SteelFlo vs Tekla PowerFab Estimating (2027)
Tekla PowerFab is a fabrication management system; SteelFlo is a PDF takeoff tool. PowerFab prices, purchases, nests and tracks steel through your shop once a bill of material exists. SteelFlo produces that bill of material from the drawing PDF. Most shops comparing them don't need to pick one. They need to decide who does the counting.
That framing matters because the two products get lumped together on review sites as "steel estimating software," and they solve different problems. If you're on PowerFab (or still call it FabSuite) and your estimators are spending two days per bid with a highlighter before they ever open the Estimating module, this post is for you. If you're a small shop deciding whether you need a full MIS at all, it's for you too.
What does Tekla PowerFab Estimating actually do?
PowerFab is Trimble's fabrication management suite, built on the old FabSuite product. It's a set of connected modules: Estimating, Project Management, Purchasing, Inventory, Production Control and Shipping. The pitch is one database from bid to truck. Third-party reviewers like SoftwareConnect describe it as aimed at larger structural fabricators running many complex jobs, and list a high price and a steep learning curve as the main drawbacks.
Inside Estimating, according to Trimble's own PowerFab documentation, you can:
- Build estimates from items, accessories and parametric assemblies
- Apply labor codes and add operations like welding and burning
- Combine and nest material to plan stock usage
- Send material straight to purchasing
- Generate proposals (bid letters) from the finished estimate
- Export to KISS
That's a serious estimating engine. Labor codes tied to your shop's real production rates are something no takeoff tool replaces, and the hand-off from a won estimate to purchasing and production control is the whole reason shops pay for an MIS.
What Estimating doesn't do is read your drawings. Somebody has to tell it there are 46 W16X26 beams on this job and how long they are.
Where does the takeoff come from in a PowerFab shop today?
PowerFab's Estimating module imports material lists. Per Trimble's import documentation, it accepts IFC (the recommended format), KISS files, Bluebeam CSV markups and Microsoft Excel worksheets. So the takeoff arrives in one of four ways:
| Source | What it looks like | Who has it at bid time |
|---|---|---|
| IFC model | 3D model from the engineer or a detailer | Rare on hard-bid work; common on design-assist |
| KISS file | Bill of material out of a detailing package | Almost never before award |
| Bluebeam markups | Estimator counts and measures in Revu, exports CSV | Very common |
| Excel | Estimator keys a takeoff by hand, or exports from another tool | Very common |
On a typical hard-bid commercial job you get a PDF set and a bid date. No model, no KISS. That leaves Bluebeam or Excel, and both mean a person is clicking or typing every member. On a 40-sheet set with a few hundred members, that's where the estimator's day goes.
We cover the mechanics of the hand-off in detail in how to export takeoffs to Tekla PowerFab and STRUMIS: column mapping, grades, plates with no length, and why you should let PowerFab recalculate weight.
If you already live in PowerFab and want to see what skipping the hand takeoff feels like, run your next bid's PDF through SteelFlo's free plan. You get 3 takeoffs free and the BOM comes out as CSV or Excel, ready for the Estimating import.
What does PowerFab cost vs a per-month takeoff tool?
Trimble doesn't publish PowerFab pricing. It's quoted per shop, usually based on modules and users. SoftwareConnect lists a starting figure of $50,000 for a perpetual license as of September 2026, with the range going higher. Treat that as a ballpark, not a quote, and get current numbers from Trimble directly. Add implementation, training and annual maintenance, and a full PowerFab rollout is a capital decision.
SteelFlo publishes its pricing (as of fall 2026):
| Plan | Price | AI takeoffs | Seats |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 3 total | 1 |
| Pro | $399/mo | 10 per month | 1 |
| Business | $599/mo | 25 per month | 1 |
| Enterprise | From $1,499/mo | 60 per month | Custom |
The free plan also includes unlimited manual estimates and CSV export.
These numbers aren't directly comparable, and pretending they are would be misleading. PowerFab covers purchasing, inventory, production tracking and shipping. SteelFlo covers takeoff and a bid-stage price. The fair comparison is SteelFlo against the hours your estimators spend producing the material list that PowerFab imports.
Run that math for your shop. The BLS puts median cost estimator pay at $78,740 a year as of its 2025 data, about $37.86 an hour before benefits and overhead. If a hand takeoff on a mid-size job takes 8 hours and you bid 10 of those a month, that's 80 estimator hours, or roughly $3,000 in base wages alone, spent counting. Your own numbers will differ. Plug them in. The steel takeoff software pricing guide walks through the three pricing models you'll run into.
Side-by-side: setup time, learning curve, standards, export
| Tekla PowerFab | SteelFlo | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Fabrication MIS (estimating through shipping) | PDF takeoff + bid-stage pricing |
| Primary input | IFC, KISS, Bluebeam CSV, Excel | PDF drawing set |
| Who counts members | Estimator (in Bluebeam/Excel) or the model | Software finds and boxes every member label; estimator reviews |
| Labor pricing | Shop labor codes, operations, assemblies | Your own material, fab and erection rates in "Price This" |
| Nesting | Yes, combining and nesting in Estimating | Order Sheet with stock-length nesting |
| Purchasing, inventory, production | Yes | No |
| Setup | Configure items, labor codes and settings before first estimate | Upload a PDF |
| Pricing | Quoted, perpetual or subscription | Published, monthly |
| Standards | AISC plus libraries you configure | AISC, BS/IS, AS/NZS, EN, GB, CFS/SSMA (4,500+ sections) |
| Output | Estimates, proposals, POs, work orders | BOM/cut list (CSV, Excel), Order Sheet, live estimate |
Setup time is the row people underrate. Trimble's own guidance for Estimating is to set it up carefully before you create your first estimate: standard items, labor codes, options. That's correct for a system that's going to run your shop for a decade. It also means a new PowerFab install is weeks to months from first useful bid.
SteelFlo's setup is uploading a drawing set. The trade-off is depth. SteelFlo doesn't know your shop's minutes per cope or your burn table speeds; it prices from the rates you enter.
Can you use SteelFlo and PowerFab together?
Yes, and for most PowerFab shops that's the setup that makes sense. The workflow:
- Upload the PDF set to SteelFlo. Every steel member callout on every sheet gets a box. The count is the number of boxes, so 7 boxes labeled W10X15 means 7 pieces, and each one traces back to a spot on a specific sheet.
- Review. Confirm or reject boxes, fix anything that's wrong, add anything that's missing. This is where the estimator's judgment goes, instead of into counting.
- Export the cut list as CSV or Excel. One row per piece with section, length, weight rate and the sheet it came from.
- Import into PowerFab Estimating through the Excel import, map the columns once, and save the template.
- Price, apply labor codes, nest and build the proposal in PowerFab like you already do.
You keep PowerFab as the system of record. Labor codes, purchasing and production all stay where they are. What changes is that the material list shows up in an hour or two of review instead of a day of clicking. The integrations and export overview covers the file formats in more detail.
Two practical notes. First, let PowerFab extend the weights from its own section library and use SteelFlo's weight column as a cross-check. If the totals disagree by more than rounding, look for a mismatched section name. Second, grades don't come off the drawings per member (they're in the general notes), so set defaults by material type in PowerFab.
Which shops should stay PowerFab-only?
PowerFab on its own is the better answer in a few situations, and it's worth being honest about them.
You get models, not PDFs. If most of your work is design-assist or delegated design where an IFC model is available at bid time, PowerFab can import the model directly. A PDF takeoff tool adds nothing there.
Your takeoffs are small and your labor estimating is the hard part. A shop bidding a few heavy, connection-intensive industrial jobs a month might spend 2 hours on takeoff and 10 hours on labor. Saving 90 minutes on counting won't move the needle. Put the effort into tuning labor codes.
You already have a fast, trusted takeoff process. If your estimator does a clean Bluebeam takeoff in a couple of hours and the CSV import works, don't fix what isn't broken.
You need one vendor for everything. Some owners want every tool from one supplier for support and IT reasons. That's a legitimate call.
And the reverse: shops that probably don't need PowerFab yet. A 6-person shop bidding 20 small jobs a month, with purchasing on a spreadsheet and production tracked on a whiteboard, may be better served by a fast takeoff and a simple estimate than by a six-figure MIS rollout. The steel fabrication software buyer's guide lays out which categories of software a shop needs at which size, and our list for mid-sized fabricators compares takeoff tools specifically.
How should you evaluate the two side by side?
Don't decide off a demo. Run a real job you already bid.
- Pick a recent bid with a PDF set and a takeoff you trust.
- Run the PDF through SteelFlo on the free plan. Time the review, not just the upload.
- Compare the exported counts by section against your original takeoff. Where they disagree, click the boxes and look at the drawing. Sometimes the software is wrong, sometimes the original takeoff was.
- Import the CSV into PowerFab Estimating and see how much column mapping it takes. The first job is the slow one; after you save the template it's a few clicks.
- Write down the hours saved and multiply by your bid volume.
A few questions worth asking regardless of which way you lean:
- What percentage of our bids arrive with a model vs PDF only?
- How many estimator hours per month go to counting and measuring vs pricing?
- Who on the team actually uses PowerFab Estimating, and who does the takeoff before it?
- If we doubled bid volume next year, which step breaks first?
For reference on the contractual side of what's included in "structural steel" on any bid, AISC 303, the Code of Standard Practice, is the industry default definition, whichever software you use.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SteelFlo a replacement for Tekla PowerFab?
No. SteelFlo replaces the hand takeoff that feeds PowerFab, not PowerFab itself. It has no purchasing, inventory, production control or shipping modules, so a shop that relies on those should keep PowerFab and use SteelFlo upstream of it.
Can PowerFab import a SteelFlo export?
Yes. PowerFab's Estimating module imports Microsoft Excel worksheets, and SteelFlo exports its cut list as CSV or Excel with section, length and weight per piece. You map the columns once and save the template for future jobs.
How much does Tekla PowerFab cost?
Trimble quotes PowerFab per shop and doesn't publish list pricing. Third-party review site SoftwareConnect lists a starting figure of $50,000 for a perpetual license as of September 2026. Confirm current pricing, implementation and maintenance costs with Trimble.
Is FabSuite the same as PowerFab?
PowerFab is the current Trimble product that grew out of FabSuite, and many estimators still use the old name. If you're on FabSuite today, the import options and estimating workflow described here are the ones to compare against.
Does SteelFlo work with non-US steel standards?
Yes. SteelFlo recognizes AISC, BS/IS, AS/NZS, EN, GB and cold-formed CFS/SSMA designations, more than 4,500 sections in total. That matters if you bid work drawn to UK, European or Australian sections and import into an MIS afterwards.
Bottom line
PowerFab is where a bid gets priced and a job gets built. It still needs someone to count the steel. If that someone is spending most of their week in Bluebeam, the cheapest improvement isn't a new MIS. It's getting the material list out of the PDF faster and importing it into the system you already own. Try it on one bid you've already done and compare.