Esticom Reviews

Pros

The ease of use mainly. After a few quick tutorials I was able to start doing my take-offs on screen. I created assemblies that made the job much faster and accurate.

Cons

I have to go to the Estimating page to create or add parts and assemblies. It would be nice if I could enter them from the take-off page. Minor change but would help out with the speed of take-offs.

Pros

I love the ease of use and how easy it is to teach team members to use the system. Anyone can get up and running in under 2 hrs at a moderate level from zero experience. They have done an excellent job with making the program user friendly.

Cons

There are features that the program lacks and it does not integrate with Autotask (our CRM). Hopefully it will in the near future.

Pros

Customer service was very good , useage was easy to get onto

Cons

The estimate submission - breakout of the pst is awkward . I would more flexability with my final price to submit to client .

Pros

What I like the most about the software is that it remembers the rates and descriptions we use in each of our estimates. This makes it easier to keep our quotes consistant.
We also like that we can bring in drawings and measure from there, before we had to either print them to scale and get the square footage or we had to upload them to a seperate software.
Also like that there is margin as the percentage. Not mark up. Most other softwares use mark up.

Cons

The only con we have with this software is that you cannot put different percentage margin on the labor side per line item. We can only do that on the material side.

Pros

The compiling of counts and bill of material creation. Along with scaling and doing linear runs.

Cons

The lack of being able to input deduct alternates.

Pros

Easy to use electrican friendly. Going from take off to plan to estimate is very easy.

Cons

To be able to use the system fully esticom needs to integrate a full Canadian data base with material and time with this change the system would be near perfect. Next step to integrate to a major while saler to get real life pricing.

Pros

The intuitive nature of the interfaces and how easy it is to tweak my estimates.

Cons

There are a few quirks that take some getting used to.
I'd say the two small things that bother me most are:
1. Not being able to add one-time-use items to the estimating section.
2. Not being able to switch between takeoff modes without deleting the entire item. (ie switching between linear and linear avg with drop)

Pros

The cloud bases structure and easy to use functions made this software power full.

Cons

Some recommendations are below.
1)If we can fix a color , legend size and shape for an assembly it would be great so that we dont need to select it all time.
2)Option to select a particular area for take off would be great.
3)Option to download all take off drawings to PDF at once.

Pros

I used it for the HVAC takeoff estimation. I can almost find everything I want in their libraries. Besides, it needs minimum learning and you can start right after you enter the site. It doesn't need installation and all you need is web access. The navigations between plans and scaling are also easy. I have three other colleagues and we start to try it together and all of us are satisfied with the performance of the software in different trades like plumbing, masonry, and concrete

Cons

The price is a little high and dependency to internet access could be a problem sometimes

Pros

Speeds up the estimating process. They are always expanding and improving the software.

Cons

Not a lot of extra drawing functions for customization.

Pros

The take-off process (auto-count) and time saving are definitely the best features of the product but there are several others that make the product worthwhile.
1. Covering additional expenditures like overhead and waste is wonderful.
2. Ability to apply difficulty levels is nice.
3. Ability to export BOM saves time.

Cons

Here are few items that take away from the software but the techies at Esticom are very responsive so perhaps some of these can be improved on future updates.
1. Within the take-off process, it would be terrific if I could copy and paste take-off items and paste them to other groups. It's nice to be able to duplicate the take-off within the group but sometimes you just need specific items within other and not the whole group duplicated.
2. Not a big deal but it would be good if any quantities applied to take-offs within the 'estimating' phase could show up on the take-off phase to avoid confusion.
3. This has been mentioned by others but, it would be great to be able to customize the export bid PDF. Simple customizations to font and letterhead would be useful.
4. It would be nice to be able to copy the selected area of a legend or symbols and copy them other drawings. I see that there is a legend feature on the right side of the options on the take-off page but it doesn't seem to do anything but show a 'legend' word.
5. It would be great to be able to create a new 'group' within the take-off page without going to the estimating page. I know you can duplicate a take-off group but again, sometimes you don't want all the same items from other take-off items.
6. It would be nice to have the ability to multi-select items that you want to delete or copy.

Pros

The ability to create and manage catalogs is a big deal for us. As a company, we have a large number of products across a wide range of technologies and have the ability to separate those into individual catalogs helps to make sense of what to quote. In addition, assigning a catalog item to a takeoff makes creating a bill of materials a cinch.

Cons

While I understand that making a profit is key to a business's survival I feel that the per-user cost is quite high. Also, a bulk selection for changing the creator of an estimate would be nice. I recently had to manually go through and change the creator of about 30 individual estimates. While this was due to us sharing a login between users and then purchasing more logins I could see this being an issue, later on, should you have to replace an employee and need a have someone take over their estimates.

Pros

Esticom is very straightforward and intuitive. For a structured cabling business like ours, it couldn't be easier to place cable runs, supports, and mark our drops.

Cons

There are a few functions missing that would make it easier for us to use. One is the lack of a linear with drop only at the ends of the run. Instead it adds drops at every turn. Second is not being able to add temporary items on the estimating page. We have many items that we use but do not want in our catalog. Having to return to takeoff mode to add them is time consuming, especially if there are a lot of individual items we need for a project.

Lastly, I have had one issue where my drawing rotated under my takeoff. When I tried to rotate the drawing back, I was told I could not because it was being used in a takeoff. Since I was not too deep in the process I just started over. Can't imagine how bummed I'd be if this happened after spending hours or more on a takeoff.

Pros

Esticom is very user friendly and easy to use.

Cons

There are not many icons for the fire protection industry I work in. This makes it difficult when creating mocked up drawings for the customer.

Pros

The ability to simply enter lines of product and adjust all elements across the board: unit costs, markup, labor hours and difficulty factors are the stand out elements! Finding software that accomplishes this simple but tedious (if using Excel) task has changed our company's workflow.

Cons

First and foremost this software is for estimating purposes. It dabbles in the process of automatically creating a quote to send to customers but lacks the customizability to make it your own. (In contrast to the many variables you can manipulate on the estimating side.) For now my team continues to use Word to provide our scopes of work with our personalized touch.

Pros

It is highly functional!! If I could spend more time on customizing it, I would use it as my only tool for estimating from beginning to end.

Cons

Pricey. $99 per month is a lot considering there are critical things like Office and Adobe that cost so much less.

Pros

The software is simple. It is a great set-up for a small business. The customer service is very hands on. You get a real person every time and they do a good job of helping explain things. There is not a charge for training. If there is something you are struggling with they seem genuinely concerned on making the software the best it can be for you.

Cons

It would be nice if we could customize some of the costs and if there were a couple more options with the quote set-up when it goes to the customer. It is time consuming for us (we are electrical contractors) to try to find "specific costs" for wire and other things. They have a lot of templates, but a lot of them are based on nationwide pricing.

Pros

Cloud based - I can estimate and track projects on any computer wherever I have a good internet connection
Economical - Low monthly or annual costs allow a great ROI
Intuitive - Assemblies are easy to customize/create
Evolving - New features added monthly using real input from actual users
Personal - Customer support staff have field experience as well as excellent product knowledge which translates to excellent on-boarding sessions and quick answers to questions.

Cons

The design build section could use some updating/expanding. I realize that this is not one of the main features of Esticom, but it would be nice to see a few more items in its database as it is not yet possible to add my own.

Pros

The team and I appreciated the ease of use. It has significant power to perform all the required work of the larger more expensive packages, but still gives you the flexibility to make it a custom fit for you.

Cons

Only cloud based at this moment. I hope in future releases they will issue a server based stand alone platform for our secure projects.

Pros

The software is easy to use. As features are added, it becomes more and more useful. The fact that your customer and existing catalog data base can be uploaded to give it a tremendous value.

Cons

There are still some issues with the way it rounds and displays some of the cost information, but customer support has been working with me on that.

Pros

This software is affordable and cloud-based, so my team can access it from anywhere they have an internet connection. It's user-friendly, comprehensive and professional. The stock catalogs are also very helpful.

Cons

While the cloud-based software offers many benefits, it can also be a drawback if you need to be able to access your quotes while you're offline (such as in-flight or in a remote area). You're also at the mercy of the development team when you see functions/formats that could use an update, and when the software is updated (since updates are not optional).

Pros

I like that the software is easy to use.

Cons

I don't like that it has glitches at times. I did request for some changes.

Pros

Esticom has saved us a tremendous amount of time in our estimating process. With having auto-count and linear average I can get most plans done in minutes instead of hours now.

Cons

It took a little bit to dial in the percentages and cost for products in our area but now that that is done I only review costs with my vendors when they tell me their is going to be a change.

Pros

It saves me money from not having to print tons of project plans and then storing them. Esticomm saves me time by insuring I get accurate counts and distances the first time! Plus I can work from the office, at the job site or at home, which I prefer not to do, because all my files are on their site.

Cons

Esticomm does a good job of constantly upgrading the software and making improvements. There are minor improvements I would make to the functionality of the software but they usually end up doing that automatically.

Pros

Design function
Ability to easily jump between work stations and use at home
Reports that can be issued are very professional looking

Cons

The database for devices in the design function is limited
Limited database for parts that have been pre-entered