Detroit, MI
NEW ADDITIONS ESTIMATING.

## Addition Contracting in Detroit Moves Fast — Your Bids Need to Keep Up Detroit's housing stock is old. The median home was built before 1960, and owners are adding square footage rather than moving. Sunroom additions, rear bump-outs, second-story builds, ADUs — the pipeline is real. So is the competition. When three or four addition contractors are chasing the same job in Ferndale or Grosse Pointe, the bid that lands first and reads cleanest usually wins. Estimate.Pro gets you from walkthrough to sendable bid in 8 minutes. Not a rough number — a scoped, line-item estimate your client can sign. --- ## What Makes Addition Estimating Different in Detroit **Foundation work adds cost fast.** Detroit sits on clay-heavy soil with a frost depth of 42 inches. Any addition that requires a new footing — room additions, garage additions, structural bump-outs — needs footings poured below that depth. That's excavation cost most estimators undercount. Estimate.Pro's additions workflow includes foundation type selection with depth inputs so your footing cost is priced before you leave the driveway. **Michigan energy code compliance is non-negotiable.** The 2021 Michigan Residential Code (adopted statewide, enforced locally) requires additions to meet current insulation and fenestration requirements. That means R-49 attic, R-20 walls (continuous or cavity plus), and window U-factors at or below 0.30 for heated additions. If your estimate doesn't account for the insulation upgrade and window spec, you're leaving money on the table or eating it on the back end. The app flags envelope compliance checkpoints during scope build. **Detroit permitting has real cost and real lead time.** The City of Detroit Buildings, Safety Engineering and Environmental Department (BSEED) reviews all addition permits. Permit fees scale with construction value — a $100,000 addition pulls a permit in the $800–$1,200 range plus plan review fees. Suburban municipalities like Livonia, Warren, and Dearborn have separate departments with their own fee schedules and turnaround windows. Factor permit cost into your bid from day one, not as an afterthought. **Labor rates here are specific.** Southeast Michigan residential carpenter labor runs $55–$75 per hour depending on crew experience and whether you're working union or open shop. Framing subs on larger additions often run closer to $9–$12 per square foot installed. If your estimate tool uses national averages, you're either underpricing Detroit work or looking expensive against local operators who know the market. --- ## How Estimate.Pro Works for Addition Contractors **AR-assisted measurement on site.** Walk the footprint of the proposed addition with your phone. On supported devices, the ONNX-assisted live AR measurement captures dimensions in real time. On any device, camera and photo measurements give you a marked estimate to anchor your scope. Either way, you're not guessing at square footage when you get back to the truck. **Scope of work built by trade logic.** The additions workflow covers foundation, framing, sheathing, roofing tie-in, exterior cladding, windows, insulation, drywall, trim, and MEP rough-ins. You select what applies, skip what doesn't. The app builds the scope of work automatically. Hand it to a client and it reads like a document a GC spent an hour writing. **Your material costs, not ours.** Detroit lumber pricing at your local yards, your subcontractor rates, your markup — all stored in your saved material cost workspace. The estimate reflects your actual numbers, not a national database that hasn't seen a Michigan supply chain disruption. **Send it before you leave the parking lot.** Pro and Elite tiers include Stripe Connect invoicing at 0% platform fee. Send the estimate, collect a deposit, move to the next job. Free tier keeps $0 platform fee on estimates and charges 3% on payment processing through Stripe Connect. --- ## Pricing That Fits a Small Addition Crew Estimate.Pro runs $39 per seat per month on Pro, $79 on Elite, and $399 flat per month for Crew teams. The free tier costs nothing and requires no credit card — you can build and send estimates today without a billing conversation. Elite workflows add Stripe Connect invoicing and invoice exports for crews that want clean books without a second app. --- ## Detroit Addition Contractors Build More Bids With Less Overhead You're not bidding one addition a month. Volume is how this business works. Every hour spent building a bid manually is an hour not spent on site, not spent selling, not spent running the crew. The 8-minute target isn't a marketing number — it's the median time from walkthrough start to a bid you can send. That's the difference between three bids a day and one. Start free. No credit card. No demo call required.