← All tracksGroundwork Academy · Estimating 101

How to scope, price, and present a job.

Six lessons that move a new estimator from guessing to estimating — reading a site walk correctly, pricing materials and labor honestly, and protecting margin before a number ever reaches the client.

6 lessons · scope · pricing · margin
1
What Is an Estimate?
Lesson · 5 min
An estimate is not a guess and it's not a quote pulled from memory — it's a documented, defensible number built from a specific scope. This lesson sets the frame the rest of the track builds on: every line on an estimate should trace back to something you actually measured, priced, or scheduled.
2
Reading a Site Walk
Lesson · 8 min
What to measure, photograph, and ask before you leave the property — access constraints, existing conditions, utility locations, and the questions that prevent a change order later. A site walk done right means the estimate that follows doesn't need a second visit to get right.
3
Material Pricing Basics
Lesson · 6 min
How to price materials without underquoting: current supplier pricing vs. list price, waste and overage factors, and delivery/handling costs that are easy to forget until they eat the job's margin.
4
Labor Costing
Lesson · 7 min
The difference between what you pay a crew and what a labor hour actually costs the business — burden (payroll tax, workers' comp, benefits) rolled into a fully-loaded rate. This is the same math Budget & Rates runs behind every price in the system; this lesson explains why it matters at estimate time, not just at reporting time.
5
Building Your Margin
Lesson · 6 min
Once cost is known, this lesson covers how to set a target margin deliberately — instead of backing into whatever number "feels competitive" — and how overhead allocation factors into every job, not just the big ones.
6
Presenting the Estimate
Lesson · 5 min
How to walk a client through options (not just a single total), frame the investment in terms of the outcome, and handle the "why does this cost so much" question before it's even asked.
Why estimating is its own track

Underpricing is the single most common way a good job goes bad.

A poorly scoped estimate doesn't just risk a lost sale — it risks a won job that loses money. Estimating 101 exists because scoping, pricing, and margin discipline are teachable skills, not instinct, and the cost of skipping this training shows up months later on a job that's already been completed.

Other Academy tracks

Sales Academy
Estimating in the context of a live pipeline.
Read more →
Financial Literacy
How estimate margin rolls up to P&L.
Read more →
CRM Guide
How estimates flow into invoices and payments.
Read more →
Budget & Rates
The burdened-cost engine this track teaches.
Read more →
Book a demo

Stop pricing jobs by feel.

A specialist will walk through Budget & Rates and how Estimating 101 teaches your team to use it.

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