ESTIMATING

Project Cost Estimator with SUMIF & VLOOKUP

12 min read · Template referenced below

Manually retyping unit prices into every estimate invites mistakes and makes it painful to update pricing later. Linking your estimate sheet to a separate price list with VLOOKUP fixes both problems at once.

Build a price list tab.
On a separate sheet named "Prices," list every material or labor item with its current unit cost — Item Name in column A, Unit Cost in column B.

Pull prices into your estimate automatically.
In your estimate sheet's Unit Cost column, use =VLOOKUP(A2,Prices!A:B,2,FALSE) — this looks up the item name in column A and returns its price from the Prices tab.

Calculate line totals.
=Quantity*UnitCost as before, now driven by a price that updates everywhere the moment you change it once on the Prices tab.

Roll up totals by trade with SUMIF.
=SUMIF(TradeColumn,"Electrical",LineTotalColumn) gives you a trade-by-trade breakdown for the bid summary page without manual re-entry.

Set the Prices tab up once at the start of a season and just update unit costs there as suppliers change pricing — every past and future estimate referencing VLOOKUP will reflect the update automatically going forward.

This structure turns a one-off estimate into a living pricing system: update a material cost in one place, and every project template that references it recalculates instantly.

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