Detroit, MI
FENCING ESTIMATING.

## Fencing Estimates in Detroit Move Fast — Your Bids Need To Match Detroit's residential comeback is real. Whole blocks in Corktown, Woodbridge, and the East Side are seeing new owners fence off yards that sat open for years. On the commercial side, industrial parcels along the I-75 corridor and the riverfront redevelopment zones are ordering chain-link and ornamental in volume. When a property manager calls three fence contractors, the first clean bid usually wins. Estimate.Pro gets you from a site walkthrough to a sendable bid in 8 minutes. No spreadsheet cleanup at 10 p.m. No guessing at lumber prices that changed last Tuesday. --- ## What Makes Fencing Estimating Different in Detroit **Frost depth drives your post specs.** Michigan's frost line runs 42 inches in the Detroit metro. Every fence post — wood, steel, vinyl — needs to be set below that line or you're pulling calls in March from customers watching their gates lean. Your estimate needs to reflect the correct post length, concrete volume per hole, and labor time for deep augering. Estimate.Pro's fencing calculator accounts for frost-depth post sizing so your material takeoffs aren't built on a southern-state assumption. **Soil conditions vary block by block.** Former residential teardown lots in Detroit can carry fill, rubble, or high clay content. Clay soil in Wayne County swells and contracts hard, which affects post concrete cure time and sometimes requires tube forms. When you're walking a job and noting soil type, that detail flows into your scope of work inside the app. **Detroit permits have a specific threshold.** City of Detroit Building Safety Engineering and Environmental Department (BSEED) requires a fence permit for most structures over 4 feet in residential zones and any commercial fence. Permit fees add real cost to a job. Your bid needs to carry that line item, not absorb it. **Material costs swing with steel and cedar markets.** Wayne County suppliers don't always track with national averages. Estimate.Pro's saved material cost workspace lets you lock in your local pricing from your actual supplier — not a national index — so your margin holds. --- ## How the App Works for a Fence Contractor **1. Walk the property.** Use AR measurement on supported devices — ONNX-assisted live AR — to capture linear footage of fence runs, gate openings, and corner counts. On older phones or from photos, measurements are flagged as estimates so you know what to verify. **2. AI scope-of-work.** The app reads your measurements and generates a scoped estimate: post count, panel count, gate hardware, concrete bags, labor hours by task. You review and adjust. You are not locked into defaults. **3. Price it.** Your saved material cost workspace carries your Wayne County supplier rates. Labor rates are yours to set. The estimate reflects your actual cost structure, not a national template. **4. Send it.** PDF bid goes to the customer. On Pro and above, Stripe Connect handles deposit collection. Elite tier adds invoice exports for your bookkeeper. Platform fee is 0% on Pro+ plans. --- ## Pricing That Fits a Small Crew - **Free tier** — no credit card, no expiration. Good for getting started. - **Pro** — $39/seat/month. Full estimating, Stripe Connect at 3% platform fee. - **Elite** — $79/seat/month. Stripe Connect at 0% platform fee, invoice exports. - **Crew** — $399/month flat for a whole crew. One bill, unlimited seats. A two-person fence operation doing 12 bids a month doesn't need enterprise software. It needs something that works on a job site in Detroit in February. --- ## Detroit-Specific Details Fence Contractors Track Wayne County has active zoning enforcement. HOA overlap in Grosse Pointe and suburban Detroit municipalities means fence height restrictions vary from the City of Detroit baseline. When you're bidding across multiple municipalities — Detroit, Dearborn, Warren, Livonia — your scope needs to note the applicable code for that address. Estimate.Pro lets you add location-specific notes directly in the scope block. Spring is the busiest season for fence installs in Detroit. Ground thaws typically by mid-April, and homeowners book fast. Getting bids out in March — before the ground is fully workable — is how you fill a spring calendar. The 8-minute bid target exists so you can send three bids the same afternoon you walked three properties. --- Estimate.Pro supports 25 trades. If you also do gates, decks, or site work, those estimating tools are in the same account.