St. Louis, MO
HARDSCAPING / PAVERS ESTIMATING.

## Hardscape Estimating in St. Louis Moves Fast — Your Bids Need To Match St. Louis sits on expansive clay-heavy soils that shift with freeze-thaw cycles. Every patio, driveway, and retaining wall you build here carries that risk. A bid that ignores proper base preparation — compacted aggregate, geo-textile fabric, and adequate drainage — will cost you the job on price or cost you a callback after the first winter. Estimate.Pro keeps those line items in your template so they never fall out of a quote again. The metro spans two states and dozens of municipalities, each with its own permit requirements. A retaining wall in Chesterfield gets reviewed differently than one in the City of St. Louis proper. You already know this. Your estimate needs to reflect permit fees accurately before you hand it to a homeowner. --- ## What Makes Hardscape Estimating Different Here **Freeze-thaw base specs.** Missouri sits in USDA Hardiness Zones 5b–6b. St. Louis averages around 14 freeze-thaw cycles per year. ICPI (Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute) base depth recommendations for Zone 5 call for a minimum 6-inch compacted aggregate base for residential driveways. Skimping on this number to win a bid is how you lose reputation. Estimate.Pro lets you lock that spec into your default paver templates so estimators can't accidentally shave it off. **Retaining wall engineering thresholds.** Missouri requires a licensed engineer's stamp on retaining walls exceeding 4 feet in exposed height in most jurisdictions. That engineering cost is a real line item. Build it into your wall estimates at the project level before you quote. **Material cost volatility.** Concrete pavers, natural bluestone, and polymeric sand have seen significant price movement. The saved material cost workspace in Estimate.Pro lets you update unit costs in one place and have them propagate across all open estimates — no more calling clients to re-negotiate because your clay brick price from last month is stale. **Grading and drainage scope creep.** St. Louis's clay soils drain poorly. Catch basins, French drains, and channel drains regularly get added mid-project. AR-assisted measurements on supported devices let you walk a sloped backyard, capture the grade change, and flag the drainage scope in your walkthrough notes before the estimate is drafted. --- ## From Walkthrough to Sent Bid in 8 Minutes Estimate.Pro is built around a single workflow: walk the job, let the app capture measurements and scope, then review a line-item estimate that's ready to send. The median contractor hits a sendable bid in 8 minutes. For a mid-size patio with a short retaining wall and a drainage outlet — a common St. Louis backyard job — that means you can quote it on-site before you leave the driveway. The app uses ONNX-assisted live AR measurement on supported devices. Camera and photo measurements are marked as estimates so your client knows the difference. You review, adjust for any site-specific conditions — say, a level-change transition at a sliding door threshold — and send. --- ## Calculators Built for Hardscape Scope - **Paver quantity calculator** — accounts for pattern waste factors (herringbone runs 10–15% waste vs. 5% for running bond) - **Base aggregate calculator** — inputs: square footage, compaction depth, compaction factor - **Retaining wall block calculator** — course height, batter, and cap row included - **Polymeric sand coverage** — joint width and paver thickness drive the output - **Slope and drainage flag** — notes added during walkthrough carry into the scope-of-work automatically All calculators reference your saved material cost workspace, so the numbers that come out match your actual supplier pricing, not national averages. --- ## Pricing That Makes Sense for a Crew If you're running a two- or three-person hardscape crew in St. Louis, the Crew plan at $399/month flat covers everyone with no per-seat math. Solo operators and small shops can start on the Free tier — no credit card, no time limit. Pro is $39/seat/month. Elite, at $79/seat/month, adds Stripe Connect invoicing with 0% platform fee and invoice exports for your accountant. Start with the Free tier today. Build a template for your standard St. Louis patio package — base spec, edge restraint, polymeric sand, and drainage outlet — and you'll have a repeatable bid in place before your next site visit.