Estimark and HBXL EstimatorXpress, compared for UK builders

UK small builders and developers, with build-ups written around UK construction and Building Regulations, sold direct and through builders merchants.

• If a UK contractor already owns estimating software, this is the one they are most likely to own.
• The drawing and 3D side is a separate HBXL product, PlansXpress, bought alongside the estimator or bundled with it.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.

A price book of 25,000+ merchant products with labour rates and assemblies over it, parametric take-off, on-PDF measurement, and a quote that turns into the job.

• The price book holds 25,000+ products scraped from UK merchants, with more than one supplier against an item and the price history behind it.
• Assemblies store the recipe and never the cost. Components are read from the price book and the labour rates at the moment of use, so a supplier price change reaches the next quote without anybody re-editing an assembly.
• Where a cost came from is ranked. A figure you typed beats one learned from your own merchant invoice, that beats an uploaded price list, and that beats a scraped list price. A margin resting on the last one is flagged as unearned.
• Take-off is parametric. Change a wall height from 2.4m to 2.7m and the quantities and the price follow, with nothing redrawn.
• Quantities can also be measured on a PDF drawing and pushed straight onto the quote.

NoteThe price book is merchant products and what they cost. It is not a measured-work rate library coded to NRM or SMM, and Estimark produces no standard-form bill of quantities.

HBXL lists EstimatorXpress Essential at £899 per licence a year, ex VAT, read on its own site on 15 September 2026. Solo is £39 a month +VAT, and the price book, labour rates, assemblies and take-offs are in it.

• Buying the licence outright is £1,599 ex VAT, with support and updates at £359 a year ex VAT once the first twelve months are up.
• The monthly figure on HBXL’s own pricing page, £29.99 ex VAT, buys support and updates for a licence you already own rather than the software.
• HBXL prices each extra licence separately and asks multi-licence buyers to ring, so a firm putting it on several machines will not find its own total printed anywhere.
• Estimating is commonly sold as a separate licence or a tier up. Estimark puts no plan gate on the price book, the labour rates, the assemblies or the take-offs.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.

No, and the two are priced apart. The price book, the labour rates, the assemblies and the take-offs are not metered. Estimark AI is.

• Drafting a bill of quantities from a description or an uploaded document draws on a monthly allowance. Past the allowance, AI runs on credit you top up.
• Automatic top-up is off until you turn it on, and you can set a monthly spend limit. With top-up off, AI stops and you get an email rather than a charge.
• The scope check, which reads a finished quote and lists what jobs like it priced that yours does not, is the one AI feature with a plan floor under it. Pro is £299 a month +VAT.

It handles the four obligations a UK contractor is judged on: CIS deduction, the VAT domestic reverse charge, Construction Act payment timing, and the safety records that go with them.

• CIS deducted on labour only, excluding materials, VAT and plant hire, on 6th-to-5th tax months, with HMRC verification when connected and the CIS300 recorded with both statutory declarations.
• VAT domestic reverse charge under section 55A: the statutory wording on the invoice, nil VAT, controlled per client.
• Payment applications with Construction Act dates, the pay less deadline calculated, and retention tracked to release.
• RAMS with operative sign-off, inductions, permits and a live muster roll, plus EIC, EICR, Minor Works, PAT and CP12 certificates with typed test results.

NoteEstimark records the CIS300 and locks it to its tax period. It does not file the return to HMRC on your behalf.

The drawing kit, the structural side and the certification. Where Estimark stops, so you can weigh it before you start a trial.

• There is no CAD-style drawing tool and no 3D photo visualiser. The 3D is geometry that exists to produce quantities: no mesh, no free-form surface, no solid modelling kernel.
• The take-off is not structural. No beam, no span, no load and no lintel sizing. Structural work is referred to an engineer and what the engineer returns is stored.
• There are no decades of Building-Regulations-tied build-ups behind the price book. It is merchant products, labour rates and assemblies you build and keep.
• Estimark holds no security certification: no ISO 27001, no SOC 2, no Cyber Essentials.
• It does not file a CIS300 to HMRC on your behalf, and it does not take card payments from your customer on your behalf.

When you want the drawing and the 3D alongside the estimate, or when the Building-Regulations-tied build-ups are the thing you are buying.

• A builder who draws the plans and prices from them in one package is buying PlansXpress with the estimator, and Estimark has no equivalent.
• A firm whose estimating already works, and whose problem is CIS, applications and site paperwork, is buying the other half.
• A perpetual licence you own outright is a different commercial shape from a monthly subscription, and some builders want the first one.

NoteEstimark describes its own product here. For the other product’s current price and what it covers, read that vendor’s own site.