Excavation estimating software: earthwork volumes or job quotes
Two products, one search term
Commercial earthwork takeoff loads a survey or plan set and calculates cut and fill volumes, haul quantities and grade. AGTEK, Trimble Business Center and Kubla own that category, and it feeds machine control on the equipment. It is genuinely different software from anything on the rest of this page — it measures off drawings and produces a bid, and it has no scheduling, invoicing or customer records at all.
Residential dirt-work quoting is the other meaning. Footings, drainage, driveways, pads, small demolition. You quote off a site visit, bill by the day or the job, and the variables that decide profitability — rock, water, unmarked utilities — are not on any drawing.
If you bid commercial sitework, price AGTEK and Trimble directly. We have not verified their pricing and will not guess at it.
What residential dirt work actually needs
Day-rate and mobilisation line items. Deposits, because fuel and disposal precede payment. And above all a scope clause on unknown conditions, which is a text field in any of these tools and the most valuable thing you will put in one.
| Tool | Starts at | Users included | Best for | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jobber | $49/mo | 1 | One to three machines | Day rates, deposits, multi-day jobs |
| QuoteIQ | $29.99/mo | 1 | Solo operators | Cheapest quoting; no volumes |
| Housecall Pro | $79/mo | 1 | Five or more staff | Five seats, employee GPS |
| ServiceTitan | Quote only | Unlimited | Large service operations | Quote-only, service trades |
Jobber — best of these for dirt work
$49/mo · One to three machine operatorsThe default field service platform for small home service businesses, and the one most operators compare everything else against.
Day-rate and mobilisation lines save as line items, deposits collect at approval, and jobs run several days without fuss. Photos on the job record site condition before you put a machine on someone’s lawn.
Core is $49/mo plus $29 per seat. No volume calculation, no machine hours, no telematics.
What it does well
- The most polished product in the category. Onboarding is fast and the mobile app is the one crews complain about least.
- Client-facing experience — booking page, quote approvals, payment — is a step above everything cheaper.
- Deepest integration list, so it fits whatever you already run the books in.
What it does badly
- The advertised entry price is one user. Seats are $29/mo each on every tier, so a three-person crew on Core is $107/mo, not $49.
- Automation that most operators consider essential — reminders, follow-ups — is Connect and up, a 2.8x jump from Core.
- Prepaid annual pricing is what the marketing quotes; the no-commitment monthly number is meaningfully higher.
Who it fits: One person to a mid-size crew. The Core tier is genuinely usable solo; the useful automation starts at Connect.
QuoteIQ — cheapest option
$29.99/mo · Solo operatorsField service software built for exterior cleaning and outdoor home service crews, with property measurement baked into the quote.
$29.99/mo for quoting, scheduling and invoicing. MapMeasure Pro gives a plan-view area, which cannot become a volume — you cannot get depth from satellite imagery, and excavation is a volume business.
What it does well
- Cheapest real entry point of anything in this category — $29.99 gets a working quote-to-invoice loop, not a crippled trial tier.
- MapMeasure Pro measures a property off satellite imagery, which is the actual job on a lawn, driveway or roof quote.
- Every tier includes the features. No add-on menu bolted on at checkout.
What it does badly
- Smaller company than the incumbents. Fewer integrations, and you will occasionally be the person filing the bug.
- Built around exterior and outdoor trades. If you run commercial mechanical, this is the wrong shape.
- Seat counts are tight below Elite — a four-person crew is already on the $149.99 tier.
Who it fits: Solo operator to a four-person crew, mostly exterior cleaning and outdoor work.
Housecall Pro — with staff on sites
$79/mo · Five or more staffJobber’s closest competitor, priced for teams rather than solos, with stronger dispatch and marketing tooling.
Essentials at $189/mo with five seats, plus employee GPS from that tier — useful when crews and machines are spread across several sites and you cannot be at all of them.
What it does well
- Five seats included on Essentials is the best seat-per-dollar deal of the three once you are past two people.
- Dispatch and routing are stronger than Jobber’s at the equivalent tier.
- Recurring service plans on Max are genuinely good if you sell maintenance contracts.
What it does badly
- Worst entry price in the category: $79/mo for a single user, 60% more than Jobber Core for less.
- Extra seats on Essentials are $100/mo — the most expensive seat of any tool here.
- Add-on pricing is not published. You will get those numbers on a sales call, not off the website.
Who it fits: Two to eight people. The seat maths only starts working in your favour once you have a crew.
ServiceTitan is dispatched-service enterprise software, named here for completeness and the wrong shape for project earthwork.
How we picked
Prices read off each vendor’s pricing page on 31 August 2026, no-commitment monthly rate with seats added. We weighted day-rate line items, deposits and site documentation, and did not score earthwork takeoff, which none of these do and which we have pointed at the correct category for.
We earn nothing from Jobber or ServiceTitan.
What we would do
Bidding commercial sitework: AGTEK or Trimble. None of these.
Owner-operator, residential: QuoteIQ at $29.99 or Jobber Core at $49.
Crews across several sites: Housecall Pro Essentials at $189.
Questions operators actually ask
What is excavation estimating software?
For commercial sitework it means earthwork takeoff: you load a survey or plan set and the software calculates cut and fill volumes, haul quantities and grading. AGTEK, Trimble Business Center and Kubla are the names. For residential dirt work it usually just means quoting software that produces a price for a driveway or a drainage job.
Can any general tool calculate cut and fill?
No. Not one of the four on this page computes earthwork volume, and none of them ever will — it requires a surveyed surface model, not a customer record. If your bidding depends on volumes, you need takeoff software and nothing here substitutes for it.
How should I quote residential dirt work?
Day rate or hourly for machine and operator, with separate lines for mobilisation, haul-off and disposal, and materials. Always include a written clause on what happens if you hit rock, water or unmarked utilities — that sentence is worth more than any software on this page.
Do I need takeoff software for driveways and drainage?
No. On residential work the variables you cannot see — soil, rock, water table — dominate any volume calculation you could do from a plan. Experience and a good scope clause matter more than precision here.
Which earthwork takeoff tools should I look at?
AGTEK, Trimble Business Center and Kubla come up most often. We have not verified their pricing so there are no figures here — every price on this site is read off the vendor's own page and dated.