Which jobs are worth chasing, and two numbers on the ones you pick.

Outsourced estimating for small to medium commercial, sitework, and landscape contractors in Ontario. Complete bid packages in your name, with what the job costs you and what it takes to win.

Send a tender Call 1-888-330-6372

On your first three tenders, we tell you free whether each one is worth bidding for your company, within one business day.

Market-calibrated bid numbers: Your Cost vs. The Winner.

Two numbers on every bid: what it costs you, and what it takes to win. You set your margin knowing both. Always fighting for the win.

Why the takeoff decides the job

When a contractor bids a job, someone has to go through the drawings and measure everything: every metre of curb, every square foot of paving, every fitting. Those quantities become the price. Get one wrong, or miss one entirely, and you either lose the job or win it and lose money building it.

Every number we produce is checked at least two ways. Anything the drawings cannot support is flagged in writing, not guessed. Everything on the drawings that was not measured is listed, so nothing gets skipped quietly.

In this business the silent killer is not a price five percent off; it is a whole item nobody noticed until the job is losing money.

Accuracy

Tested blind against real Ontario tenders. Every sheet opened and accounted for, nothing dropped. On the largest tender, our reconciled blind estimate landed within one percent of the winning bid.

Services

Bid Package

The whole bid, in your name, ready to send.

Every sheet read and logged before a number is produced
Full trade quantities in every package (doubles as a handout for your subs)
Every unknown in writing: RFIs and stated assumptions, never priced through silently
Two numbers: your cost, and the winning number
Sub and supplier quotes solicited and leveled where the scope needs them
Bid forms, addenda acknowledgments, and bonding paperwork checklist completed
Value-engineering alternates on priced scopes
Change order and addendum pricing
One firm-up pass included in the flat fee

See what you get. Three samples:

Sample Bid Package (PDF): the whole bid, on a sealed tender.
Sample Scope and Quantities Package (PDF): the entry tier on the same job. Same quantities, no pricing.
Sample Price Submission (PDF): on a private job with no tender form, this letter is the bid. Comes with the Bid Package.

Entry tier: Scope and Quantities Package. Quantities and scope, or the whole bid. Start with one, upgrade to the other. Everything above except pricing, quotes, and forms; fee credited in full on upgrade within the bid window.

Seasonal Contract Pricing

Landscape maintenance and snow and ice contracts, priced on production rates, not guesses.

Site-by-site takeoff of turf, beds, hard surface, and plow and salt areas
Production-rate pricing from a deep four-season field background
Salt and de-icer volumes built from area and event assumptions you can defend
Bid forms and unit-rate schedules completed for municipal and commercial tenders
Two numbers here too: your cost, and the winning number

Sample Seasonal Contract Pricing (PDF): snow and ice on a three-site commercial portfolio.

Sample Grounds Maintenance Pricing (PDF): lawn and grounds care on the same three sites, with the full year priced together.

Tender Desk

The parts of bidding that eat your week.

Subcontractor and supplier quote solicitation and bid leveling
Tender submission preparation and completeness checks
Progress billing and payment application support, reconciled against measured work in place
Overflow estimating capacity by the hour when your desk is buried

Lead Desk

A weekly list of tenders and bid invitations matched to your trades, region, and job size, with our call on whether each one is worth bidding.

Every feed we watch, swept every week
Matched to your trades and territory, not a firehose
A call on every lead, so you never open a tender we already know is not worth your week
Closing-date board kept current
First flagged job's scope read included; first paid month credited against the first bid package you take

How it works

Send the tender. Forward the email, the link, or the drawings.
Get our answer. Within one business day we tell you whether it is worth bidding for your company.
Get the package. Complete and in your name, with every unknown written down and two numbers on the price.
Set your margin and send it. Your name, your reputation, your customer.

Who this is for

Small to medium commercial general contractors and subtrades bidding ICI, municipal, and residential work across Ontario. Landscape, sitework, excavation, and hardscape contractors. Snow and ice contractors.

Advertising for an estimator you cannot find? Rent the desk instead. A full-time seat costs salary, benefits, software, and a three-month search; a delivered bid costs a flat fee and arrives this week.

Also available, on request

Site visits and scope verification on scheduled days, Golden Horseshoe and Southern Ontario
Claims and dispute documentation: cost and quantum packages prepared to a standard counsel can use
Estimating systems and job-costing setup: budget versus actual by phase, with dashboards your foreman will actually read
Proposal and presentation support for negotiated work
Business development support on retainer, scoped after an intake conversation and taken on only when you and the numbers agree it will earn its fee

About

James Christopher, President, Mercenary Estimating. Hamilton, Ontario.

James has 15 years in contracting. He started in the field, in sitework, excavation, hardscape, landscape, and snow and ice services, then moved into ICI, municipal, and residential construction estimating across every division. Along the way he has been General Manager of a landscape company, Managing Director of a construction company, and Director of Sales and Estimating at another, and he set up the estimating and job-costing systems they all ran on.

He works jobs from tender to closeout, through drawings, specifications, addenda, change orders, and progress billing, and has government RFP and municipal tender experience on both the bidding and the delivery side. His numbers come from what is actually on the ground.

Credentials

Bachelor of Science Program, McMaster University
PMP Certificate
Smart About Salt accredited since 2015

Memberships

Member, Canadian Institute of Quantity Surveyors, Ontario (CIQS Ontario)
Member, Hamilton-Halton Construction Association
Member, Grand Valley Construction Association
Member, Landscape Ontario, 2743470 Ontario Inc. o/a Mercenary Estimating

Fees

A flat fee for each item we deliver, sent to you for approval before we start. We invoice on delivery; on your first item, half is due at the start.

Scope and Quantities Package: from $350
Bid Package: from $600, by job value
Seasonal Contract Pricing: from $400 for one site
Tender Desk: per item, or $85 per hour for overflow
Lead Desk: from $450 per month, first thirty days free

One firm-up pass included on every package. Fees are before HST. Full terms sheet (PDF).

FAQ

Whose name is on the package?

Yours. Everything is prepared in your name, ready for you to send to your customer. Nothing on it says Mercenary.

Do you price the same job for two clients?

Never. One client per tender.

Do you keep my information confidential?

Yes. Your rates, customers, quotes, and documents are used only to prepare your work. They are never shared with another client, and never put into any service that would take rights over them.

What do you need from me?

The tender documents, a few details on your crews and workload, your rates and subs where you have them, and your margin decision. Where you do not have rates, we set market rates and tell you what we used.

How fast?

Whether a job is worth bidding: within one business day. Quotes within two business days of complete site notes. Bids within five business days or by an agreed date before closing. Need it sooner? Rush work carries a 25 percent premium on that item's fee, agreed before work starts.

Do you guarantee a win?

No. A complete, correctly priced bid raises your odds; open tenders draw five to ten bidders and most bids lose, which is why we tell you which ones to chase.

I already price my own bids. Why would I call you?

For a second number. We price the job on our own from the same documents, and you check yours against it before the bid goes in. Where the two differ, you know where to look.

Can I just get the quantities?

Yes. The Scope and Quantities Package is the entry tier, credited in full if you upgrade to pricing within the bid window.

Do you take jobs outside Ontario?

Yes. We prepare the same items for jobs in any province, and for US and international work. Send the project; we assess it and reply with a fee quote and turnaround. Fees are in Canadian dollars.

Hired guns for your bids.

Contact

Send a tender: estimating@mercenaryestimating.com

Call toll-free: 1-888-330-6372

Direct line: (289) 780-8206

Hamilton, Ontario. Serving Ontario.

Send a tender Call 1-888-330-6372