How I build an electrical estimating software quote from the drawing
The first time I priced a rewire I did it twice: once as a drawing on my laptop, then again from scratch in a spreadsheet, copying every breaker and every metre of cable across by hand. That double work is exactly what offline electrical estimating software is meant to kill, and after enough late evenings I built my whole quoting process around a tool that reads the drawing I already made and hands me a priced bill of materials. Since 2023 every quote I send starts from the schematic, not a blank spreadsheet. If you want to try it on a job you already know, download the offline editor and open one of your own drawings while you read.
Why electrical estimating software should read the drawing you already made
Most estimating still happens twice. You draw the installation, then you retype it into a quote: every consumer unit, every RCBO, every run of twin-and-earth, priced from memory or a supplier tab open in another window. The retyping is where money leaks. Miss one 32 A breaker on a thirty-way board and the quote is under by the cost of the part plus the hour you spend arguing about it later.
Good electrical estimating software closes that gap by treating the drawing as the source of truth. The components you place are real objects with a model, a size and a rating, so the tool can count them for you: six of this breaker, forty metres of that cable, three distribution boards. The estimate is not a second document you keep in parallel; it is a view of the drawing you already trust. Change the board and the numbers move with it.
That only works if the drawing carries real symbols in the first place. I draw every board from the IEC 60617 symbol library it counts from, so a breaker is a breaker and not a rectangle the software has to guess at. You can see how tightly those symbols are defined in the IEC 60617 graphical-symbols database, and how the NFPA 70 National Electrical Code governs the way those same circuits get sized and protected. Symbols in, quantities out: that is the whole idea.
How my electrical estimating software workflow turns a drawing into a priced quote
My rule is simple. I never price a part the software can count for me. The estimate runs in three passes, and it starts the moment the schematic is finished.
Pass one: let the drawing count itself
I open the schedule on a finished drawing and the electrical estimating software aggregates every component by model. Each line shows the model, the quantity, the dimensions in millimetres and the electrical spec, kWh or kW where it applies. Forty identical downlights collapse to one line that reads forty. I have never miscounted a board this way, because I am not counting; the drawing is.
Pass two: my prices, my margin
This is the part I care about most. The tool ships no prices at all, on purpose, because my buying price is not yours and shifts with every wholesaler quote. I type my own purchase price against each model, set a markup percentage per line or one default across the job, and the sell price and line total fill in themselves. A blank price stays blank and shows a dash; it is never quietly counted as zero, so a quote can never under-read because I forgot a figure. You can see where the tooling is heading on the public roadmap, which tracks what lands next.
Pass three: labour, VAT and the export
Labour is hours times my rate, and if either is missing there is simply no labour line rather than a hidden zero. VAT sits on its own rows, materials and labour separately, because in the Netherlands they can carry different rates: 21% on the parts, 9% on some labour. The whole thing exports to a CSV I can open in any spreadsheet or drop into an accounts package, rounded to the cent so the export, the screen and the PDF always tell the same story.
A real job: a 2024 consumer-unit upgrade quoted in twenty minutes
In autumn 2024 a landlord asked me to price replacing three ageing consumer units across a converted house, plus the remedial circuits an inspection had flagged. Old habit would have been an evening with a spreadsheet. Instead I drew the three boards as single-line schematics, dropped in the breakers and RCDs from the palette, added the cable runs, and opened the schedule.
The count came back in seconds: eighteen RCBOs, three main switches, three enclosures and the cable I had drawn. I pasted my current wholesaler prices against each model once, set a single markup, added my hours, and the total sat on screen with VAT already split. Start to finished PDF was about twenty minutes, and most of that was typing prices, not counting parts.
Two things fell out of pricing on the drawing. When the landlord asked to drop one board from the job, I deleted it on the schematic and the quote re-totalled itself, with no line-by-line edit. And the same file that priced the work also drew it, so the electrician on site worked from the exact board I had quoted. The way a New York electrician prices the same kind of board and how a Chicago electrician quotes a panel follow the identical habit: draw it right, and the estimate is a by-product, not a chore.
Electrical estimating software versus a spreadsheet, AutoCAD and dedicated suites
I have quoted with all of these, so here is the honest comparison.
A spreadsheet is free and everyone has one, but it never knows what you drew. Every part is retyped, every board change is a manual edit, and the day you miscount is the day it costs you. AutoCAD draws beautifully and reads DXF natively, but on its own it does not price anything; the estimate still lives in that separate spreadsheet unless you buy an add-on. Dedicated estimating suites are genuinely powerful for large contractors, with supplier price feeds and takeoff tools, though they carry a per-seat monthly cost and a learning curve that rarely pays off for a solo electrician or a two-van firm.
Where offline electrical estimating software built into the drawing earns its place is the join: you draw the board once, in real symbols, and the priced bill of materials falls out of it, on your own machine, with no login and no per-seat subscription. The Diaz Editor licence is a one-time €197 lifetime purchase with three seats, and a ten-seat Pro tier sits at €247 if a firm needs more; you can read the one-time lifetime licence in full first. The AI features are a separate optional monthly subscription from 9 EUR, kept deliberately out of the base price so the estimating tool you paid for once keeps working forever.
None of this makes the big suites wrong. If you run twenty vans and buy from three merchants on live price feeds, a dedicated suite may well earn its keep. If your week is boards, inspections and quotes, a drawing that prices itself beats one that makes you type it twice.
FAQ
What is electrical estimating software?
It is a tool that turns an electrical drawing into a priced quote. Instead of retyping every breaker and cable into a spreadsheet, it counts the components you placed on the schematic, lets you enter your own purchase prices and markup, adds labour and VAT, and exports a bill of materials. The good ones ship no prices of their own, because your buying price is specific to you and your wholesaler.
Does the estimate work offline?
Yes. The editor, the symbol libraries and the CSV export all run on your own machine, so a quote is available in a plant room with no signal exactly as it is at your desk. Nothing uploads, and you never sign in to get your own numbers back out. I have priced jobs on site since 2023 this way, and the file lives on my own disk.
Can I set my own prices and margins?
Always, and you must. The tool deliberately carries no prices, so you type your purchase price per model and set a markup, either per line or one default for the job. A blank price stays blank rather than counting as zero, so a quote can never silently under-read. Change a wholesaler and you update one figure, not a whole spreadsheet.
What does the estimate export to?
A CSV, rounded to the cent, that opens in any spreadsheet or accounts package. Components, materials, labour and VAT come through as separate rows, so the export matches the screen and the PDF exactly. Because it is plain CSV, the numbers are never trapped inside one tool, which is the same reason I keep drawings in DXF.
Is offline electrical estimating software cheaper than a subscription suite?
Over any real horizon, yes. A dedicated estimating suite charges every month whether you quote one job or fifty. A one-time lifetime licence at €197 with three seats is a single payment you own, and for a solo electrician or a small firm the break-even against an annual subscription lands inside the first months of 2026.
Where to start
The fix for quoting twice is not a faster spreadsheet, it is a drawing that prices itself. I built my estimating around three passes: let the finished schematic count its own components, type my prices and margin against each model, then add labour and VAT and export a CSV. It turned a three-board landlord job in 2024 from an evening of retyping into a twenty-minute quote, and it means the file that priced the work is the same file that drew it. Start with a job you have already drawn: open the schedule, watch the parts count themselves, and paste in your prices for one board. When the quote totals itself in front of you, put the editor on your work laptop and price your next job from the drawing instead of from scratch.