Solution
Electrical Estimating Software
Electrical bids don’t fail because someone can’t read a drawing. They fail in the gap between the drawing and the price — a panel schedule that doesn’t translate cleanly into a parts list, a wire-fill calculation done by hand, a labor unit that’s close enough until it isn’t. Generic estimating software treats electrical the same as every other trade: a line-item list with a quantity and a cost. Electrical work doesn’t price that way, and pretending it does is where bids go soft.
What makes electrical estimating genuinely different
A concrete bid is yardage and forms. A drywall bid is board count and finish level. An electrical bid is conduit runs, wire fill, device counts, panel schedules, fixture packages, and labor units that shift with conditions — plenum-rated vs. standard, exposed vs. concealed, new construction vs. a live retrofit. The parts list alone can run into the thousands of SKUs on a single commercial job. Software built generically for "construction" usually can’t carry that kind of depth without the estimator building most of it themselves first.
Built by someone who estimated this way for a living
This isn’t theoretical. Before PoPs Estimating existed, its builder spent three decades in the electrical trade — starting as an electrician, working plant maintenance and high-voltage systems, then running the electrical side of a growing contractor. At one point, the estimating system in place couldn’t keep up with the volume of work coming in, so he built a new one himself — one that let a single person turn out eighty or ninety real electrical estimates in a day. That’s not a marketing claim about "efficiency." It’s what an electrical-specific catalog and a real assembly system actually make possible when they’re built by someone who’s done the estimating, not just studied it.
What PoPs Estimating actually gives you
A real, SKU-level catalog for Division 26 — electrical — with over 42,000 items, deepest of any trade in the system today. Not generic line items: actual parts, actual pricing, organized the way an electrical estimator already thinks about a job. Assemblies are browsable across Residential, Commercial, and Industrial work — a panel changeout, a service upgrade, a rough-in package — so repeatable scope doesn’t get re-priced from scratch every time. An AI assembly helper is grounded in that same real catalog, not a generic construction knowledge base, so it doesn’t suggest parts that don’t exist in your price list. Takeoff happens directly on the canvas — Count, Linear Feet, Square Feet — and feeds straight into a Bid Summary with real markup control. Win the job, and the estimate hands off directly into PoPs Project Tracker as the starting budget, panel schedule and all.
Where this fits
Electrical estimating is the deepest part of PoPs Estimating today, and the Estimating pillar covers how the same approach extends across all 15 CSI divisions. If bidding is only part of the picture, Construction Bid Manager runs the full pipeline around it — leads, RFQs, win/loss tracking — with PoPs Estimating handling the pricing itself.
Who this is for
- Estimators & Subs — Bidding electrical work directly.
- General Contractors — Self-performing electrical or reviewing electrical sub bids.
FAQ
Does the catalog cover residential and commercial electrical, or just one?
Both — assemblies are organized across Residential, Commercial, and Industrial work, not scoped to one segment.
How deep is the catalog compared to a generic estimating tool?
Over 42,000 items in Division 26 alone. Generic tools typically ask the estimator to build or import their own price list before the software is useful at all; this one starts populated.
Is this only useful for electrical contractors, or does it help GCs too?
Both. Electrical subs use it to bid their own work; GCs self-performing electrical or sanity-checking a sub’s bid get the same real pricing instead of a rough allowance.
What happens to an electrical estimate once the job is won?
It hands off directly into PoPs Project Tracker as the starting budget — panel schedule, assemblies, and pricing intact, nothing re-typed.