Construction estimating services in Boston, MA

Much of Boston is underlain by glacial till, marine clay, and, in areas like the Back Bay and Fort Point Channel, deep fill. That means shallow spread footings often will not work, and the takeoff has to carry piles, pile caps, or a mat instead. Rock excavation may also be a separate line item if weathered argillite is close to the surface. Confirm the geotechnical report before you price the foundation, because the difference between a shallow and a deep foundation can change the concrete quantity by an order of magnitude.

Yes. We build labor rates from RSMeans data adjusted by ZIP code, and we can carry union or prevailing-wage rates where the project requires them. Boston has a high union density in the trades, and public work often triggers Massachusetts prevailing wage requirements. Tell us on the intake form whether the job is public, private, or a mix, and whether the trades are union, so we price the labor column correctly. We do not guess at wage determinations; we use the rates you provide or the published schedule.

Most projects come back in 24 to 48 hours. Rush turnaround is available if you have a bid due sooner. The clock starts when we have the complete plan set, specifications, and your scope notes. If you send a partial set, we will tell you which sheets are missing before we start, because a takeoff without the structural or MEP sheets is not a complete number. For large lab or multifamily projects, we may stage the delivery by trade so you can start pricing while we finish the rest.

Both. Lab fit-outs are a large share of Boston work, and they need a different takeoff approach from residential. We price lab gas, process cooling, clean steam, fume hoods, and the extra electrical raceway by system rather than by floor area. We also do multifamily, commercial, and industrial scopes. If your project is a lab inside a shell building, send the base-building drawings along with the fit-out set so we can separate landlord work from tenant work and avoid double-counting.

We apply waste factors by material and by installation method, not one blanket percentage. Typical ranges are 5 to 8 percent for formed concrete, 8 to 10 percent for pumped slabs, 10 percent for dimensional lumber, and 5 percent for structural steel. On a tight urban site with no laydown, we may increase the waste allowance for materials that get cut and handled multiple times. We show the waste factor as a separate line in the takeoff so you can adjust it if your superintendent works tighter than the typical range.

We do not price permit fees as a line item unless you ask us to. Permit fees are set by the city and depend on project valuation and scope, and they are usually carried in the general conditions or soft costs rather than the trade takeoff. What we do include is the cost of work that permits trigger, such as fireproofing, sprinklers under NFPA 13, and accessibility items. Confirm the adopted code edition and fee schedule with the local building department, since those change and are not part of a trade estimate.

We work in Bluebeam Revu, PlanSwift, and RSMeans data. Deliverables come in Excel and PDF, organized by CSI MasterFormat division, with marked-up plan sets showing where each quantity came from. That means you can open the Excel file, filter by division, and trace any line back to the sheet and detail it was measured from. If your team works in a different format, tell us on intake and we will match it where we can.

Yes. We cover Boston and the surrounding cities, including Cambridge, Worcester, and Springfield. The takeoff logic is the same, but the labor rates, soil conditions, and local amendments differ, so we adjust the pricing by ZIP code and note where a local condition changes the scope. If your project spans multiple municipalities, we can deliver one estimate with the pricing broken out by location so you can see the difference.

The permit figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau Building Permits Survey for 2025, covering permits issued by the city itself for new privately-owned residential units only. That means the counts exclude commercial, industrial, and government permits, and they exclude renovations. The 2025 survey shows 2,107 total residential units in Boston, up 18 percent from 1,789 in 2024, with 1,879 multifamily units and 228 single-family units. Use these as a demand signal, not as a scope list for your bid.

Use the get an estimate page to upload your plan set, specifications, and any scope notes. Tell us the project type, the address or ZIP code, the bid date, and whether you need union or prevailing-wage rates. If you have a previous estimate or a competitor's bid you want checked, include it and we will compare line by line. We will confirm receipt and tell you the turnaround before we start.