Prices whatever gets typed in
- Asks for material, overall size and a hole count
- Expects the customer to read a technical drawing
- Knows nothing about threads, pockets or radii
- Cannot tell whether the part fits your machine
Category guide
Instant CNC quoting
How the price is built, what to demand from a system that builds it for you, and when that system should back off and hand the part to a human.
- STEP / IGES
- read straight from the 3D model
- 9 steps
- from uploaded file to a finished price
- 6 safety gates
- cases where automation hands the part to a human
- Geometry from the fileNot from a form the customer fills in
- Your ratesThe shop's machines, materials and margins
- CalibrationThe engine tuned on quotes you already priced
- Automation plus a humanA price goes out only where you allow it
Definition
What „instant” actually means
The term gets stretched. It comes down to one question: who measures the part - the system or the customer.
A calculator that asks for material, overall size and a hole count, then multiplies that by a rate, also gets called instant quoting - except its answer is only as good as the numbers typed in by someone who may not be able to read them off a drawing.
A quote earns the name only when the system reads the geometry from the file itself: dimensions, holes, pockets, threads, internal radii and machining directions. Then the customer does not need to understand manufacturing, and the shop is not exposed to somebody entering the wrong size.
Measures the part itself
- Reads dimensions, volume and surface area off the solid
- Recognises holes, pockets, threads and internal radii
- Judges how many setups and machining directions are needed
- Checks manufacturability against the shop's machine list
Starting point
What quoting by hand really costs
This cost never appears on an invoice, which is why shops rarely count it. It has four parts.
Engineer's time
Hours from the person who should be programming and planning production, spent answering enquiries.
Delay
The enquiry sits in the inbox until somebody has a moment to open it.
Lost enquiries
A customer who did not hear back the same day was usually asking elsewhere too.
Inconsistent prices
The same part quoted on Monday and on Friday can differ by tens of percent.
The largest of these costs is usually not the time, it is the lost enquiries. A customer who never got an answer shows up in no report at all - because they never became an order.
How it works
How the price is built, step by step
Nine things happen between an uploaded file and a displayed price. Each one is a place where a system can cut corners.
1Reading the geometry
Loading and healing the geometry
The system opens the STEP or IGES file and repairs the small defects left behind by the CAD export.
2Reading the geometry
Measuring the part
Bounding box, volume, surface area, and from the material density - mass.
3Reading the geometry
Feature recognition
Holes with their depth, pockets with an access direction, threads, the smallest internal radius and wall thickness.
4Manufacturing
Process and setups
Whether the part is rotational, how many machining directions it needs, whether any of them are angled and call for a fixture.
5Manufacturing
Manufacturability check
The travels of the shop's machines and its smallest available tool against the radii in the model.
6Manufacturing
Working out the time
Cutting from the volume to remove, drilling and tapping per feature, finishing according to surface type.
7Price and decision
Batch costs
Setup, programming, first-article inspection and stock purchase - charged per batch, then divided across the pieces.
8Price and decision
Surcharges, margin, delivery
Tolerances, fits and surface finish, secondary operations, margin and shipping.
9Price and decision
The safety gates decide
Whether the price may go out automatically, or the part should go to a human.
Checklist
What to demand from a quoting system
Ten questions that separate a system which genuinely calculates from a calculator with a nice interface.
Work through it with every vendor you are considering - including us.
01
Does it read the geometry from the file, or does somebody have to type the dimensions in?
02
Does it treat holes and threads separately? Tapping takes a completely different time from drilling.
03
Does it charge setup, programming and first-article inspection per batch, or add them to every piece? That decides whether prices at larger quantities make any sense.
04
Does it assess manufacturability - machine travels and the smallest tool radius?
05
Does it tell milling from turning and pick the machine to suit the shape?
06
Does it break an assembly into separate line items, or must each part be uploaded on its own?
07
Does it price with your rates, or with averaged market ones?
08
Can the engine be calibrated on your historical prices?
09
Does it charge for tighter tolerances and better surface finish - that is, for what actually takes time on the machine?
10
Does it explain where the price came from, or return a single number with no reasoning?
Limits
When automation should not quote on its own
This is the question software vendors dislike, and it decides whether a system is fit for production.
A system that always returns a price will eventually return a wrong one, and nobody notices until the part reaches the machine. A well-designed system stops where its confidence is low.
The part does not fit the machine
It exceeds the working envelope, or the model needs a tool smaller than anything in the shop.
Geometry too complex
Complexity passes the threshold beyond which a time estimate stops being trustworthy.
High value
The quote passes the amount above which the shop wants to look at it personally.
Thin walls and slenderness
Either one can wreck the machining time, because both force cautious cutting parameters.
Catalogue part
The file looks like something you buy rather than machine - a bearing, a screw, a retaining ring.
Solid rebuilt from a drawing
The geometry was reconstructed from 2D views rather than read from a 3D model.
When you ask a vendor about the limits of their system, notice whether they can list any. „Our engine quotes everything” says more about the salesperson than about the product.
Who it suits
Which shops this makes sense for
Automated quoting is not universal. Here are both sides of the same calculation.
It makes sense when
- enquiries are frequent and each one is individually small
- you work in one-off and small-batch production
- quoting falls to an engineer or the owner, after hours
- some enquiries go cold before you manage to answer
- you want to take enquiries through your website
It makes less sense when
- every job is negotiated individually
- quoting requires a conversation about how it will be made
- you work on standing contracts with a single customer
- parts are unusual enough that it ends in a meeting anyway
Rollout
Where to start
Whichever system you pick, the order is the same. The third step is the one most often skipped, and skipping it costs the most.
1
Machines and materials
Machines with their travels, available tooling, material grades and their prices.
2
Rates and margins
A machine-hour rate per machine, setup and programming costs, margin.
3
Calibration
A handful of parts you have already quoted. The most skipped step and the most expensive to skip.
4
Opening it to customers
With every quote held for approval at first. Automation once you trust the numbers.
01How does instant quoting differ from an online calculator?
A calculator asks you to enter material, overall size and a hole count, so its answer is only as good as the numbers entered by someone who may not be able to read them off a drawing. Instant quoting reads the geometry straight from the file, so the customer does not need to understand manufacturing.
02Is automated quoting accurate?
It depends on two things: whether the system measures the part itself, and whether it prices with that shop's rates. An engine calibrated on one shop's historical prices lands far closer than a generic calculator. A well-designed system also flags the cases where its own confidence is low.
03Can a part be quoted from a PDF drawing, without a 3D model?
A drawing yields the material, threads, tolerances and surface finish, and for flat parts the solid can be reconstructed too. Rebuilding turned and prismatic parts from views alone is far harder, so in practice those drawings go to manual quoting - with the difference that the engineer receives a filled-in form rather than an empty one.
04Will automation replace the estimator?
It does not replace their judgement, only the repetitive work. Routine quotes go out automatically while the engineer handles what actually needs a decision. A sensibly configured system runs on automation plus approval: a price goes out on its own only where the shop allowed it.
05How long does it take to roll such a system out?
The configuration itself - machines, materials, rates - is usually a few hours. The critical step is the one most often skipped: calibration against parts the shop has already quoted. That is what decides whether the first automatic prices are acceptable.
06Which shops is it not worth it for?
Ones where every job is negotiated individually, needs a conversation about manufacturing and ends in a meeting anyway. There, automation at best prepares a starting point for that conversation rather than replacing it.
We built exactly this system
Geometry read from the file, costing with the shop's own rates, calibration on historical prices, and safety gates that hand an unusual part to a human. The configurator embeds on your site with one line of code.