A rate book you control
Your labour rate, your material prices, updated when your supplier changes them. Everything else is downstream of this.
Canadian estimating
Built for the way you actually file.
Most estimating software is built in the United States for builders far larger than you. It prices in USD, models sales tax you do not charge, and has never heard of WSIB or the Construction Act.
What “Canadian” has to actually mean not a currency setting
HST At your provincial rate, on the estimate and the invoice, with input tax credits tracked so the return comes out of the ledger.
CAD throughout No conversion, no numbers you have to translate and then distrust.
WSIB In your burdened labour rate, so an hour is priced at what it truly costs you.
Holdback The statutory 10% under the Construction Act, held and released on the right date.
Your suppliers Your rate book, not a database of US averages your lumberyard has never been in.
The tax point is the one that costs money
And you find out at filing
The problem: US tools model state sales tax, which behaves differently from HST and is not recoverable the way input tax credits are. If your software does not understand that, the number it hands you either overstates the job to your client or understates what you keep.
Plenty of software will happily take your money in Canada. Very little of it is built for how you actually file — and the gap only shows up months later, when it is expensive.
- HST collected and paid have to be separated as transactions arrive, not reconstructed in April
- Payroll deductions are CRA and WSIB, not federal and state withholding
- Holdback has no US equivalent, so it simply is not modelled
A US-built tool, in Ontario
Sales tax modelstate, not HST
Input tax creditsnot tracked
Payrollno WSIB
Holdbackno concept
Material pricingUS averages
What a small crew actually needs
Shorter than the feature comparisons suggest.
Nine years of quoting renovation work, and the honest list is four things.
Fast enough to do in the truck
An estimate that takes ninety minutes gets done at 9pm or not at all.
Something the client can read
Phases and a total, not a 200-line CSI breakdown that invites an argument about your markup.
A link to the job
The estimate becomes the budget, and the budget is what you check real costs against. Otherwise you never find out which jobs made money.
What you do not need: bid levelling, subcontractor ITB packages, CSI cost codes, or a takeoff tool that wants a full plan set. Those exist for commercial general contractors, and they are why most estimating software feels like wearing someone else’s coat.
Why takeoff software does not fit
You have a walkthrough, not a drawing set.
WalkthroughPhotos & measurementsDescribed scopeQuantitiesYour pricesQuote
Dedicated takeoff tools measure off drawings — and assume you have them. Most renovation work does not. The useful automation here is not plan measurement, it is turning a described scope into quantities. Different problem, different tool.
When Contrax is not the answer
Worth saying plainly, because switching is not a small decision.
- You bid commercial hard-bid work. You need CSI codes and formal ITB packages — use a real commercial estimating tool.
- You work from full plan sets daily. A dedicated takeoff tool will measure drawings better.
- You are in the US. The Canadian tax work is the point of this, and it is worth nothing to you.
- You have no rate book and do not want one. The whole approach depends on your prices existing somewhere.
What it costs
Estimating, CRM, projects, crewincluded
Invoicing, books, HST returnincluded
Unlimited users, AI usageincluded
First 3 months$49.99/mo
After that$150/mo flat
Try it on a real job.
Load your rates, describe a job you have already quoted, and compare. Built and used daily by a renovation contractor in Oshawa.
7 days free · no credit card · then $49.99/mo for 3 months