The comparison nobody prints
Ten estimating emails a day. Here is how to tell them apart.
Judge us the way you would judge any sub: by the paper, the turnaround, and who signs.
Nursultan Temirbaev, estimator of record — Indian Trail, NC · (980) 348-1827
| Test | Typical offshore takeoff mill | Mindatu |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs the number | Nobody. A PDF appears. | A named estimator of record, in North Carolina, with a phone number on every page. |
| What happens to gaps | Filled with assumptions, reported as quantities. | FLAGGED, with the sheet that failed and what would close it. We publish the ones we cannot prove. |
| Turnaround | "24 hours" on the ad; a week in practice. | Inside 2 business days, measured — and a reply within the hour. |
| Local wage & market fluency | None. National book medians, often 1.7× fat. | NC/SC open-shop rates, Davis-Bacon wage-basis tested on every public job. |
| Your documents | Unknown. Reused. Resold. | Stay in our shop in Indian Trail. Never resold, never used on another sub's bid. |
| After the takeoff | Gone. | Estimate, proposal, and the chase to won or lost. Then contracts flagged, change orders papered, submittals filed. |
| Prices | Quoted per email, drift per invoice. | Published. Every quote fixed before we start. |
| Conflict of interest | Also selling to your competitor on the same bid. | Mindatu never bids trade work, and never works both sides of the same job. |
Reply < 1 hr · Takeoff < 2 business days · No card · No login · No software
Free → 3 × $99 → $200 / takeoff → $300 estimate + proposal → department from $500/wk
Nursultan Temirbaev, estimator of record · (980) 348-1827
Run the same test on us
Three questions before you reply to any of them.
Who signs it?A name, a town and a phone number on the page — or a PDF with no one behind it.
What happens to the gaps?Ask for one line they could not prove. A shop that publishes its FLAGGED lines has nothing to hide in the GOLD ones.
Where are the prices printed?If the answer arrives by reply email, it will drift by invoice. Ours are on the pricing page, fixed before the work starts.
A closed public bid. Nine of nine rooms closed; five printed areas agree within ±10%; scale anchored at 0.111111 ft/pt across 50 sheets. The seven we could not prove are published with the sheet each failed on.
Open the sampleYour plans and your pricing stay in our shop. Never resold. Never used on another sub's bid.
Send us one bid.
Forward the invitation you are working on right now — portal link and all — to cs@mindatu.com. Nothing to fill out.
Free → 3 × $99 → $200 / takeoff → $300 estimate + proposal → department from $500/wk
Nursultan Temirbaev, estimator of record — Indian Trail, NC · reply < 1 hr · no card · no login · no software