gauge is, and an estimator who gets stuck switching windows three times to price one diffuser.

If you're a GC

Don't use designwinds. Use something built for what you do. We don't want your money and we won't do a good job for you. There are four other vendors in that space that would be happy to help, and at least two of them are genuinely good.

If you're a sheet metal contractor stretching a GC tool

Stop stretching it. It wasn't designed for this, and it's slowing you down. We hear this from almost every prospect that walks into a walkthrough: "we've been doing our takeoff in [project management tool] because it's what we had." It's not a takeoff tool. It doesn't know about gauge or shape or SMACNA pressure class. It was built for the stacker, not the generator.

You don't need permission from us to stop using it. You do need a tool that was built for the job. If that's us, good. If not, that's also fine. But don't run another bid cycle pretending a GC tool is going to magically become a sheet metal estimating system.