For miscellaneous metals contractors
Miscellaneous metals estimating software built on assemblies
Stairs by risers, railings by the foot, lintels, embeds, epoxy anchors, grating and deck, each one a priced assembly with its shop labor already worked out.
The problem
Misc metals is a thousand small items, and the labor is in all of them
A ton of railing has far more cuts, welds and pieces than a ton of beams. Price it by weight alone and you lose money on every foot. Price it by hand, part by part, and the estimate takes all week.
The scope is scattered too: lintels on the elevations, embeds in the slab details, a ladder on the roof plan, a rail on a civil sheet. Kredna is built so each of those becomes a priced assembly in a couple of clicks.
Assemblies
Draw the run. The assembly prices itself.
Each assembly is made of priced parts: members weighed by their own price tags, hardware, and labor minutes. Every part becomes its own pricing line that follows the takeoff.
Stairs by risers
Build a stair once: width, riser, tread depth, stringers, tread type and railing on one or both sides. Then take it off by typing risers × flights.
- Pan treads with concrete fill, grating, checker plate or bent plate
- Tread material, weight and shop minutes from your stair tread rates
- Ready-made 44" pan stair and 36" grating stair to start from
Railings priced per foot
Every railing is an assembly per foot of run, worked out by the railing calculator. Click along the run; press / to start the next run of the same railing.
- Rails, posts at a spacing and height, pickets, kick plate, side-mounted handrail and brackets
- Posts with base plates and anchors, cored, side mounted or embedded
- Each part weighed and priced as its own line; shop welds from your standards
Lintels, embeds and plate
A lintel is its steel piece: take off the angle or plate by length, or type the count straight from the lintel schedule. Embeds and base plates go in by size.
- Plate by width × length × thickness × quantity, with live weight
- Add holes, welds, studs and plates from the Fabrication dialog
- Any item by number from a schedule: 24 EA, 120 LF, × typical floors
Epoxy anchors
The epoxy anchor calculator works out the parts from rod diameter, embedment, projection, bit and sleeve size, so a count of anchors prices itself.
- Adhesive from the hole-to-rod gap × depth plus waste, bought in whole sleeves
- Drilling time scaled from your own "3/4" × 10" = 10 min" answer
- Starter items: 3/4" × 10", 5/8" × 6" and 1/2" × 4-1/2"
Grating and deck
Take off by area: click the corners or drag a box, then subtract openings. Items priced by the square foot don't need a weight to be priced.
- Openings over the edge only remove the part inside
- Overlapping openings count once
- Plate areas take a thickness and weigh themselves
Your own assemblies
Anything else you build again and again can be a recipe of priced parts and labor minutes, per each, per foot or per square foot.
- Materials at a price or a price-book tag
- Library members weighed and priced by their own tag
- Labor minutes at a labor category's rate
Ready on day one
Typical railings, every input editable
Start from a typical railing, change what this job needs, or make a custom copy for your own standard. Field minutes per foot are yours to set.
How assemblies are priced| Railing | Makeup |
|---|---|
| Handrail, wall mounted | 1-1/4" Sch 40 pipe, wall brackets 5'-0" o.c. |
| Handrail, floor mounted | 1-1/4" Sch 40 pipe, 34" posts 5'-0" o.c., base plates |
| Guardrail, double pipe | Top and mid rail, 42" posts 5'-0" o.c., 1-1/2" or 1-1/4" Sch 40; with a kick plate or cored posts |
| Guardrail, pickets | 1-1/2" Sch 40 rails, 1/2" square pickets 4" o.c., 42" posts; with a side-mounted handrail |
| Guardrail, square tube | HSS2x2x1/8 rails and posts |
Shop labor for every rail, post and tread
Answer a few questions about your shop once, such as how fast a welder lays a 1/4" fillet and how long a hole takes to drill. Railings and stairs then carry their own shop time: welds at every rail-to-post joint, picket ends and base plates, and tread minutes from your tread rates.
Pricing → Shop fabrication from takeoff totals the hours by kind of work, plus anchors, weld wire and gas, ready to price at your rates.
Find the scope hiding in the set
The optional AI drawing scan points out possible steel scope on the pages you choose: lintels, grating, stairs, rails, embeds and more. Tick the kinds of work you want, and repeated items across sheets show once, with every sheet listed.
Advisory only: nothing becomes cost until you take it off. Scans run on prepaid credits; see what they cost.
Scope letters that say exactly what you priced
Misc metals proposals live or die on inclusions and exclusions. Build them from your clause library, with conflicts between an inclusion and an exclusion flagged before you send, and your logo on every page.
Miscellaneous metals estimating, answered
How are stairs taken off?
By risers. Build the stair once with its width, riser, tread depth, stringers, tread type and railings, then take it off by typing risers × flights. Tread material, weight and shop minutes come from the stair tread rates you set in Settings.
Can I change a railing's makeup for one job?
Yes. Every input of a railing is editable: rail and post sizes, post spacing and height, mounting, pickets, kick plate and handrail. Change one and the parts are worked out again, keeping the prices you set. Use Make a custom copy to keep the standard railing as it was.
Does it work for jobs priced mostly by the piece?
Yes. Count takeoffs click each piece on the drawing, and any item can be entered by number from a schedule with Shift+Enter, such as 24 EA times four typical floors. Labor can be priced per piece, per foot, per square foot or by weight.
Will it find misc metals scattered through the architectural set?
The optional AI drawing scan looks at the pages you choose and points out possible steel scope, including lintels, stairs, rails, embeds and grating, with the evidence for each finding. You choose which kinds of work to look for, and you take off or dismiss each finding. It runs on prepaid AI credits.
What does it cost?
$1,500 a year for the company license plus $99 a month per estimator, with every feature included. AI features use prepaid credits.
Stop pricing railings by the pound.
Draw the run and let the assembly work out the parts, the weight and the shop hours. Set up in five minutes.
- Self-serve setup in minutes
- Cancel any time during the trial
- Windows and Mac