Free Construction Estimate Template for Subcontractors

We’re offering a free construction estimate template for subcontractors. To get your free template, click here to download a copy, or fill out our form (to the right on desktop, or above on mobile) to have it emailed to you. 

The estimate form includes the following fields:

• Client’s name and address

• Job estimate number and date 

• Project address

• Line items/scope of work (task, description, quantity, price, total)

• Estimated total cost

The printable template also includes payment terms and warranty information. You can customize it with your company name and contact information. Then, for each unique job, create a custom cost estimate for that particular client and preserve your template.

The Drawbacks of Static PDF Contractor Estimate Templates

PDF templates may look professional, but they quickly become a liability as your business grows. While they work for one-off or simple jobs, static PDFs create friction, mistakes, and missed opportunities when contractors try to scale.

Here’s why:

1. Manual & Error-Prone Workflows

Every line item, total, and customer detail has to be entered manually. Copying data between PDFs, spreadsheets, and emails is time-consuming and leaves plenty of room for costly mistakes. A small error can delay jobs, hurt credibility, or lead to disputes with customers.

2. No Real-Time Updates or Pricebook Integration

A PDF is just a digital piece of paper — it doesn’t update automatically. Prices change, but your estimate won’t. Without a live connection to your pricebook, you risk using outdated numbers that shrink margins or cause inconsistencies across projects.

3. Disorganized Documentation & Lost Context

PDFs often get scattered across inboxes, desktops, or shared folders. Critical information like photos, videos, or approvals end up stored separately, making it harder to track project scope or customer decisions. The result: more admin work and higher risk of miscommunication.

4. Disconnected from Project Management

Sold estimates don’t flow into your workflows. Staff must manually re-enter information to create purchase orders, invoices, or job documentation. This duplication slows down operations, increases errors, and drains profitability.

5. No Built-In Follow-Up System

Once you hit “send,” you’re in the dark. There’s no way to know if the customer viewed your estimate — or when. Without reminders or a system for tracking follow-ups, opportunities slip through the cracks, costing you jobs and revenue.

Why Settle for Outdated PDFs? ServiceTitan Solves These Pain Points

Many subcontractors rely on tools like Google Sheets, Google Docs, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Word, and/or various estimating software solutions for managing estimates and projects. However, these tools aren't designed to seamlessly integrate estimating and project management, leading to a lot of manual work, upkeep, and potential for errors.

So, in addition to sharing the construction cost estimate template above, we’ll also walk through how our construction management software, ServiceTitan, solves these challenges for specialty contractors in Mechanical/HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and other trades.

How ServiceTitan Streamlines Construction Estimating, Billing, and Project Management

Build Detailed and Accurate Estimates

ServiceTitan gives contractors the flexibility to create different types of construction estimates:

• For jobs where all the details of what’s needed are known (e.g. smaller projects or track home builds), office staff can build line-item estimates that specify exact services, equipment, and materials. 

• For larger, more complex projects where you need flexibility, you can use rough project estimates with summary totals to set budgets and track actual revenue and costs over time.

Precise Line-Item Estimates For Projects Where All Details Are Known Upfront

With ServiceTitan, contractors can build precise line-item estimates that list the exact services, materials, and equipment required for a job. Every item pulls directly from your pricebook, ensuring accuracy and consistency in pricing.

Line-item estimating is ideal for smaller, shorter-term projects where detailed scope and costs are known upfront. Estimates can also trigger purchase orders via requisitions, tying directly into purchasing and invoice closeout workflows for streamlined job costing and project management.

Rough Estimates For Complex Projects Where You Need Flexibility

ServiceTitan’s rough project estimates make it easy to build budgets for large-scale or long-term projects when every detail isn’t known upfront. Instead of listing specific equipment or materials, you can use summary tasks and revenue items to represent overall contract value and projected costs.

By setting up default project labels for pricebook items, job types, and technicians, budgets automatically populate in the Budget vs. Actual table, keeping expenses organized and easy to track. This method is especially useful for construction estimating and early-stage bids, where flexibility is key and estimates need to be created quickly without every line item in place.

Manage Projects From the Project Overview Dashboard

A project overview page is automatically generated when a new project is created in ServiceTitan. From this dashboard, subcontractors and project managers can: 

1. View all of the basic project information (project name, contact information, customer information, etc.).

2. View and log tasks for the project. 

3. Access project financials including project job costing and expense details that update automatically throughout a project.

4. Initiate key actions such as generating an estimate, purchase order, application for payment, invoice, and more.

5. View team members involved in the project.

6. Access an audit trail including events, notes, and document management.

Initiate Requisition and Purchase Orders Within Your Estimate

When an estimate is sold, all of the details you’ve set up in the estimate are automatically integrated into the rest of the project management workflow. 

• Initiate a Requisition of Equipment and Materials: For example, you can select your required permits and materials from within your estimate, which will lead you through a workflow to create the purchase orders you’ll need.

• Create Purchase Orders: Line items are automatically populated from your estimate, so you can simply select your procurement sources and shipping locations for each material. Then, you can save that order to create a transaction and send those purchase orders to your vendors — without ever leaving ServiceTitan. 

Automate Project Financials and Job Costing

As you progress through a job — creating purchase orders, logging labor hours, processing change orders, receiving progress payments, and so on — ServiceTitan provides:

• Real-time Project Financials & Job Costing: This is done automatically for you, based on work that’s completed and entered into the system. This saves you from manually updating Excel spreadsheets every time labor and material costs are incurred.

• A Detailed Breakdown of Project Budget vs. Actual Costs: This automatically updates as you accumulate expenses from materials, equipment, and labor costs. Margins are displayed in dollar and percent form to help you track project costs and profitability. 

• Ability to Drill Down into Your Expenses:  Access a table that breaks down your expenses in further detail. Click on line items to see the exact source of that expense (e.g., which technician logged those hours, or which vendors certain materials came from). This allows you to easily check your cost breakdowns and feel confident in your data.

Automate Progress Billing and Invoicing

The initial estimate you created also informs and populates the continuation sheet in your application for payment, so subcontractors can generate invoices and get paid quickly.

• Easily Generate Payment Applications: Select the billing period and the percent of each line item you want to bill for. Then, generate a PDF payment application with the details automatically filled out, and send it to your client for review.

• Get Paid Faster and Reduce Cash Flow Issues: Subcontractors can defend pushbacks from construction companies or general contractors with ServiceTitan’s continuation sheet, which saves and organizes the payment application for easy reference and sharing.  

• Create Invoices Instantaneously: When an application is accepted, generating an invoice for the progress payment can be done in a few clicks and sent to the customer. 

• Integrate Payments with Your Accounting Software: When payments come in, you can swiftly update your accounts receivable through our Viewpoint, Sage, QuickBooks, and CSV accounting integrations.  

All these capabilities make it much easier to defeat denials, get paid regularly, and keep up a steady cash flow during big projects. 

Stay Up-To-Date with Automated Work in Progress Reporting

[Source: Product Illustration | Work in Progress Report (Desktop)]

ServiceTitan offers work-in-progress (WIP) reports to help construction businesses maintain an accurate, up-to-date view of their projects by calculating recognized revenue based on the percentage-of-completion method.

For larger organizations with many construction jobs in progress, this report is invaluable for getting a real-time view of the business's financial health and ensuring that budgets are managed effectively. In addition, project managers can use WIP reports to manage over- and under-billing.

To run the report, users select from a series of fields, including date ranges, project statuses, and completion dates. The report then generates a table with the following project details:

• Project number and name

• Contract value

• Estimated cost

• Total cost

• Percent complete cost

• Earned revenue

• Revenue

• Retainage percent

• Retainage

WIP reports can be customized with various columns and calculations based on your business needs and can easily be exported to be further manipulated in spreadsheets, too.

Like all other features within ServiceTitan, the data used to generate WIP reports is automatically pulled from other areas of the platform. As a result, the amount of work and potential for errors in generating these reports is significantly reduced. 

Get a Personalized Demo of ServiceTitan Construction Management Software

What we’ve covered above is just a sampling of the desktop features that ServiceTitan offers to streamline the estimating process and construction project management. We also offer a mobile app (available on The App Store and Google Play) for crew members and project managers to track time, use forms and checklists from the job site, create daily reports, and more.