AutoCost is Bolster’s live pricing engine that pulls real, up-to-date material and labor costs straight into your estimates, so you’re not relying on stale spreadsheets, memory, or a stack of supplier PDFs. You build with smart items and assemblies that quietly stay current in the background, then turn those into polished proposals that are easy for homeowners to understand and say “yes” to. The end result is faster quoting, more accurate margins, and a more professional experience for everyone involved.
Every contractor has a story like this.
You landed a solid project, the kind that fills a gap in your schedule and keeps your crew busy for a few weeks. You priced it off a spreadsheet you’ve used for years. You tweaked a few numbers, bumped up the contingency a bit “just to be safe,” and sent the proposal.
The client signed. The crew rolled in. Materials showed up.
And then, halfway through the job, it hit you: the spreadsheet you trusted was off. Lumber had crept up. Fixtures were just enough more expensive to sting. The margin you thought you had wasn’t really there. You didn’t lose your shirt, but you didn’t win the way you could have, either.
It wasn’t bad estimating. It was old information.
That gap between what your systems “think” things cost and what they actually cost today is exactly where AutoCost is designed to help.
Think of AutoCost as a live cost engine that sits inside Bolster and quietly keeps your numbers honest.
Instead of you opening an old file, calling suppliers, or digging through emails to confirm prices, AutoCost connects your estimates to a constantly refreshed pricing source. When you add a line for decking, tile, insulation, paint, or even labor, you’re not grabbing a guess, you’re pulling from real, up-to-date costs tuned to your region.
Right now, that live data is powered by real suppliers you already know and trust: AutoCost pulls current pricing from Home Depot, Lowe’s, and RONA+ in Canada, and from ABC Supply when you connect your myABC account. So instead of hunting through websites and PDFs or retyping SKUs, those prices flow straight into your estimates.
You still control how your estimates are built. You still set your own markup, structure your assemblies, and create templates around the way your business actually works. AutoCost doesn’t replace your expertise; it feeds it better data. You stay in the driver’s seat, but now the dashboard reflects what’s really happening on the ground.
Let’s put this into a concrete example: a mid-range bathroom remodel.
In the “old way,” you might start by digging up a previous job. You copy the spreadsheet, adjust a few quantities, and nudge the unit prices higher because “things have gone up.” Then you click over to a supplier website or two, skim a PDF catalog, and maybe fire off a quick text to your rep just to make sure you’re not way off on a specific product. By the time you’ve finished, you’ve invested hours into something that still has a bit of guesswork baked in.
In the “AutoCost way,” you open Bolster and start that same bathroom estimate from a template you’ve already built: demo, plumbing, electrical, tile, fixtures, and finishes. But this time, all of the key items in that template are tied to AutoCost and, behind the scenes, to suppliers like Home Depot, Lowe’s, RONA+ in Canada, or ABC Supply via your myABC account.
The tub you usually use? It’s pulling its current price instead of whatever you typed in the last time you quoted it. The vanity package? The tile? The lighting? Same story. As you adjust quantities and swap selections, AutoCost fills in the numbers behind the scenes with live data, not memory.
You still make judgment calls about what’s appropriate for this client and this home. You still decide where to be aggressive and where to be conservative. But you’re not fighting your own tools to get there. That alone is a huge mental relief.
One of the nicest side effects of AutoCost is what it does for your proposals.
Because your estimate lives inside Bolster, and your pricing is driven by AutoCost, it’s easy to turn that back-end work into something front-end clients actually understand. Instead of exporting numbers into a separate document and trying to make it look pretty, you push your estimate into a professional, branded proposal in just a few clicks.
The structure is already there. The numbers are already right. All you really have to do is decide how to present it.
That’s where the magic happens. You can offer clear “good, better, best” options on finishes, show how different choices affect the total, and answer cost questions in the moment without disappearing for a few days “to rework the numbers.” The homeowner sees transparency instead of mystery, and you see decisions being made faster instead of stalling out.
Most contractors walk a tightrope between two fears: underpricing and losing money, or overpricing and losing the job.
When your cost data is outdated, the temptation is to pad everything. You add a little extra here and there “just in case,” because you know you’ll get burned if you don’t. But padding is blunt. It often makes your quote look high compared to competitors who are guessing differently, and it doesn’t solve the real problem, you still don’t know exactly where your risks are.
With AutoCost, you’re not padding blind. You’re quoting from a starting point that already reflects current reality. If you want to build in a contingency, you can, but it’s now a conscious, controlled choice layered on top of accurate base costs rather than a vague safety net.
Over time, that shift adds up. Your jobs become more predictable. Your margins become more consistent. You start to recognize patterns of which scopes are truly risky, which ones are stable, and where your opportunities are to be more competitive without sacrificing profit.
AutoCost isn’t something you open in a separate tab and forget about. It’s woven into how you work inside Bolster.
You might start with a plan set in front of you, using Bolster’s takeoff tools to measure square footage, linear footage, and counts right on-screen. As those quantities drop into your estimate, the line items attached to them bring AutoCost along for the ride, pulling in live costs from connected suppliers like Home Depot, Lowe’s, RONA+ in Canada, and ABC Supply via myABC.
You don’t have to think, “Okay, now I’ll do my takeoff, then I’ll go somewhere else to price it.” It all happens in the same place.
Once the estimate feels right, you flip it into a proposal. The numbers, descriptions, and options are pulled straight from the work you’ve already done. There’s no second round of math, no risk of transposing digits or leaving something out. When the homeowner signs and the job moves into production, that same structure continues through schedules, budgets, and material lists.
From start to finish, you’re operating off of one consistent source of truth, and AutoCost is quietly keeping that truth aligned with what things actually cost.
If your prices never change, you don’t need AutoCost.
But if you build in the real world where lumber spikes, fixtures get discontinued, labor rates shift, and supply chains are still… creative, AutoCost is worth a serious look.
It’s especially helpful if:
You don’t have to be a huge company to benefit. In fact, smaller teams often see the most immediate impact because time and accuracy are both at a premium.
You don’t have to rebuild your entire estimating system overnight to start using AutoCost.
Most contractors begin by identifying a few key templates, maybe a standard bathroom, a typical kitchen refresh, or a go-to deck package, and converting the major line items in those to AutoCost-powered items. From there, they refine as they go, swapping in smarter components whenever they touch an estimate.
If you’re already on Bolster, you can explore AutoCost directly from your account or talk to your rep about how it fits into your plan. If you’re not on Bolster yet, the best way to understand it is to see it in context: a real estimate, with real items, priced in real time for your market.
AutoCost won’t swing a hammer for you. It won’t solve every problem your business has. But it will help you do something simple and powerful that many contractors quietly struggle with: price work based on what things actually cost today, not what they used to cost last year.
If you’re ready to stop guessing, start here: https://www.bolsterbuilt.com/autocost