Construction estimating tool
Enter your shapes and lengths. Anvil supplies the weight from the AISC tables and the hours from observed production data; you supply the rates and the markup. Out comes a priced estimate and a CSV.
Hours from 18,408 observed records · 429 priced estimates
| Shape | Qty | Length | lb / pc | Shop hr / pc | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not an AISC shape | — | ||||
| Not an AISC shape | — |
California prevailing wage determinations. Pick one and it fills the field rate, cited — it is a published figure, not a default, and you can overwrite it.
Rates are remembered on this device only — they are never sent to Anvil. Anvil publishes hours, never money: a labour sell rate, a markup and a negotiated mill price are your business, and a rate borrowed from another company changes who you are.
The total is blank because a rate is missing — not because it is zero. Fill every money field to price it.
Computed over 18,408 observed records across 429 priced estimates across 116 jobs. Hours are observed data from real priced estimates, not an industry average. Detailing, connection material, hardware, finish, freight, equipment and crane are NOT in this number and are frequently a third of the job.
Weight comes from the AISC tables and the weight band is assigned automatically — the band is what selects the shop rate.
Shop hours per piece come from the published data for that family and band. Every one can be overridden, and each says which it is.
Anvil publishes hours, never money. Nothing in the money section is prefilled, because a borrowed rate changes who your business is.
Because they are not ours to give you. Hours are physics and they travel between companies. A labour sell rate, a markup and a negotiated mill price are your money model — borrowing them would change who your business is, and a steel price built from a handful of buyers is one company's purchasing with a market label on it.
Detailing, connection material, hardware and fasteners, surface prep and finish, freight, equipment and crane, and everything about the site. On a real bid those routinely add a third. This prices the steel and the labour to make and set it, nothing else.
Structural tees and double angles are not in the published rate set. Rather than substitute the nearest family and hand you a confident wrong number, the tool marks those lines and leaves their hours out of the total — the warning and the CSV both say so. Enter your own rate for them.
Because a money field is empty. A missing rate makes the total MISSING, not zero — treating an unentered rate as free is how an estimate goes out light.
As an output, yes. As an input, no. Hours per ton hides the thing that drives cost: a ton of small angles carries far more handling and operations than a ton of heavy beams. Build from pieces and bands, then read hours per ton as a sanity check on what you built.
Anvil connects your rates, your shop history and your estimates.