Advanced Estimates price labor from the hourly rates saved in Settings > Estimate Labor, matched by trade. A Target rates for this project box before generating shows those rates and lets you change them for that job only. Any trade with no saved rate is priced from the project's own address — postal code first, then city, region, country — never a big-city average, and material prices come from local suppliers in your company's country.
Where: Settings > Estimate Labor, and the Target rates step just before an Advanced Estimate is generated
Plans: Agency and Enterprise (Advanced Estimates)
Make the AI price labor from your own rates
Open Settings → Estimate Labor and add each role with its hourly rate, keeping it active.
Start an Advanced Estimate and fill in the project details.
On the step just before generating, the Target rates for this project box is already filled from those settings.
Adjust anything you want for this job, then generate — matching trades use exactly those rates.
Office roles such as admin or office manager are not matched to field work, so they cannot price a trade.
Price a trade you have never saved
Leave the trade out of your Estimate Labor list.
Generate the estimate — WinkScope AI adds the trade and prices it from the project's location.
The line is marked Added by WinkScope AI — check rate so you know where it came from.
Correct the rate if you like; the line then shows Edited by you. Rates that came from your own settings show Your rate.
Those markers are for you only — they are never printed on the client's PDF or page.
Allow for material prices moving
On the estimate, set the material price allowance between 0 and 10 percent to pad material totals in a volatile market, or switch it off entirely.
Add the optional price escalation clause so a long-running job can be re-priced if supplier costs move.
To lift prices across the board later, adjust items in the Price Book rather than re-doing estimates.
The allowance is shown as its own figure — it never quietly rewrites your supplier costs.
Rules and limits
Only trades that match a saved role are priced from your settings; anything else falls back to the project's location.
Location matching goes postal code, then street and city, then region, then country — the most specific answer wins.
If live local prices cannot be reached, the estimate still builds from market averages and says so calmly — your work is never lost.
The material price allowance is capped at 10 percent.
Local wording, units and currency follow the country saved in the company's settings.
Still stuck?
If WinkScope does not behave the way this page describes, do not work around it. Open a ticket from Support > My Tickets with the page you were on and a screenshot, and the team will look at the account directly.