Help & FAQ

Quick start

An estimate is a set of sections (Labor, Materials, Post-production…) holding line items. You price each line, optionally give it a cost so the app can show your profit, add document-level modifiers (fee, discount, tax, deposit), then export or share a clean, client-safe copy.

The 60-second version: press Templates and pick a starting template (or build from the blank document), fill in rates, switch to Client view to see what your client sees, and hit Export → PDF. Undo is always there — Ctrl/Cmd+Z (and Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+Z to redo), up to 50 steps.

Project details & brief

The top card holds the document meta: project name, client, company and address, estimate number, date, “valid until”, currency, and who prepared it. All of it appears on the exported estimate header. The project brief is a short client-facing summary shown under the header; the Terms & conditions box at the bottom of the page is client-facing too — payment terms, cancellation policy, usage rights.

The currency field changes the symbol used throughout the document and exports. One currency per estimate; no conversion happens.

Sections & line items

Each line is priced as rate × quantity × multiplier. The unit (day, hour, sq ft, flat, and more) is a label for the client — the math is the same whichever you pick. The quantity/multiplier pair is what makes crew pricing easy: a camera operator at $650/day, quantity 2 (people) × multiplier 3 (days) = $3,900. Section headers hint at the convention where it matters (e.g. Catering uses person × meals).

Reorder by dragging the grip handles (sections and lines), or use the arrow buttons. Each row can be duplicated or deleted, and the chevron opens a line's details: a free-text description shown under the name, plus the taxable, optional add-on, allowance, and linked-pricing switches explained below.

Bulk edit: tick the checkboxes on multiple lines (or the header checkbox for a whole section) and a floating bar appears — apply a markup across all of them, flip taxable or add-on flags, or move the lines to another section in one step. Each bulk action is a single undo step.

Three special line flags change how a line behaves: optional add-on shows the line to the client with a price but excludes it from the total (an upsell they can accept); allowance keeps the line in the total but labels it a budget placeholder whose final cost is to be confirmed; internal only (a section-level switch) hides an entire section from the client while its costs still count toward your P&L — handy for contingency or internal prep.

Templates

New estimates start blank — one empty section, one empty line. The Templates menu loads a starting template instead, grouped by industry. Each entry shows how many sections and lines it loads.

Template rates are blank on purpose: templates are checklists of what to price for that kind of job, not price lists. Applying a template replaces your sections and lines (your project details survive) — the app asks first whenever real line content would be lost. Each template also sets whether its new lines start taxable, matching how that industry usually bills; see taxes.

Costs, margin & markup (your pricing tools)

Give a line a cost (what it costs you — the flat total for that line) and the row shows your margin at a glance. The internal Profit & loss card then totals everything: net revenue, total cost, gross profit, and net profit, plus your blended margin and markup percentages. Costs from internal-only sections count; optional add-ons don't (they're not sold yet).

Link price to cost keeps a line priced at a set markup: change the cost (or the markup/margin % in the line details) and the price re-derives automatically. Unlinked lines still show their effective markup/margin, read-only. If you're new to the terms: markup is profit over cost, margin is profit over price — a $60 cost sold at $100 is a 66.7% markup and a 40% margin.

Saved items (Pro) is your reusable catalog. Build a library of standard line items — or add your industry's starter set in one click — then apply any saved item straight from a line's name field to fill in its rate, unit, and cost. Manage the full library on the Saved items page.

Income set-aside (Modifiers panel, your view only) reserves a percentage of profit — e.g. a rule-of-thumb income tax cushion — and shows it in the P&L. It never affects the client total and it isn't tax advice.

Your view vs. client view — the privacy wall

Your view is your workbench: costs, margins, the P&L card, internal-only sections, all editing. Client view is the document your client sees — clean, read-only, totals only.

The separation is structural, not cosmetic: client views, client exports, and share links are built from a whitelisted copy of the estimate that physically excludes costs, margins, markup, internal notes, and internal-only sections. There is no toggle to accidentally leave on — the data simply isn't in the client document.

Production fee & discount

The totals waterfall runs in a fixed order: subtotal → production fee → discount → tax → client total. Knowing the order explains every number on the totals card.

The production fee is a percentage of the subtotal — your markup/agency/production fee as a document-level line. The label is yours to edit: contractor and landscaping templates call it “Overhead & profit” out of the box, and whatever you type is exactly what the client sees. Two display modes: Separate line shows it as its own row (“Overhead & profit (15%)”); Spread into lines hides the row and folds the fee into each displayed line price (any rounding remainder lands on the last line). Both modes produce the same client total — spread is for clients who don't want to see a fee line.

The discount is percent or a fixed amount, applied after the fee. It's clamped so the total can never go below $0. What remains after fee and discount is the net revenue — the base that tax applies to.

How taxes work

Taxes are opt-in, per line. Every line has a taxable switch in its details; the default for a new line comes from your template — service-heavy work (like video production) usually starts non-taxable, materials-heavy trades start taxable. Flip any line either way. Add one or more named taxes in the Modifiers panel (e.g. “GST 5%”), each with its own rate and an on/off switch; multiple taxes add together. The panel shows “Tax: X of N items” with one-click Tax all / Tax none buttons.

The amount is calculated on the taxable share of net revenue. The app works out what fraction of your subtotal comes from taxable lines, applies that fraction to the net (so the fee and discount are shared proportionally between taxable and exempt work), and taxes only that part:

Consequences worth knowing: an enabled tax shows $0 until at least one line is marked taxable (that's the #1 “why is my tax zero” answer); mark everything taxable and it behaves like a flat tax on the net; optional add-ons and internal-only sections never enter the tax base. Tax rules vary by region and this is a calculator, not tax advice — check what applies to your services.

Deposits

Enable Deposit in the Modifiers panel to show a “Deposit due” line on the estimate — a percentage of the client total or a fixed amount. It's informational: it tells the client what's due up front but never changes the total.

Exporting

The Export menu produces two families of files. Client estimate (PDF, .xlsx, CSV) is built from the client-safe document — no costs, margins, or internal sections, ever. Internal budget (PDF, .xlsx) is your version with costs, margins, and the P&L — for you, not the client. The spreadsheet exports use live formulas, so totals keep working if you tweak numbers in Excel.

Download JSON is the full-fidelity backup of everything (including costs) — re-import it on any machine via Import JSON. On the free plan, client-facing exports carry a small “Made with” footer; Pro removes it and adds your own branding (see Accounts & Pro).

Saving, sharing & duplicating

Your working estimate autosaves to this browser continuously (the “Saved” dot in the header). It never leaves your machine unless you share, export, or save to your account.

Share generates a read-only link carrying a compressed, client-safe copy of the estimate in the URL itself — no account needed on either end. Very large estimates that don't fit in a URL fall back to a link that only opens in your own browser; use JSON export to send those instead.

Signed in, the cloud Save menu stores estimates to your account (one on the free plan, unlimited on Pro) so they follow you across devices. My estimates lists them with open, rename, delete — and Duplicate, which opens a “(copy)” as a brand-new estimate. That makes past jobs reusable starting points: keep a skeleton like “TEMPLATE — Corporate shoot” with your standard sections and rates, and duplicate it for each new client.

Accounts & Pro

Sign-in is a magic link — enter your email, click the link we send, confirm on the page that opens. No password to remember or leak. Links expire after 15 minutes and work once; a session lasts 30 days per device.

Pro is a one-time $39 unlock (no subscription): your business name, contact line, and logo on client-facing exports in place of the “Made with” footer, unlimited cloud-saved estimates, and the Saved Items library for the lines you reuse. Branding is set from the account menu or Settings (logo by upload or https image URL). Payments are processed by LemonSqueezy as the merchant of record — they handle receipts and sales tax/VAT. There’s a 30-day money-back guarantee — self-serve from Settings → Billing.

FAQ

Contact

Found a bug, missing a feature, or stuck on something this page doesn't answer? Send a message — replies go to the email you enter.