Estimating takes time and effort. Whether you’re working on construction or software, the best estimating tools help teams plan and avoid costly mistakes. Rather than waiting until design is complete or major milestones are reached, estimation tools bring the entire team together to make better forecasts. They also support the new workflows that are arising with new collaborative, real-time, transparent project delivery.

Using a simple spreadsheet or even a calculator is just not enough to ensure accurate project completion dates. The more details you know about the project, the more precise your estimates can be. Time and cost estimation software can calculate quantities from blueprints and local labor rates, help estimate materials, and break down project timelines into phases. Some of these products also allow you to convert estimates into job schedules and purchase orders with Gantt views, dependencies, and progress tracking.

Smarter Project Planning with Timefly’s Tools

TimeFlys are prone to overfitting. The problem is that they learn to recognize patterns in their training data and miss important factors when attempting to predict new problems. This type of heuristic bias is often referred to as the “unknown unknowns” and can have major impacts on project completion times.

ClickUp offers a wide range of ways to estimate time or costs. You can create custom fields, back them with formulas, and view estimates in a Gantt or list view. You can also set up a project roadmap with custom milestones and dependencies. It has a built-in task manager and time tracking and is available as a SaaS solution for teams of up to 50 users.