How to Calibrate Unit Costs

The best way to calibrate the MacNail construction estimating software or one of the HyperEstimators is to get them to hit "on the nose" for one or more projects you have already completed (or at least estimated by some other method). Once you know what it takes to get our numbers to match yours, you should be able to get acceptable accuracy on future estimates and bids.

NOTE-- We retired the MacNail and BidMagic estimating programs in 2000, and replaced them with Goldenseal construction estimating software. Goldenseal is an integrated program that also includes accounting, scheduling and contract writing. We keep these instructions online for our die-hard BidMagic MacNail users! The calibration process for the Goldenseal estimating software, is similar to that for our older programs.

Fortunately, our prices are much easier to adjust than those in an estimating book!

Calibrating our estimators is a four step process:

1. Figure your own actual costs for a project (or make a detailed estimate by hand).
2. Make a comparison estimate for the same project, using one of our programs.
3. Adjust the computer estimate until it matches your actual costs.
4. Use the new adjusted estimator for your future bids.

Of course, as time goes by you'll be able to use the same process to further increase the accuracy of your estimates-- especially once you have run some projects through the complete process of estimating and job costing. You'll use the same process described here to "tweak" our estimators to suit your own conditions.