Here is a free structural steel estimating spreadsheet for Excel. It takes a member list and builds it up to a bid price: material by category, shop labor from hours per ton, coating, freight, erection, contingency, overhead and profit. It has a shop-versus-field split, a one-page printable bid summary, and a fully worked example you can read before you type anything of your own.
Free. Needs a free Steelflo account (also includes 3 free takeoffs, no card).
The download needs a free Steelflo account (no card). The file itself has no macros and no watermark, and it opens in Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice. Yellow cells are inputs, grey cells are locked formulas.
This is the cost side of the job. If you only need a weight takeoff, the free steel takeoff template is the simpler sheet. This one starts where that one stops: you have the weights, now what does the job cost?
What's Inside the Workbook
| Tab | What it does |
|---|---|
| ReadMe | Instructions, colors, and the math in plain words |
| Inputs | Material $/ton and shop hours per ton by category, labor rate, coating rates, freight, erection basis, connection allowance, contingency, overhead, profit |
| Takeoff | 200 rows: mark, section, quantity, length in feet plus inches, finish. Weight, material, hours, and coating calculate per row |
| Misc Items | A connection allowance (formula) plus bolts, base plates, anchor rods, and any line you add, priced by the each |
| Summary | Tons, shop hours, full cost build-up, shop vs field split, bid price, price per ton, and two error counters |
| Bid Summary | One printable page with scope lines and price, ready to save as PDF |
| Sections | Pounds per foot for AISC W, S, HP, C, MC, L, WT, HSS and pipe, plus plate, flat, round and square bar |
| Ex Inputs, Ex Takeoff, Ex Misc Items, Ex Summary, Ex Bid Summary | A complete worked example (green tabs): a small storage mezzanine, built with the same formulas as the blank tabs |
The blank tabs and the example tabs are separate copies, so you can experiment on one without breaking the other.
How to Use It
- Set your rates on the Inputs tab. Material $/ton and shop hours per ton for each category, your loaded shop labor rate, coating $/lb, freight, and the erection basis. Every number that ships in the file is an example starter value so the sheet works on first open. None of them are benchmarks. Replace them with your supplier quotes and your own shop history.
- Enter members on the Takeoff tab. One row per line item: mark, section (type
W12X26orHSS6X6X1/4, spaces and case are ignored), quantity, length in feet and extra inches, and a finish from the drop-down. Plate and flat bar work too:PL1/2X8is thickness by width in inches, with the length in the length columns. - Watch the lookup. If Wt/ft says
NOT FOUND, fix the spelling against the Sections tab. The Summary tab counts lookup errors and rows missing a quantity or length. Both must read zero before you trust a total. - Fill the Misc Items tab. Set the connection allowance percentage on Inputs, then add quantities for bolts, base plates, and anchor rods.
- Read the Summary. Check shop hours per ton against your own history. If it looks off, the hours-per-ton input is the first place to look.
- Print the Bid Summary. Edit the exclusions block and save as PDF.
For the counting itself, the structural steel takeoff example walks a real drawing set into line items, and the common takeoff mistakes list covers where counts usually go wrong.
How the Cost Build-Up Works
The workbook follows the standard order of a fabricator's bid. Nothing here is proprietary; it is the general method with every input exposed.
Weight. Quantity times length times pounds per foot. Plate and flat bar use thickness times width times 12 times 0.2836 lb per cubic inch, which you can check by hand.
Material. Weight times a waste allowance, times the category price. Prices are entered per ton because that is how most mill and service-center quotes arrive, and converted to per pound inside the sheet. Categories are separate (beams and columns, channels and angles, HSS and pipe, plate and bar) because they rarely price the same.
Shop labor. Weight in tons times shop hours per ton for that category, times your loaded hourly rate. Hours per ton is the input that moves the bid most, and the only honest source for it is your own job history. Light, detail-heavy pieces take more hours per ton than heavy straight beams, which is why the workbook asks for a rate per category rather than one number.
Coating. Weight times a per-pound rate for the finish on each row: none, primer, paint, or galvanized. Galvanizers often charge a minimum per load, so a small galvanized item can cost more than the per-pound rate suggests. Check yours.
Freight. Total tons times a dollars-per-ton delivery figure.
Erection. Either dollars per ton, or crew days times a daily crew-and-crane cost. A switch on the Inputs tab picks which one is used, so the sheet never double counts.
Contingency, overhead, profit. Contingency applies to direct cost. Overhead applies to direct cost plus contingency. Profit is a markup on total cost. The Summary tab also shows the equivalent margin on price, because a markup and a margin are different numbers that people mix up.
For how the per-ton numbers tend to sit across the industry, see structural steel cost per ton and steel fabrication costs. Use them as a sanity check on your own inputs, not as a replacement.
Worked Example: A Small Mezzanine
The green example tabs price a 30 by 24 ft storage mezzanine. The takeoff has four line items:
| Mark | Section | Qty | Length | Weight (lb) | Finish |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C1 | HSS6X6X1/4 | 6 | 9'-6" | 1,084 | Galvanized |
| G1 | W16X26 | 3 | 24'-0" | 1,872 | Primer |
| B1 | W12X26 | 12 | 14'-6" | 4,524 | Primer |
| L1 | L4X4X1/4 | 24 | 0'-8" | 106 | Primer |
That is 45 pieces and 7,586 lb of structural steel. The Misc Items tab adds a 6% connection allowance, 160 bolts, 6 base plates, and 24 anchor rods, which brings the job to 8,359 lb, or 4.18 tons.
At the example inputs, the Summary tab produces:
| Line | Amount |
|---|---|
| Material (structural + misc) | $7,657 |
| Shop labor, 75.7 hours (18.1 per ton) | $5,301 |
| Coating | $1,161 |
| Shop subtotal | $14,119 |
| Freight | $355 |
| Erection | $1,881 |
| Direct cost | $16,355 |
| Contingency 3% | $491 |
| Overhead 12% | $2,022 |
| Total cost | $18,868 |
| Profit markup 8% | $1,509 |
| Bid price | $20,377 ($4,875 per ton) |
Those figures come from example inputs, so treat them as a demonstration of the mechanics, not as a price for any real job. Change the labor rate or the hours per ton on the Inputs tab and every line moves.
Notice what the build-up exposes. Material is the biggest line, but it is a number you can get quoted. Shop labor is $5,301 and rests on a single estimate, hours per ton. A 10% miss on that input moves shop labor by about $530 here, before overhead and profit, and it is the figure shops most often guess. Estimators who track actual hours per job get steadier bids over time.
Where a Spreadsheet Breaks Down
Be clear about the limits before you build your process around one.
It starts after the counting. Finding every member on the drawings and tallying them is the slow part of a bid, and the workbook does none of it. On a five-page shop building that is an afternoon. On a forty-sheet set it is days.
Nothing checks the drawings. A beam shown on a plan and again on a section can be entered twice. A schedule that lists 14 and a plan that shows 12 will not raise a flag.
Revisions are manual. When Rev B arrives you re-read the set and diff your rows by hand, or you start over.
Hours per ton is a single number. A column with a lot of base plates and a plain floor beam can carry the same rate in this sheet. If your mix swings widely, split the line items by type.
No audit trail on the page. A sheet reference column says where a line came from, not where on the sheet each piece was found.
We cover the broader trade-off in steel estimating templates: what they can't do.
Spreadsheet vs Software
| This spreadsheet | Takeoff software | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Free with a Steelflo account | Free tier to paid monthly plans |
| Weight, material, labor, bid math | Yes | Varies |
| Finds the members on the drawing | No, you count | Yes, you verify |
| Piece-level marks on the PDF | No | Yes |
| Double-count and gap checks | Your discipline | Review flags |
| Revisions | Manual re-take | Re-run and re-review |
| Best for | A few bids a month, small sets | Multi-sheet sets, weekly bidding |
If you bid a handful of small jobs a month, a good spreadsheet and discipline are enough. When counting time rather than calculating time is what limits how many bids you can turn, a takeoff tool pays for itself. With Steelflo you upload a PDF drawing set, it boxes the steel labels it finds on each page, you review the boxes, export the BOM, and price it. The same section weights used in this workbook feed that BOM. Our SteelFlo vs Excel comparison goes into the details, and you can poke at a public sample takeoff without signing up. For a quick one-beam weight check, the steel weight calculator is faster than opening a workbook.
Frequently Asked Questions
What goes into a structural steel estimate?
Material, shop labor, coating, freight, and erection make up direct cost. Contingency, overhead, and profit are added on top. This workbook lays those out in order so you can see where each dollar of the bid comes from.
How do you estimate shop labor for structural steel?
Most shops estimate shop labor as hours per ton by type of work, times a loaded hourly rate. The right hours per ton comes from your own completed jobs. The workbook ships with example values and one editable input per category.
Is the spreadsheet really free?
Yes. The download needs a free Steelflo account with no card. The workbook has no macros, no watermark, and no usage limit, and you can edit or share it freely.
What is the difference between markup and margin?
Markup is profit as a percentage of cost. Margin is profit as a percentage of price. An 8% markup is about a 7.4% margin. The Summary tab shows both so you do not mix them up.
Can I use it with metric sections?
The Sections tab is built on AISC data in pounds per foot. You can add your own rows below the table, such as metric sections converted to pounds per foot, and the lookups will find them.
Does it work in Google Sheets?
Yes. Upload the file to Google Sheets or open it in LibreOffice. It uses standard functions only, no macros or add-ins.
Outgrown the spreadsheet? When the bottleneck moves from the math to the counting, start a free takeoff with SteelFlo: upload a PDF drawing set, review the boxed members, and export a BOM with the same weights this workbook uses. The spreadsheet stays yours either way.