About SharpBid Estimating
SharpBid is a quantity takeoff and estimating support practice for specialty subcontractors, based in Metro Vancouver and working across Canada. We count what's on the drawings and hand you a workbook you can bid from. You keep your unit rates, your suppliers and your margin — we just make sure the numbers underneath them are right.
Fifteen years of
senior estimating
Behind SharpBid is 15+ years of senior estimating experience on Metro Vancouver multifamily, mixed-use and commercial projects, in both wood-frame and concrete. That's the reason the trade pages on this site read the way they do: head-of-wall deflection, contact area versus volume, and the division-of-work line at a bulkhead aren't researched topics here, they're the daily work.
Every takeoff is measured by that same senior estimator. There are no juniors learning on your bid and nothing is farmed out to a third party or offshore. That's a deliberate constraint on how much work can be taken at once, and it's also the whole proposition — when the counting is what you're buying, who does the counting is the product.
How SharpBid
works
On-Screen Takeoff and Bluebeam Revu
Measurement is done in On-Screen Takeoff and Bluebeam Revu, with the workbook built in Excel. The marked-up plans you receive are the actual measurement overlays, not a presentation made afterwards — which is what makes every quantity checkable against a coloured area on a sheet. Nothing you receive needs special software to open.
CSI MasterFormat, or your cost codes
Workbooks are organized to CSI MasterFormat by default. Send your own cost code list and they're built to that instead, so quantities drop into your estimating system without anyone re-mapping them by hand. Takeoffs are delivered in the units you bid in — metric or imperial, or both columns where your suppliers and crews disagree.
The assumptions page is the important page
Every takeoff carries a written basis of measurement: deduction rules, waste stated per material rather than buried in quantities, drawing conflicts flagged with the sheets they come from, and exclusions listed rather than implied. It's the page that lets you defend your number in a scope meeting, and it's why it's never optional.
CCDC-fluent
CCDC contract forms are standard across Canadian construction and familiar territory here. A takeoff is a quantity document rather than a contractual one, but the assumptions and exclusions page is written so it can be attached to a bid and stand up to being read closely.
Your drawings are never shared
Client drawings, quantities and numbers are never shared, published or reused, and nothing goes to a third party. The sample workbook on this site is a fictitious project for exactly that reason — showing a real client's file to sell work would tell you everything you needed to know about how yours would be handled. If your own confidentiality agreement needs signing, send it.
On time or 50% off
Every written quote carries a delivery date. If the takeoff arrives after it, you pay half — no fine print and no business exceptions. The only thing that moves the date is an addendum that changes scope, and that reset is confirmed in writing before work continues. One revision round and bid-period addenda are included in the fixed price.
What we don't do
Published plainly, because a service that claims everything is useless for deciding whether to send drawings.
- No mechanical or electricalSharpBid does not take off Divisions 21 through 28 — no ductwork, piping, conduit or cable tray. Items in those divisions that create work in your scope, like roof penetrations or painted grilles, are still counted for you.
- No engineeringStructural design, member sizing, connection design, shop drawings, thermal modelling and energy compliance are engineering scopes. A takeoff measures what's drawn; it doesn't design it.
- No pricing by defaultYou keep your unit rates. Price placeholders are an optional add-on at +15% if you want the workbook bid-ready on arrival.
- No work under $450Below the minimum engagement, senior review can't add enough value to be worth your money, and a cheap mill is the better fit. We'd rather say so than take the job.
- Most other CSI divisions, yesThe nine trades on this site are where the work concentrates, but coverage spans most of CSI MasterFormat outside MEP. If your scope isn't listed, ask.
Send the drawings.
Fixed quote in 4 hours.
Three fields and a drawings link. A fixed price and a guaranteed delivery date come back within 4 business hours — no meetings, no sales pitch. Or email info@sharpbid.ca and call (604) 245-4344 if it's urgent.
Where we work
…and anywhere else in Canada — everything is digital.