Accubid is what a large commercial electrical contractor bids on when labour units are the whole game. The item and assembly database is deep, labour factoring and cost codes live inside the estimate rather than beside it, and the workflow carries through purchasing, project management and billing. Classic is the long-running desktop product; Anywhere is the cloud rewrite with multi-user estimating and live Trade Service pricing. It is priced and scoped for shops that bid enough volume to justify a sales process.
TradeAtlas Editorial (AI draft) · Reviewed 2026-07-29
About
Accubid Systems of Concord, Ontario built the estimating package much of the North American electrical trade learned to bid on; Trimble acquired its assets in August 2010 and it now ships inside Trimble's MEP portfolio. Accubid Classic is the long-running full-workflow product — 42,000+ items and 13,000+ assemblies, dynamic takeoff, multi-level breakdowns by floor, system, area or cost code, live extensions and an instant bid summary, with labor units, labor factoring and cost codes built in. Accubid Anywhere is the cloud product for electrical and industrial mechanical contractors: spec-driven estimating with simultaneous multi-user collaboration, multiple labor columns, live Trade Service material and vendor pricing, AI-powered takeoff and Auto Count, plus Submittal Manager and Supplier Xchange. Both link bi-directionally to Trimble LiveCount for graphical takeoff. Pricing is quote-only.
Use Cases
- Spec-driven electrical estimating
- Bid breakdown and labor factoring
- Purchasing and project billing
Pricing
Full-featured electrical estimating, purchasing, project management and billing suite.
Cloud-based estimating for electrical and industrial mechanical contractors.
Trimble Accubid Classic does not publish pricing — request a quote via the vendor website.
Capability Matrix
| Feature | Status | Depth |
|---|---|---|
| Estimating | Yes | Advanced |
| Digital Takeoff | Yes | Advanced |
| Assemblies / Takeoff Templates | Yes | Advanced |
| Material Pricing | Yes | Advanced |
| Bid Management | Yes | Advanced |
| Job Costing | Yes | Standard |
| Invoicing | Yes | Standard |
| Proposals & Quotes | Yes | Standard |
| Bid History | Yes | Standard |
| Third-Party Integrations | Yes | Standard |
| Reporting | Yes | Standard |
| Mobile App | — | Basic |
| API Access | — | Basic |
Strengths
- Depth of electrical material and assembly database
- Labor factoring and cost codes
- End-to-end estimate-to-billing workflow
Limitations
- Quote-only — no published pricing, so budgeting means a sales cycle
- Two overlapping products (Classic and Anywhere) that a buyer has to choose between
- Overweight for a small residential shop; the setup assumes a dedicated estimator
- Trimble's site returns 403 to automated checks, so pricing and packaging are hard to verify independently
Best Fit
Commercial and industrial electrical contractors doing spec-driven, bid-heavy work who need labor factoring and a deep material database.
Usually more platform than a solo or small crew needs — smaller shops tend to be better served by a lighter tool.