Name: Sage Estimating
Rating: 7.7 (20 reviews)
Author: Sage

Operating Systems

Unspecified

Mobile Application

December 17, 2019

Sage Estimating...the Granddaddy of General Contracting Estimation Creation Software. It can be trusted but getting long in the tooth.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology

Construction Company, 51-200 employees

Score 7 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Sage Estimating is the main estimating creation package currently being used in our firm. It is primarily used within our preconstruction department though our operations employees will sometimes access and have some light use of the software. It may make the software sound lesser but the main reason we use it is to avoid preconstruction managers using plain Excel to build their estimates. In addition to be a much more refined way of creating an estimate the software works in conjunction with Sage 300 CRE Accounting and Project Management in allowing us to transfer estimates from precon phase to construction phase without having to recreate them again.

Pros and Cons

Sage Estimating is very good at providing the users (and eventually clients) with a clean, well broken down estimate of how we have come up with a specific bid amount. It allows consistency among our different precon managers in how they present the final numbers of a bid.
The way Sage Estimating presents itself to a precon manager/user allows ease of use from the very start such that someone can build a bid with very little training.

The program has a fairly antiquated user interface such that someone working in it may not feel like they are working with advanced software.
Sage Estimating has absolutely no remote access capability outside running it in a Citrix/RDP environment so users have to be using a fat/full client vs. any hopes of access on a mobile device.

Likelihood to Recommend

Sage Estimating is a decent product for companies that have a more mature audience when it comes to their Preconstruction group. People who are familiar with Excel will easily adapt to using this program. One could say it is Excel Plus in some manner as it relates to Construction bidding. Companies that are staffed by more progressive employees will probably find the interface clunky and lack of mobility very limiting.

Sage Estimating Feature Ratings

Return on Investment

The capabilities built into Sage Estimating allow our company to avoid the complexity of having random Excel bids floating around. All our bids are built into the Sage database and available to all users without searching.
The lack of mobile options require users of the software to always be on a full client vs. mobile device. This limiting factor makes our process a bit more expensive by not allowing estimators to easily work on the go.

Alternatives Considered

Procore and RedTeam

We have been using Sage Estimating for close to two decades now. Changing from a base software is always hard as the incumbent package always has an advantage over any new comers. In this case we have considered both Procore Technologies and RedTeam software as an alternate to not only our estimating practices but the whole Project Management suite. In the case of Procore although its mobile capability is far superior the pricing point on it is so high that we had to move on from consideration of it. Our review of RedTeam suggested the software not mature enough for our needs. Sage Estimating's days are numbered if they do not develop better mobility in the application but for now it is the the go-to package for mature GC's.

Support Rating

Sage's support of Estimating is adequate though frankly we rarely need it. Outside of more complex operations such as upgrades and installation problems the program itself is so straightforward that we do not usually have any "issues" and questions that are more about usability can easily be answered in online forums. We trust Sage's capability to answer these questions if needed but rarely use it.

Other Software Used

Windows Server, Windows Server Failover Clustering, Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate, Veeam Backup & Replication

Sage Estimating

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iTWO costX