Portland, OR
FOUNDATIONS ESTIMATING.

## Foundation Estimating in Portland Is Not a Generic Problem Portland sits on the Willamette Valley floor and the western slopes of the Tualatin Mountains. A significant portion of older housing stock — particularly in neighborhoods like Sellwood, St. Johns, and the inner eastside — was built on continuous concrete, brick, or even rubble-stone foundations that pre-date modern code. You are not just pouring footings. You are diagnosing differential settlement, waterproofing basements against the Willamette's high water table, and navigating Oregon's seismic hazard zone requirements. That complexity is exactly where estimating errors get expensive. A missed line item for drainage mat, a miscalculated pier count, or an omitted moisture barrier spec can erase a job's margin before the first shovel breaks ground. Estimate.Pro is built for that kind of job. ## What the App Does for Portland Foundation Contractors **AR-Assisted Measurement on Site** On supported devices, the ONNX-assisted live AR measurement tool lets you capture footing runs, crawlspace dimensions, and wall heights during the walkthrough — not back at the truck from memory. Camera and photo measurements are flagged as estimates so the record is always clean. **Scope-of-Work Generation** After the walkthrough, the AI scope builder drafts the full work description: excavation, forming, concrete pour spec, rebar schedule, waterproofing system, drainage, backfill, and compaction notes. You review and edit. The median time from walkthrough to sendable bid is 8 minutes. **Your Own Material Cost Workspace** Portland ready-mix prices, drain tile costs, and vapor barrier pricing are not static. The saved material cost workspace lets you store and update your actual supplier pricing — Knife River, CalPortland, or whoever you pull from — so the estimate reflects what you are actually paying, not national averages. **Foundation-Specific Line Items** The foundations trade registry in Estimate.Pro includes line items for continuous footings, spread footings, helical piers, mudjacking, crawlspace encapsulation, sump installation, and interior/exterior drain tile systems. Oregon residential and commercial work is covered in the same workflow. ## Portland Code and Permitting Context Portland sits in Seismic Design Category D per ASCE 7. That means anchorage requirements, hold-down hardware, and cripple wall bracing are not optional line items on a residential foundation repair or replacement. If your scope touches the existing structure, you need those items in the estimate or you will be writing a change order. Oregon One and Two Family Dwelling Code (OAR 918-480) governs residential foundation work. Portland Bureau of Development Services issues structural permits; foundation-only scopes typically require a Type II structural permit with engineer review for anything beyond straightforward replacement-in-kind. Permit fees are calculated on project valuation using BDS's fee schedule — a $60,000 foundation project typically lands in the $1,200–$1,600 permit fee range before plan review surcharges. Crawlspace waterproofing and vapor barrier work tied to a sump installation may also require a plumbing permit from BDS depending on how the discharge is routed. ## Pricing That Fits a Contractor's Budget Estimate.Pro runs on three paid tiers. Pro is $39 per seat per month. Elite is $79 per seat per month and adds Stripe Connect invoicing and invoice exports. Crew is $399 per month flat for the whole crew. There is also a free forever tier — no credit card required to start. On Free tier, Stripe Connect carries a 3% platform fee. On Pro and above, that fee drops to 0%. ## Why Foundation Contractors Specifically Foundation work has a short window between site assessment and when the homeowner calls the next contractor. A bid that takes three days to build loses to a bid that arrives the same afternoon. The 8-minute draft target exists because that is the actual competitive window in a market like Portland where owner-operators and regional firms are both quoting the same jobs. You do not need a separate spreadsheet, a separate template library, and a separate invoice tool. The scope, the estimate, and the payment collection live in one place. Start with the free tier, run a real job through it, and see what the time difference is.