Chicago, IL
HARDSCAPING / PAVERS ESTIMATING.

## Hardscape Estimating in Chicago Moves Fast — Your Bid Has to Keep Up Chicago's hardscape season is compressed. You get roughly five to six months of reliable install weather before freeze-thaw cycles make fresh base compaction a liability. That means bids stack up in April and May, and the contractor who responds first with a clean, priced scope usually wins the job. Estimate.Pro gives Chicago hardscape contractors a repeatable process from walkthrough to sendable bid in 8 minutes. --- ## What Makes Chicago Hardscape Estimating Different **Frost depth drives your base spec.** The Chicago metro frost depth is 42 inches per the Illinois State Water Survey frost penetration data. Every paver patio, driveway apron, or retaining wall you price needs to account for proper aggregate base depth and compaction to meet that threshold. Underestimating base material is the most common margin killer on Chicago flatwork jobs. Estimate.Pro's ICPI-aligned base calculator prompts you to enter frost depth and surface loading class, then computes granular base volume automatically. **Permit exposure in Cook County is real.** Hardscape work in Chicago that involves grading, drainage alteration, or retaining walls over 30 inches requires a permit through the Chicago Department of Buildings. Permit fees are calculated per project valuation — budget roughly $150–$350 for a standard residential paver patio permit in the City of Chicago. Suburban Cook County municipalities vary; Oak Park, Evanston, and Naperville each have their own fee schedules. Estimate.Pro lets you add a permit-fee line item during scope build so it never gets absorbed into your labor margin. **Material lead times affect your carry cost.** Belgard, Unilock, and EP Henry all distribute through Chicago-area yards, but specialty tumbled pavers and large-format slabs can run two to three weeks out during peak season. If you're pricing a job in April for a May start, your material cost line needs to reflect current yard pricing, not last year's saved quote. Estimate.Pro's saved material cost workspace lets you update your Chicago-area supplier pricing once and push it across all active estimates immediately. **Labor rates have climbed.** Skilled hardscape installers in the Chicago metro currently run $55–$75 per hour for experienced crew, with foreman rates pushing higher on union-adjacent residential projects in North Shore municipalities. Accurate crew composition in your estimate — not a flat per-square-foot labor guess — is the difference between winning profitable work and winning jobs that lose money. --- ## How Estimate.Pro Works for Hardscape Contractors **Walk the site. Measure with AR.** On supported devices, Estimate.Pro's ONNX-assisted live AR measurement captures patio footprints, wall runs, and step counts directly from your phone. Camera and photo measurements are flagged as estimates so you know which numbers need field verification before you finalize. **Build the scope in plain language.** Describe the job — paver type, pattern, base spec, edge restraint, drainage, lighting rough-in — and the AI scope builder generates a line-item scope of work aligned with ICPI installation standards. No template hunting. **Price it with your numbers.** Your saved material costs and labor rates populate automatically. Adjust quantities, swap paver SKUs, add the permit fee, and you have a priced estimate ready to send. Median time from walkthrough start to sendable bid: 8 minutes. **Get paid faster.** Pro+ users pay zero platform fee on payments processed through Stripe Connect. On the Free tier, the platform fee is 3%. Invoice exports are available on Elite. --- ## Pricing - **Free** — no credit card, no expiration, core estimating tools - **Pro** — $39/seat/month, saved cost workspace, full AR measurement - **Elite** — $79/seat/month, Stripe Connect payments, invoice exports - **Crew** — $399/month flat for multi-seat operations --- ## Built for 25 Trades Including Hardscape Estimate.Pro supports 25 trades. If your crews also do landscape drainage, concrete flatwork, or outdoor lighting, those scopes are built into the same platform. One login, one saved cost workspace, consistent proposals across every job type you run. Chicago hardscape contractors compete on responsiveness and professionalism. A detailed, accurate bid sent the same day as the walkthrough closes jobs that a slow turnaround loses. Estimate.Pro is built to get you there.