TRUSTED BY 3,500+ CONTRACTORS & DEVELOPERS
We work with:
General Contractors
- Subcontractors
- Remodeling Contractors
Homebuilders
- Developers
Architects
“Most contractors are missing out on over $200,000 per month in project contracts and they don’t even know it. They are busy, have no time for takeoffs, and they are leaving money on the table. A lot of money.
We designed our construction takeoff service with the goal of helping our clients win projects and ultimately be successful.”
-Daniel Quindemil
Founder, I AM Builders
WHO IS I AM BUILDERS?
I AM Builders is a National Construction Estimating Firm in the business of helping contractors win projects.
With our construction estimating and takeoff services, we’ll help you prepare a budget for your new project.
Most contractors are so busy running their job sites that they NEGLECT their bidding. You’re supervising jobs, making deliveries, going to jobsite meetings, and the only time to work on bidding is NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
HOW CAN WE HELP YOU WIN MORE PROJECTS?
“I have NO TIME to estimate projects”
– Every Contractor in America
The enemy of every contractor is the lack of time. Most contractors are busy working IN the business rather than working ON the business. If that’s the case, you’re not alone. We’ve worked with over 1,400 contractors nationwide estimating and consulting, and that’s normal.
But you’ve probably tried doing it yourself, working at night after work…. probably even on the weekends on the kitchen table. We’ll find your leads for you and can even takeoff your complete construction project after so you can focus on running your business and getting your nights and weekends back.
Stop missing out on bids because of time.
You’re probably MISSING OUT on $200,000 per month because you’re busy
We did an analysis and more contractors are missing out on several projects per month that they can actually win because they are so busy they just pass them up.
Depending on what your average contract value is, most contractors are missing between $200-500K per month in sales because of being busy.
We’ll prepare your entire estimate for you so can keep bidding those jobs.
We can estimate your entire project for you based on your LOCAL PRICING so the numbers will be accurate
I AM Builders is US Based and a licensed General Contractor, so we have actual building experience.
We use a combination of a cost database and our experience to price your projects based on the zip code of your project (Note: Everyone at I AM Builders has actual field experience in construction, not just theory or “paper estimating”).
Pricing for labor and material varies by area and zip code, so we make adjustments for local labor rates, material pricing, and even look at the area’s property value to determine accurate pricing. That’s what makes our construction estimating service a great option for busy contractors.
We even back our estimates with a $1 MILLION ACCURACY GUARANTEE which covers all of our clients by our Errors and Omissions Insurance.
We can help you NEGOTIATE AND CLOSE based on proven strategies
Estimating is only a small part of what it takes to win a job. We like to see this as a TEAM EFFORT.
What do you do after the estimate to give yourself the best chance of winning? We can help you work the numbers when you’re negotiating, and even jump on a conference call with your client (as your estimating team) to help you close.
We can even advise you on EXACTLY WHAT TO DO to have them wanting to USE YOU instead of your competitor.
Over the last 10 years, and after speaking and working with THOUSANDS of Contractors, we get to see what WORKS and what DOESN’T. We have some clients landing 50% of their bids by implementing some of the strategies we can easily show you.
These aren’t strategies we made up – we listened to our clients and created our blueprint based on what they are doing right, and avoiding what they were doing wrong. Best of all….. it works for ANY CONSTRUCTION BUSINESS.
HOW DO I GET STARTED?
You Send in Your Plans
You can upload your plans here or email us at info@iambuilders.com. Whichever is more convenient for you.
Be sure to let us know your scope of work and any details regarding your project.
We Send you a Quote for Our Services
Before starting, we’ll send you a detailed quote for our services. Every client is unique so we take the time to review each situation individually. We’ll factor in things like project range, difficulty, trades, and more.
We Estimate and Deliver Your Cost Estimate
Our team will takeoff and estimate your project. When we deliver you’ll receive a PDF and an Excel file of your estimate. We can also offer construction lead generation services for the jobs you’d like to pursue further.
What makes a Missouri bid different
Missouri doesn’t have a building code.
Not a weak one. Not one with holes in it. There is no mandatory statewide building or energy code, and no state agency has the authority to write one. Every city and county that wants a code adopts it by ordinance, on its own schedule. The legislature has been asked to change that and hasn’t.
So on a Missouri job, the code question is a city question.
Kansas City runs the 2018 I-codes — building, residential, mechanical, existing building — effective June 28, 2020, with the 2017 NEC and the 2018 Uniform Plumbing Code. Then it moved the energy code on its own, to the 2021 IECC, effective July 1, 2023. St. Louis is on the 2018 IBC and the 2018 IECC, both effective August 1, 2018, the 2017 NEC, and a 2021 Uniform Plumbing Code adopted in February 2023.
Read that again. Same state, four hours apart, and the envelope sits a full code cycle apart. A wall assembly that clears plan review in St. Louis is not automatically the wall you build in Kansas City.
Outside the cities it gets looser. Plenty of Missouri ground has no adopted code at all. On those jobs the drawings and the engineer are the code, and the estimate has to say what standard it priced to, because no inspector is going to say it for you.
And under the southeast corner of the state is the New Madrid Seismic Zone. That’s not history. It’s a design category.
Four things that get missed on a Missouri construction estimate
Every one of these has cost somebody real money. We see them monthly.
1. The materials tax rides on you. In Missouri the contractor is the consumer of the materials. You pay the tax when you buy them and it stays in your cost, not the owner’s. Separately stated repair labor isn’t taxed. Fabrication labor is — even when you itemize it separately. Shop-built millwork, fabricated steel, anything cut and formed before it gets to the site: that’s fabrication, and it’s taxable.
2. The project exemption certificate, and who has to hand it to you. A school district, a church, a city, a county, a charity — those owners can issue a Form 5060 project exemption certificate, and you buy the materials for that specific project tax-free. The Department of Revenue does not issue it. It’s a transaction between the exempt owner and you, under section 144.062. If you bid a school job assuming that certificate turns up and it doesn’t, you’re going to eat the tax on every pallet that lands.
3. Prevailing wage starts at $75,000. Missouri public works valued at more than $75,000 carry prevailing wage. The rates come out of the Annual Wage Order, built from contractor surveys filed by January 31, and they’re set by county and by occupational title. There is no single Missouri rate. A carpenter hour in Jackson County is not a carpenter hour in Butler County, and a bid that carries one number statewide is wrong in most counties.
4. New Madrid. Missouri DNR lists the at-risk counties running from the Bootheel — Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Dunklin, Butler — up through Scott, Stoddard, Bollinger, Cape Girardeau and Perry, and on to St. Louis city and county, Lincoln, Pike, Marion and Lewis. Three quakes believed to be magnitude 7.0 or larger hit between December 1811 and February 1812. The last strong one was a 6.7 near Charleston in 1895. Some scientists put a magnitude 7.0 to 8.0 event at about 10% in 50 years. What that buys you in an estimate is anchorage, bracing, connection hardware and nonstructural restraint — real quantities, on real line items. The Rock Garden house on this page is in Cape Girardeau. That’s on the list.
Missouri projects we’ve actually priced
We don’t ask you to take our word for it. Sixteen real Missouri estimates are on this page — four in each of the four categories we work in. $37M of construction value across 127 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 retail, institutional and specialty buildings.
- TM Fieldhouse, Lee’s Summit – $4.3M (64063)
- Dental Depot, Lee’s Summit – $4M (64086)
- First Missouri Project Freedom Bank, Cassville – $1.1M (65625)
- Checkers And Rallys, St. Louis – $332K (63107)
Multi Family and Apartments — apartments, condos and multi-unit housing.
- City Place, St. Louis – $14.7M (63102)
- The Mabion, Kansas City – $4.7M (64109)
- Chai Apartments Rehab, St. Louis – $2.4M (63146)
- Ozark 2-Plex Housing Units, Eminence – $768K (65466)
Residential — custom homes, additions and whole-house work.
- Barndominium Project, Branson – $884K (65615)
- 20019 Sunrise, Clinton – $662K (64735)
- Rock Garden Lot 20, Cape Girardeau – $634K (63701)
- Pool House Addition, St. Louis – $202K (63124)
Tenant Buildouts — interior fit-outs in existing buildings.
- IHOP (Remodel Former Abuelo’s), Kansas City – $1.1M (64153)
- Ignite Medical Resort – St. Mary’s, Blue Springs – $710K (64014)
- Dollar General, Kansas City – $401K (64119)
- Octapharma Plasma, St. Louis – $147K (63116)
Four building types. Kansas City across to St. Louis, Branson and the Ozarks down to the Bootheel. From a $147K plasma center fit-out to a $14.7M apartment building downtown. That range is the whole point — most shops price one lane and call it a service.
Look at City Place in St. Louis. $14.7M and thirty-nine pages, because a downtown residential building is priced unit by unit and common area by common area — corridors, lobbies, stairs, trash rooms, every floor its own set of finishes. Nobody gets that number right with a square-foot multiplier.
Then look at the Checkers And Rallys in north St. Louis. $332K, and still eleven pages. A small drive-thru restaurant is concrete, masonry, carpentry, thermal and moisture, doors, finishes and equipment — eight or nine trades on a building you could walk in twenty seconds. Small doesn’t mean simple, and pricing it like it does is how a job goes underwater.
Where we work in Missouri
We estimate statewide. Here’s where the volume actually is.
Kansas City metro. Kansas City, Independence, Lee’s Summit, Blue Springs, Liberty, Raytown, Belton, Raymore and Riverside. The 2018 I-codes with a 2021 energy code sitting on top. Eight of the sixteen estimates above are metro KC jobs. Note that Kansas City, KS is a different state with a different code — we price both, but they are not the same estimate.
St. Louis metro. St. Louis city, St. Charles, Ladue, Bridgeton, Florissant, Chesterfield and O’Fallon. Older code year, older building stock, and a lot of rehab work where existing conditions drive the number. Five of the sixteen are St. Louis jobs.
Springfield and southwest Missouri. Springfield, Nixa, Ozark, Branson, Bolivar, Joplin, Cassville and Carthage. Tourism and resort work around Table Rock and Branson, plus the fastest-growing residential market outside the two big metros.
Mid-Missouri. Columbia, Jefferson City, Rolla, Clinton and Sedalia. University and state work, which means public bodies, which means the $75,000 prevailing wage threshold and the Annual Wage Order for that county.
Southeast Missouri and the Bootheel. Cape Girardeau, Poplar Bluff, Sikeston, Dexter and Eminence. New Madrid country. Seismic detailing is priced, not assumed.
Northwest Missouri. St. Joseph, Kearney, Cameron and Maryville. Long hauls, thin sub markets, and durations that have to reflect both.
Every one of those cities has its own page with local detail. Start there if you want the county-level specifics.
Who our Missouri estimating service is for
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.
Missouri added 8,300 construction jobs in the year to June 2026 — a 5.5% gain, one of the strongest in the country. That’s more invitations than most shops can answer. If you’re a GC in Missouri turning down bid invitations because you can’t get numbers out fast enough, you’re going to keep leaving work on the table until somebody else does the takeoff for you. That’s what our Missouri 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 your city’s code edition, on your county’s wage order, with your state’s materials tax sitting in the right column. Not a national square-foot average with the word Missouri written on top.
Send us your plans. We’ll tell you what it costs.
