Best Quoting and Estimating Software for UK Builders (2026)
Eight tools UK builders actually use, compared on what matters when you are pricing a job: how you get the quantities in, whether material costs are current, and what it costs you a month. Pricing checked August 2026.
Quick Comparison
The short version. Prices are the published entry level for each tool and exclude VAT unless the vendor states otherwise. Per user pricing is flagged where it applies, because it changes the real cost significantly once you add a second person. A question mark means the vendor does not state it publicly, not that the feature is missing.
| Tool | Price | AI quote from drawings | Quote from a description | On-plan takeoff | Live material prices | Branded PDF quotes | Invoicing | Job management |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PriceNailer | Free for 30 days, then £29/month | |||||||
| BuildPartner | From £24/month, most plans between £24 and £122/month | ? | ? | ? | ||||
| QuoteBuild | £19/month founding offer, standard price planned at £39/month | ? | ||||||
| PriceBuilder | £25 to £45/month ex VAT, tiered by quote volume | ? | ||||||
| Buildxact | From around £99/month | ? | ||||||
| EstimatorXpress (HBXL) | From £55/month, or from £899/year | ? | ||||||
| Tradify | £34 to £44 per user per month | |||||||
| Powered Now | From around £19 to £27 per user per month |
The Tools in Detail
PriceNailer
Best for: Three routes into a quote, priced on current merchant costs
Free for 30 days, then £29/month
Where it wins
- Upload architectural drawings and the AI extracts dimensions, materials and scope, then builds the quote for you
- Or describe the job in plain English. The AI checks its assumptions, asks follow-up questions, and returns an itemised quote
- Or do it by hand with on-plan takeoff: calibrate the scale, then measure lengths, areas and counts straight off the drawing
- Live prices from 14 named UK merchants feed the estimate, and you can see which merchant each figure came from
- White-label PDF quotes and stage payment invoicing
- Flat monthly price with no per-user charge and no cap on how many quotes you produce
Where it falls down
- No scheduling, CRM or team job management, so it is a quoting tool rather than a whole back office
- Not the cheapest option here. QuoteBuild, BuildPartner and PriceBuilder all start lower
- Newer product than the established names, with a smaller feature set around project tracking
- UK only
BuildPartner
Best for: Benchmark costs drawn from a shared database of real UK projects
From £24/month, most plans between £24 and £122/month
Where it wins
- AI plan reading, so you can upload a PDF drawing and get a costed estimate back
- Rates come from costs submitted by UK builders and are checked against live supplier prices
- Regional pricing built in, so estimates reflect where the job is
- Used by architects and surveyors as well as builders, which helps if you work with a design team
Where it falls down
- Pricing is not published openly, and the top of the range is expensive
- Broad professional audience means it is less tailored to a jobbing builder than the simpler tools
QuoteBuild
Best for: Cheap unlimited quoting with live margin tracking
£19/month founding offer, standard price planned at £39/month
Where it wins
- Unlimited quotes on a flat plan with no per-quote fee
- Tracks actual job costs against the original estimate and warns you before a job goes into the red
- Trade calculators for common job types like bathrooms, kitchens and roofing
- Built-in UK trade rates, aimed squarely at small trade teams
Where it falls down
- The £19 price is a launch offer, with £39 signalled as the standard rate
- Seven day trial capped at three quotes, which is short if you quote infrequently
- No on-plan takeoff, so quantities come from you rather than the drawing
PriceBuilder
Best for: Fast template-driven quotes on a phone, on site
£25 to £45/month ex VAT, tiered by quote volume
Where it wins
- Pre-programmed trade rates and material costs, so a quote takes minutes from a standing start
- Set your own profit margin separately on materials and on labour
- Genuinely mobile, designed for quoting from the van rather than the office
- Free trial with three quotes and no card details
Where it falls down
- Plans are capped by quote volume, from 5 a month on Basic up to 99 on the top tier
- Rates are a maintained price book rather than live merchant prices
- No takeoff from drawings
Buildxact
Best for: Established builders running new builds and large renovations
From around £99/month
Where it wins
- Mature takeoff tools that handle complex plans well
- Estimate templates that save significant time on repeat job types
- Covers estimating through to job costing and purchase orders
Where it falls down
- The most expensive option here, which is hard to justify for a sole trader
- More platform than most small firms need if you only want to quote
EstimatorXpress (HBXL)
Best for: UK-specific estimating with deep build price data
From £55/month, or from £899/year
Where it wins
- Built by a UK company specifically for UK building practice and regulations
- Very detailed build price data behind the estimates
- UK based support and training included with a subscription
Where it falls down
- Dated interface compared to newer web tools
- Steep learning curve, commonly reported as several weeks to get fluent
- Estimating focused, so you will need something else for invoicing
Tradify
Best for: Trades running a high volume of small jobs
£34 to £44 per user per month
Where it wins
- Strong all-round job management covering scheduling, timesheets and invoicing
- Quick to quote for simple, repeatable work
- Well established with a large UK user base
Where it falls down
- Not a true estimator, so it is weak for anything needing a material takeoff
- Priced per user, which adds up quickly as a team grows
Powered Now
Best for: Sole traders who mainly need the paperwork handled
From around £19 to £27 per user per month
Where it wins
- Built for UK trades, with VAT and CIS handled properly
- Works well offline on a phone, which suits site use
- One of the cheapest ways to look professional on paper
Where it falls down
- Quoting is simple line item work rather than real estimating
- No takeoff and no material price feed
How to Choose
If you mostly price extensions and renovations
You need a real takeoff and current material costs, because a 10% error on materials on a £60,000 extension is £3,000 out of your margin. Estimating tools beat job management tools here every time.
If you run lots of small jobs
Scheduling and invoicing matter more than takeoff accuracy. A job management tool will save you more hours than an estimator will.
Watch the per user pricing
Several tools here charge per user per month. That is fine on your own, but a three person firm on £40 a user is £1,440 a year before you have quoted anything. Flat pricing is cheaper as soon as you are not working alone.
Check how material prices are sourced
Most estimating tools use a built-in price book you update yourself. That is fine when prices are stable and painful when they are not. Ask whether prices are live or whether keeping them current is your job.
Where PriceNailer Fits
We built PriceNailer for the quoting problem specifically, not for running a whole business. If you want scheduling, timesheets and a CRM, Tradify or Buildxact will serve you better, and we would rather tell you that now than after you have paid us. If you want the cheapest way to get a tidy quote out, QuoteBuild and PriceBuilder both start below us.
What we are good at is getting from a job to a priced quote without retyping everything. You can upload the architectural drawings and let the AI pull out dimensions, materials and scope, or describe the job in plain English and answer a few follow-up questions, or measure it yourself on the plan with scale-calibrated takeoff. Most tools here give you one route in. BuildPartner is the only other one in this list that reads drawings, and on their published features none of them turn a plain English description of the job into an itemised quote.
The other half is materials. Most tools here run a price book that somebody has to keep current, and when merchant prices move that work falls to you. We pull live prices from 14 named UK merchants, and you can see which merchant each figure came from. BuildPartner checks its rates against live supplier prices too, so it is worth a look if that is what you came for.
PriceNailer is £29 a month after a 30 day free trial, with no per user charge and no cap on quotes. You can try the extension cost calculator to see the pricing data behind it without signing up for anything.