The setup walkthrough — step by step
Most contractors spend their first hour on the platform building an estimate before they realize their material prices, labor rates, and overhead are still the defaults. Don't be that guy. Here's the actual order to set things up so the very first estimate you build is dialed to your real numbers and ready to send.
Set up your material library before anything else
Open the Business Inputs page and walk through the materials list. We come pre-loaded with hundreds of common landscape and hardscape products at solid average prices — but YOUR local supplier almost always charges something different.
Spend the first hour on the phone with the suppliers you actually buy from. Update each material's price in the app to match what you actually pay. Pavers, base aggregate, mulch by the yard, plants by size, polymeric sand by the bag — every line. Skip this and the AI estimates jobs at industry averages from three states away. Get this right once and every estimate from this point forward is dialed to YOUR true cost.
Plug in YOUR rates, not industry averages
Same Business Inputs page — scroll down. Enter the hourly rate for every machine you own (mini-ex, plate compactor, dump trailer, skid steer). Enter your foreman, crew, and subcontractor labor rates. Then enter your monthly overhead: insurance, truck payments, fuel, shop rent, software, phone.
The AI uses these to calculate machine-hours, crew-hours, and the overhead allocation that gets baked into every job. Without your real numbers, you'll quote jobs that LOOK profitable but actually don't cover your fixed costs once the truck payment comes due. With your real numbers, every estimate has a true margin you can trust.
Describe a real job in plain English
Open the Estimates tab. Type a description like you'd text a buddy: "20x20 paver patio with a charcoal border, sitting wall along the back, and some plant beds around the edges." The AI parses the scope, asks a couple of clarifying questions, and builds the full breakdown.
Materials by quantity, labor hours by phase, equipment time, overhead allocation, and your margin. Review every line. Adjust margin up or down depending on the customer or competition. Hit Save. The estimate now lives in Saved Estimates with a "Not Sent" status — ready to send when you're confident.
Send by email, text, or share link
From the saved estimate, hit Send. Three options: Email it directly to the customer with a PDF attachment, Text them a link to a customer-facing view they can review on their phone, or generate a printable PDF. The instant you send it, the status flips from Not Sent to Pending automatically.
The customer-facing view is mobile-optimized and has a big green Accept Estimate button at the bottom. When they tap it and confirm, the estimate's status flips to Won, you get an email notification, and the customer sees an "Accepted" thank-you state. No more "I sent the quote, now I'm waiting on a phone call" — they accept right from the link.
Show them what they're getting before they sign
For higher-end jobs, a visual proposal closes 2-3× more than a written one. Open the Design tab. Drag-and-drop pavers, walls, plants, and lights onto a real-scale canvas. Pick paver patterns and colors from the Techo Bloc / Belgard / Unilock catalog built in.
Switch to 3D mode and walk the customer through their finished patio with landscape lighting on at dusk. Save the design and attach it to the estimate. Customers stop comparing your bid to the cheaper guy's flat PDF and start picturing themselves in the space. The design tool is a Pro tier feature and one of the biggest reasons people go from $50/mo to $100/mo.
Drop the finished project right onto the customer's yard photo
The killer Pro feature. Snap a photo of the customer's yard from the angle they'll see the finished space. Type what you want: "paver patio with charcoal border, sitting wall on the left, fire pit in the center." AI generates 4 photorealistic "after" renders right on top of THEIR actual yard photo.
Pick the variant they like best, type any refinements ("make the pavers grey", "add string lights overhead", "show this at dusk"), and AI re-renders 4 new variants. Attach the final to the estimate. Customers don't squint at a sketch trying to imagine it — they SEE it. This is the feature that gets the homeowner saying "yes" before you've even quoted the price.
Send leads a link that does the discovery call for you
Text or email any lead a shareable link. They land on a clean, branded page, answer a few AI-guided questions about style and color, pick materials they love from YOUR catalog, snap a photo of the space, and generate their own AI render of the finished project — all before you ever pick up the phone.
Their submission lands in your dashboard with everything pre-filled: scope, budget, timeline, the materials they loved, their photos, and the AI mockup they generated. One tap turns it into an estimate. No more back-and-forth texts asking "what kind of paver did you want again?" No more site visits just to gather info. The customer does the legwork on their own time and you get a ready-to-quote lead.
Turn an accepted estimate into a signed contract in one click
Once a customer accepts the estimate, open the Contracts tab and hit Make Contract. The estimate's scope, customer info, and pricing pre-fill. Add the payment schedule (50% deposit / 50% on completion is the standard), warranty terms, and any special conditions.
AI generates a multi-section contract with proper trade language. Send the customer a share link — they review it on their phone, sign on a touch screen with their finger, and you get a signed PDF in your inbox plus a copy stored in Saved Contracts. No printing, no scanning, no chasing signatures across three back-and-forth emails.
Send the invoice, customer pays online, money hits your account
Job's done. Open Invoices, generate from the won estimate (or build standalone), set the amount, and send. Customer gets an email with a Pay Now button. They click it, enter their card, and Stripe processes the payment — money in your account in 2 business days.
QuickBooks integration pushes every invoice straight to QBO if you use it, so your bookkeeping happens automatically. Track paid / unpaid / overdue invoices on the dashboard. Set up Stripe Connect once at the start (10-minute onboarding) and from then on every invoice is one tap to send and one tap for the customer to pay.
