Reusable cost modules
Capture how your company builds and prices a cubic meter of concrete: materials, crews, yields, waste, assumptions, and scope. Reuse that module across projects and adjust it when the work calls for different judgment.
Your company already knows how to price this.
Darwin keeps your company's estimating knowledge inside the company. Even when people leave. Even when prices change.
Steel went up?
- One minute laterNew Price List applied
- Original estimateStill untouched
- Your logicDidn’t change
The same concrete. The same walls. The same crews.
Your company prices them again and again. Darwin gives that experience a permanent home.
Years of yields, crew compositions, waste factors, supplier knowledge, and hard lessons often live in copied spreadsheets and a few people's heads.
A new project starts from a blank sheet or an old file, even when the company has priced the same work many times. When prices change, someone updates hundreds of cells by hand and hopes the formulas still hold.
When a senior estimator leaves, the company can lose decades of judgment. Darwin keeps that knowledge available to the people pricing the next project.
We love Excel. We just stopped asking it to be our memory.
Your assemblies are already in Excel. Start there.
Most companies already have years of cost assemblies and unit price breakdowns in spreadsheets. Send the workbook as it is, or fill in Darwin’s template. Darwin reads each assembly, rebuilds its cost line by line, and compares it with the total in your file, so you see any difference before anything is imported.
Nothing enters the catalog until a person reviews it. Each imported module then goes through your normal verification before the team reuses it.
Build the logic once.
Use it with today's prices.
A new estimate starts from what your company already knows and carries that decision through approval, Cost Control, and human-reviewed improvement.
Separate Price Lists
Prices live apart from your cost logic. Apply a different Price List to a finished estimate and watch the full estimate recalculate side by side. The original stays untouched, and you can always see which prices were used.
Quantities from IFC, 2D PDF, or manual takeoff
Bring quantities from IFC models, measure 2D PDFs, or enter them manually. BIM is welcome and never required. It can speed up quantity work, while the estimator keeps responsibility for scope, interpretation, and judgment.
Formal review and approval
Review assumptions, quantities, and prices before approval. Darwin records who approved what and which Price List they approved. If changes are needed, the estimate returns for revision with the decision clear.
Cost Control from the approved baseline
The approved estimate becomes the baseline. Cost Control tracks actual costs, invoices, and commitments against it by cost group, module, and system, so the team can see budget, committed cost, and actual cost together.
A learning loop a person reviews
When actual cost differs from the approved baseline, the variance can become a proposed improvement to a module. A person reviews the evidence and decides whether to accept it. Human judgment remains part of every learning step.
Darwin Drive: files beside the decisions
Keep IFC models, drawings, quotes, contracts, and Price Lists with the project and estimate they support. Your team can find the source behind a number without reconstructing the decision from email.
Start the next estimate from what your company already knows.
Reuse the work
Pull proven modules, load the quantities, and apply the Price List for the project. Estimators spend their time reviewing assumptions and applying judgment instead of rebuilding familiar work cell by cell.
Reprice without rebuilding
Apply another Price List and see the recalculated estimate beside the original. Your logic stays intact, the approved history stays available, and the effect of the market change is clear.
Improve with a person in the loop
Compare the approved baseline with actual execution. Useful variance becomes a proposed module improvement that an estimator reviews and accepts when it reflects how the company should price future work.
From the first request to the real cost of the work.
Darwin follows the way a construction team moves from a request to an approved estimate and then controls the cost of the work.
A request arrives. The estimator pulls reusable modules, loads quantities, and applies a Price List. A reviewer checks assumptions and prices. An approver formally accepts the estimate, which becomes the baseline for Cost Control. Actual costs are tracked against it.
When execution differs from the baseline, Darwin can turn that variance into a proposed module improvement. A person reviews the proposal and chooses whether it belongs in the company's estimating knowledge.
Built for companies that price the same kind of work every month.
- Commercial and industrial builders. Warehouses, industrial buildings, free-zone projects, and commercial fit-outs.
- Electromechanical and MEP subcontractors. HVAC, electrical, fire protection, and plumbing packages priced with imported materials.
- Interior fit-out contractors. Offices, retail, and corporate interiors with scopes that repeat.
Inside those companies
Owner / General Manager
Signs off every bid. Sees who approved each estimate and under which prices, without depending on one person’s spreadsheet.
Chief Estimator
Keeps the company’s unit price library in one place, sets the review standard, and answers “how much if steel goes up 12%?” without rebuilding the estimate.
Estimator
The way you build the work lives in the catalog, and the next estimate starts from it. You still decide what goes in.
Project Manager / Cost Controller
Commitments, invoices, and actual cost against the approved baseline, with variance that can become a reviewed improvement.
Start with the core.
Expand as your workflow demands.
Darwin Core
Projects, estimates, reusable modules, assembly import from Excel, separate Price Lists, materials, labor, expenses, and reporting. Your company's estimating knowledge in one system.
Darwin BIM + QTO
Optional IFC import and mapping, 2D PDF takeoff, clear quantity sources, and manual workflows. The estimator remains responsible for interpretation and scope.
Darwin Workflow
Work requests, tasks, price reviews, formal approval decisions, and clear handoffs between each step.
Darwin Cost Control
Approved baselines, actual and committed cost tracking, variance reporting, and proposed improvements reviewed by a person.
Darwin is available in English and Spanish. Additional languages on request.
Every project teaches the next one. That's why it's called Darwin.
See the reprice in action: apply a different Price List, watch the estimate recalculate, and compare it with the original that stays untouched.
We work closely with construction teams to capture their estimating knowledge, approve a baseline, and carry it into Cost Control.
Claude Development Network Member · Made in Costa Rica 🇨🇷 · Available in English and Spanish