Seattle, WA
FOUNDATIONS ESTIMATING.

## Foundation Estimating in Seattle Is Not Generic Work Seattle sits on loose glacial till, liquefiable fill, and expansive marine clay. A foundation bid in Ballard is a different animal from one in Bellevue or Renton. Soil reports routinely come back with recommendations for helical piers, grade beams, or structural fill that can swing your material costs by $15,000 on a single residential job. If your estimate template was built for flat Midwestern lots, you're leaving money on the table or losing bids you should have won. Estimate.Pro is built around the actual line items foundation contractors price every day: excavation depth and shoring, forming and stripping labor, concrete volume and mix design, rebar schedules, waterproofing membranes, drainage mat and footing drains, anchor bolt patterns, and inspection holds. You enter what you walked, the app prices it. ## Seattle's Seismic Requirements Add Real Cost Seattle is in Seismic Design Category D. The Seattle Building Code (based on IBC 2021 with local amendments) requires continuous footings with minimum 16-inch width, specific rebar lap lengths, and anchor bolt spacing that differs from standard residential practice. For any project near a liquefaction hazard zone — a mapped risk in large parts of the Duwamish Valley, SODO, and Georgetown — a geotechnical report is mandatory before permit issuance. That report costs $2,500–$6,000 and affects your scope directly. Estimate.Pro lets you flag IBC seismic provisions in your scope-of-work draft. When you walk a site and note "seismic zone D, continuous footing with #5 rebar at 18 inches," the AI scope generator writes the spec language, and the line items populate with your saved material costs. No hunting through a spreadsheet. ## Permit Fees in King County Are Not Trivial The City of Seattle uses a valuation-based permit fee schedule. A residential foundation replacement or repair in the $80,000–$120,000 construction value range typically carries a building permit fee of $1,800–$3,200 plus a plan review fee of roughly 65% of the building permit fee. Add a $50 technology surcharge and State Building Code Council fees. These costs belong in your estimate, not in your margin. The app includes a permit fee line item you can populate directly from the Seattle DCI fee schedule. You can save your own verified numbers and update them when the City revises its fee table — which it does periodically. ## Walkthrough to Bid: 8 Minutes The median time from finishing a site walkthrough in Estimate.Pro to a sendable bid is 8 minutes. That covers: - AR-assisted measurements on supported devices (camera and photo measurements are marked as estimates) - AI scope-of-work generation from your site notes - Line-item pricing pulled from your saved material cost workspace - Client-ready PDF with your logo, scope language, and exclusions For foundation work that means you can hand a homeowner in Crown Hill a written scope covering soil conditions, forming, concrete spec, waterproofing, and drainage — before you've left the driveway. ## Pricing That Fits a Small Crew or a Larger Operation Estimate.Pro runs on a free forever tier with no credit card required. When you're ready for more: - **Pro** — $39/seat/month. Full estimating, saved cost workspace, AR measurement. - **Elite** — $79/seat/month. Adds Stripe Connect invoicing with 0% platform fee and invoice exports. - **Crew** — $399/month flat. Unlimited seats for larger foundation crews. On the Free tier, Stripe Connect carries a 3% platform fee. Pro and above: 0%. ## What Seattle Foundation Contractors Actually Estimate The 25 trades in Estimate.Pro include foundations as a dedicated trade — not lumped under "general construction." The calculators relevant to your work include: - **Concrete volume calculator** — enter footing dimensions, slab thickness, and wall height; get cubic yards with a standard 10% waste factor you can adjust - **Rebar weight estimator** — bar size, spacing, and lap length inputs keyed to ACI 318 - **Drainage and waterproofing takeoff** — linear feet of footing drain, square feet of membrane, cubic yards of crushed drain rock - **Shoring and forming cost estimator** — form rental versus buy-out decision built in Your saved material cost workspace stores your current pricing from Stoneway Concrete, Salmon Bay Sand and Gravel, or whatever suppliers you use. The estimate always reflects your actual costs, not a national average. ## Get Started Before Your Next Site Walk Create a free account at Estimate.Pro. No credit card. No sales call. Load your material costs, walk your next job, and send a bid the same day.