Massachusetts Construction Estimating Services

Massachusetts has one building code. That sounds simple. It isn’t.

The 10th edition of 780 CMR took effect on October 11, 2024, and it’s built on the 2021 model codes — IBC, IRC, existing building code, energy code. The grace period where you could still file under the 9th edition ended June 30, 2025. So every set of drawings you price today is a 10th-edition set, whether it’s a triplex in Northfield or a motel in Gloucester. No city-by-city code shopping like Texas. The inspector in Springfield and the inspector in Boston are reading the same book.

The energy code is where it splits. The base is the 2021 IECC with Massachusetts amendments. On top of that sits the Stretch Code, and on top of that the Specialized opt-in code. As of May 2026, 302 cities and towns had adopted one or the other — that’s more than 92% of the people in the state. In practice, the base code is the exception. If you’re pricing a house in a Specialized Code town, the building has to be wired for full electrification of space heating, water heating and any gas appliance load, even if the owner is installing gas today. That’s panel size, conduit and feeder that a base-code estimate never carries.

Then the tax. Massachusetts treats you, the contractor, as the consumer of everything you install. You pay sales tax on the materials when you buy them, and you don’t charge the owner tax on the labor as long as the labor is stated separately on the invoice. Lump it together and the whole charge can get taxed. Public and nonprofit work flips the other way — materials going into a town building or a church are exempt if you hand the supplier a Form ST-5C. Get that certificate before you order the steel, not after.

Every one of these has cost somebody real money. We see them monthly.

1. The energy code the town actually adopted. Three tiers, and the drawings don’t always say which one applies. A Stretch Code envelope and a Specialized Code envelope aren’t the same insulation, the same windows or the same mechanical package. If you price the base code in one of the 302 Stretch or Specialized towns, you’re going to eat the difference at rough inspection.

2. The electrification wiring. Under the Specialized Code, new buildings need electric service and wiring sized for future heat pumps, electric water heating and every gas appliance they might replace. That’s a bigger service, bigger panels and dedicated circuits to the mechanical room. It belongs in Division 26 on day one.

3. The Boston permit line. Boston’s Inspectional Services schedule runs $10 per $1,000 of estimated cost of work on a long-form permit, plus a $50 primary fee. On a $5.3M building like the Mamleo project in Dorchester that’s over $53,000 before anyone opens a drawing. It goes in General Conditions, and it scales with the number you’re about to submit.

4. The ST-5C on exempt work. Parish hall, public library, town water building — the materials are exempt from sales tax if the supplier has your Contractor’s Exempt Use Certificate on file. Miss it and you’ve paid tax the owner never reimburses. Put a line in the estimate for it, then make sure the purchasing side actually files the form.

We don’t ask you to take our word for it. Sixteen real Massachusetts estimates are on this page — four in each of the four categories we work in. $70.3M of construction value across 120 pages of takeoff and pricing. Open them. Read the line items. See exactly what you get before you send us a single sheet.

Commercial Buildings — ground-up institutional, hospitality and assisted living.

• Mamleo Project, Dorchester – $5.3M (02121)
• All American Assisted Living Facility, Wrentham – $2.6M (02093)
• Long Beach Motel, Gloucester – $2.3M (01930)
• Blessed Sacrament – Parish Hall and Rectory, Greenfield – $1.4M (01301)

Multi Family and Apartments — apartments, condos and multi-unit housing.

• Walk Hill Residences project, Roslindale – $33M (02131)
• Brierneck Crossing, Gloucester – $5.6M (01930)
• 54 Eastern Ave, Malden – $4.7M (02148)
• Triplex Project, Northfield – $1.3M (01360)

Residential — custom homes, additions and whole-house remodels.

• Tanglewood Dr, Concord – $5.2M (01742)
• 77 High Street Remodel, Clinton – $3.5M (01510)
• Stockdale Rd Project, Needham – $1.4M (02492)
• 25 Riverview Dr, Newburyport – $518K (01950)

Tenant Buildouts — interior fit-outs in existing buildings.

• Launch Trampoline, North Attleboro – $1.9M (02760)
• Planet Fitness Jamaica Plain – $688K (02130)
• Daves Hot Chicken, Wales – $508K (01081)
• Melrose Dunkin – $345K (02176)

Four building types. Boston’s neighborhoods out to the North Shore, MetroWest, the Pioneer Valley and the Rhode Island line. From a $345K Dunkin’ to a $33M apartment development. That range is the whole point — most shops price one lane and call it a service.

Look at the Concord house. Tanglewood Dr is $5.2M and ten pages, because a house at that level carries an elevator, a gym floor, slate roofing and a millwork package that runs to its own division. Every one of those is a separate takeoff, and the alternates are shown as alternates — priced, but kept out of the total so the owner can see both numbers.

Same story on the Greenfield parish hall. $1.4M, eight pages, sitework through finishes. That’s exempt-entity work, so the material lines are priced knowing the ST-5C takes the tax off — a number that looks wrong next to a taxable retail job until you know why.

We estimate statewide. Here’s where the volume actually is.

Boston. Dorchester, Roslindale, Jamaica Plain, Roxbury, Mattapan, Charlestown, East Boston and South Boston. Three of the sixteen estimates above are Boston jobs, and every one of them carries the ISD fee math.

North Shore and Merrimack Valley. Gloucester, Newburyport, Melrose, Malden, Peabody, Lynnfield, Lowell and Lawrence. Four of the sixteen are here — two of them in Gloucester alone.

MetroWest and the 495 belt. Concord, Needham, Clinton, Maynard, Natick, Framingham, Billerica and Acton. Custom residential country. The Tanglewood house and the Stockdale Rd house are both on this page.

South Shore and the Rhode Island line. North Attleboro, Wrentham, Brockton, Weymouth, Quincy and Plymouth. Launch Trampoline and the Wrentham assisted living facility are here.

Western Massachusetts. Springfield, Greenfield, Northfield, Holyoke, Northampton and the Berkshires. Longer hauls, thinner sub markets, and the same 10th-edition code as everyone else. The parish hall and the triplex are both Franklin County jobs.

Cape Cod and the Islands. Barnstable, Hyannis, Dennis, Eastham, Nantucket and Edgartown. Ferry logistics for every delivery. If you price a Nantucket job like a Needham job, you’re going to lose the material line before you’ve framed a wall.

Every one of those cities has its own page with local detail. Start there if you want the county-level specifics.

General contractors bidding hard-bid and negotiated work. Subs who need a takeoff that survives a scope review. Developers who want a real number before they commit capital. Architects who’d rather price a design now than explain a surprise at bid day.

Massachusetts added 3,700 construction jobs between May and June 2026, the third-largest monthly gain of any state. The work is there. If you’re a GC turning down invitations because you can’t get numbers out fast enough, you’re going to keep leaving it on the table until somebody else does the takeoff for you. That’s what our Massachusetts construction estimating services are built to fix. You send the plans. We send back a priced estimate with the quantities shown, in a format you can hand straight to a client or an owner.

We’re not a lead service and we’re not a software subscription. A person does the takeoff. Another person checks it. You can call and ask why a number is what it is, and get an answer.

What you’re hiring is a cost estimator who has already priced work under the 10th edition, under your town’s energy code tier, with the ISD fee and the ST-5C already in the sheet. Not a national square-foot average with the word Massachusetts written on top.

Send us your plans. We’ll tell you what it costs.