Austin, TX
NEW ADDITIONS ESTIMATING.

## Addition Contracting in Austin Moves Fast — Your Bids Should Too Austin's housing stock is under constant pressure. Owners in Hyde Park, Bouldin Creek, and East Austin are adding square footage rather than selling into a tight market. Meanwhile, new builds in Pflugerville, Cedar Park, and Round Rock are spawning second-story additions and detached ADUs before the lots are even fully landscaped. You are bidding in a city where material lead times, subcontractor availability, and permit timelines can shift a project margin by thousands of dollars in a single week. Estimate.Pro is built for that environment. ## What Makes Addition Estimating Different in Austin Additions touch nearly every trade: foundation work, framing, roofing tie-ins, MEP rough-ins, insulation, and finish. In Austin, that complexity compounds quickly. **Foundation type matters.** Central Austin sits on expansive clay soils. A pier-and-beam extension in Travis Heights carries a different material and labor cost profile than a monolithic slab addition in a Leander subdivision. Estimate.Pro lets you build scoped line items for each foundation strategy so you are not copying and pasting from last month's wrong-soil job. **Energy code compliance adds scope.** Texas follows the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC 2021 as adopted by the City of Austin's Energy Code), which requires additions to meet current insulation, air-sealing, and HVAC efficiency thresholds. Austin Energy's Green Building program adds another layer if the homeowner wants green certification. Your estimate needs to reflect Manual J load calculations for any HVAC extension, and Estimate.Pro includes that as a named scope item so the load-calc cost doesn't disappear into overhead. **Impervious cover limits change the footprint.** Austin Land Development Code restricts impervious cover by zoning classification — often 45% in SF-3 zones. Before you price a ground-floor addition, you need to know whether the existing coverage leaves room. That's a due-diligence line item in your pre-construction scope. Build it into your estimate template once, and every future bid carries it automatically. **ADU rules create a parallel bid path.** Austin legalized interior, attached, and detached ADUs citywide. An attached addition that crosses into ADU territory triggers a separate permit pathway, different connection fees, and sometimes a third-party inspection. Estimate.Pro's addition workflow supports branching scope trees so your ADU-adjacent bid doesn't get collapsed into a generic room-addition template. ## From Walkthrough to Bid in 8 Minutes The median time from walkthrough to a sendable bid on Estimate.Pro is 8 minutes. Here is how that works for an addition job: 1. **AR Measurement.** On supported devices, ONNX-assisted live AR measurement captures room dimensions during the walkthrough. Camera and photo measurements are marked as estimates — you always know which numbers need field verification. 2. **AI Scope-of-Work.** The app generates a trade-appropriate scope of work from your walkthrough notes and measurements. For additions, that means framing, sheathing, roofing tie-in, insulation, drywall, MEP allowances, and finish line items — not a blank page. 3. **Saved Material Cost Workspace.** Your Austin-specific lumber, concrete, and finish costs live in your workspace. You update them when your supplier changes pricing; every future estimate pulls current numbers. 4. **Send.** The client gets a professional bid. You spent 8 minutes, not 3 hours. ## Pricing Built for How You Operate Estimate.Pro has a free forever tier — no credit card required. When your volume grows: - **Pro** — $39 per seat per month - **Elite** — $79 per seat per month, adds Stripe Connect invoicing and export workflows - **Crew** — $399 per month flat for larger teams Stripe Connect platform fees are 3% on Free and 0% on Pro+. When a client pays a $180,000 addition contract through the platform, that fee difference is real money. ## Austin Permits and the Clock Austin's Development Services Department (DSD) processes residential addition permits under its Express and Standard permit tracks. A straightforward addition under 3,000 square feet may qualify for Express review, but MEP work, structural modifications, and proximity to heritage trees trigger Standard review with longer timelines. Your bid should include a realistic permit allowance — both in cost and in schedule. Estimate.Pro lets you add permit fees and plan-check allowances as named line items, not buried contingencies. If you are working in the city's floodplain — common near Barton Creek, Waller Creek, or Bull Creek corridors — FEMA elevation requirements add scope and cost that need to appear in the estimate before the client signs, not as a change order after. ## 25 Trades, One Platform Estimate.Pro supports 25 trades. If you sub out your electrical, plumbing, or HVAC, your subs can run their own estimates on the same platform and hand you numbers that drop directly into your addition scope. No transcription errors, no format mismatches.