What MeTabulator does
One building description in; a quote, a calc package, and a drawing set out.
Takeoff & estimating · Preliminary engineering · Drawing sets · 3D visualizer · Your catalog & team
Material takeoff & cost estimating
Describe the building — footprint, eave height, bays, wall enclosure, doors, insulation, concrete — and the takeoff follows: every beam, purlin, panel, trim piece, fastener, and yard of concrete, with stock-length cutting optimized to reduce drop.
- Prices come from your catalog: your suppliers' beams and panels, your labor rates, your margins.
- Live totals as you change the design — width, pitch, or a walk door, and the price updates.
- Excel export for the estimators who live in spreadsheets.
Preliminary engineering — shown work included
MeTabulator runs ASCE 7-16 wind, snow, and seismic loads and AISC 360-16 member checks against your building's geometry and site criteria, then sizes members from engine-verified options.
- No black boxes. Every computed value carries a calculation trace: the formula, the code citation (standard, edition, section), the inputs, and the result. Your engineer verifies instead of redoing.
- Editions never mix. A design run is locked to one code edition set (IBC 2021 + ASCE 7-16 + AISC 360-16); every criterion is visible and overridable by your engineer.
- Flags, not assumptions. Out-of-envelope conditions — partial enclosures, large openings, high seismic, and more — produce explicit review flags.
- The calc package exports as a PDF your engineer can mark up, with the review disclaimer on every surface.
Every engineering output is labeled PRELIMINARY — FOR LICENSED ENGINEER REVIEW. MeTabulator assists your engineer; it never replaces them.
Drawing sets in minutes
Numbered ARCH D sheets generated straight from the design: cover with verified criteria and review flags, foundation plan, red-iron framing, frame elevations, isometric overview, and connection details.
- DXF for the CAD crowd — one file per sheet, or a single file with a layout tab per sheet.
- Plot-ready PDF for everyone else — an ARCH D page per sheet, no CAD required.
A 3D visualizer that closes deals
Spin the customer's actual building around in front of them — colors, doors, roof pitch — while the price updates live. The 2D plan view and 3D model stay in sync with the estimate, because they're all the same building description.
Your catalog, your team
Every account starts from a complete, ready-to-use catalog — then it becomes yours. Prices mirror how metal actually gets bought: trim and fastener packages are priced per panel supplier (color-matched, the way you order them), framing carries your suppliers' stock lengths, and labor is your rates, not an industry average.
- Beams, purlins, panels and colors, doors, insulation, concrete, labor — all editable in a spreadsheet-style manager.
- A $0 price never hides: it flags on every estimate that uses it.
- On the Shop plan, your whole team estimates from one shared catalog — change a price once, every new quote uses it.