St. Louis, MO
IRRIGATION / SPRINKLER ESTIMATING.

## Irrigation Estimating in St. Louis Moves Fast — Your Bids Should Too St. Louis has a split climate that makes irrigation work genuinely demanding. Hot, humid summers push cool-season turf like tall fescue and Kentucky bluegrass to stress limits, and homeowners call for system expansions or full installs from April through June before the heat index climbs past 100°F. Fall startup and spring blowout cycles keep crews booked, but the margin is in the design-build installs — and that's where a slow bid process costs you real money. Estimate.Pro is built for contractors who do the walkthrough, price the job, and send the proposal the same day. The median time from walkthrough to sendable bid is 8 minutes. --- ## What Makes St. Louis Irrigation Estimates Different **Clay-heavy soils change your head design.** The St. Louis metro sits on expansive Menfro and Winridge silt-loam soils with clay-heavy subsoil layers. Infiltration rates run slow — often under 0.3 inches per hour in established lawns — which means you're designing around lower precipitation rates and longer run times. Your bid has to account for matched precipitation-rate heads and cycle-and-soak programming, not a generic coverage layout. **Backflow and permit requirements add to every job.** The City of St. Louis and St. Louis County both require a licensed irrigator or plumber to install and test the backflow preventer on any potable connection. Missouri's plumbing code, enforced locally under Chapter 10 of the St. Louis County Building Code, requires a permit for new irrigation systems with a dedicated meter or connection to domestic supply. Permit fees in unincorporated St. Louis County typically run $75–$150 for residential systems depending on connection type. Forgetting that line item on a bid kills margin. **Water districts affect design scope.** Customers in Missouri American Water territory face tiered conservation rates in drought-declared periods, which is common during July–August in the St. Louis metro. Specifying weather-based ET controllers (WBIC) in your bid is increasingly a selling point and sometimes a requirement for rebate programs. That equipment upsell belongs in your estimate template, not added as an afterthought. --- ## How Estimate.Pro Works for Irrigation Contractors **Walkthrough to bid in one session.** Use the AR measurement tool on supported devices to capture zone boundaries and head spacing on-site. Camera and photo measurements are flagged as estimates so you know what to verify. Back in the app, the AI scope-of-work generator turns your site notes into a structured bid line by line. **Your material costs, not ours.** You store your own pricing in the saved material cost workspace — Hunter, Rain Bird, Toro, whatever you actually buy from your supplier. The app prices off your numbers, not a national average that doesn't reflect St. Louis distributor pricing. **Zone-by-zone line items.** Residential installs in the St. Louis metro average 4–6 zones for a standard residential lot. The app structures estimates by zone so clients see exactly what they're buying. That transparency shortens the approval cycle. **No platform fee on Pro+.** When you send an invoice through Stripe Connect, the platform fee is 0% on Pro and Elite plans. Free tier runs 3%. --- ## Pricing - **Free** — no credit card, no expiration, 3% Stripe fee on invoices - **Pro** — $39/seat/month, 0% Stripe platform fee - **Elite** — $79/seat/month, Stripe Connect, invoice exports - **Crew** — $399/month flat for the whole shop --- ## Built for the St. Louis Season Irrigation install demand in St. Louis peaks April through early June before heat stress and drought restrictions slow new work. Winterization calls cluster in October and November. If you're still building bids in a spreadsheet during the spring rush, you're leaving jobs on the table — not because you can't do the work, but because the proposal didn't get out the door in time. Estimate.Pro runs on your phone at the job site. You close the truck door and the bid is already drafted. Start free. No credit card.