The area from both ends
Two frames, opposite corners, something for scale in each. One end always hides a drop, a bump, or a downspout that lands where the slab goes.
Trades / Concrete
Quoting and job management software for concrete businesses
Flatwork is measurable, which makes concrete one of the easier trades to quote — right up to the point where the question is what is under the slab. Mason prices the measurable part from your rates and sends you the rest.
Join the waitlistIntake
What concrete customers get asked.
Every one is answerable by pacing, looking at an edge, or watching where the rain goes. No homeowner is asked for a thickness spec or a yardage.
- 01
About how long and wide is it? Steps are fine for rough intake, but use a tape or dimensioned plan before an exact quote.
Flatwork prices by the square foot. A paced estimate can start a range, while an exact quote needs measured length and width.
- 02
Is anything coming out first — old concrete, asphalt, gravel, or grass?
Removal is its own job with its own truck and its own dump ticket. Stripping sod is a morning. Breaking out a slab is a day.
- 03
Find a broken edge or the lip at the garage door. Is the old slab about two fingers thick, or about a hand?
Slab thickness sets demo hours and how much weight leaves the property. Standing on top of it tells you nothing.
- 04
What is going to drive or park on it — cars, a work truck, an RV, or nothing heavier than a chair?
That answer helps your company confirm the required thickness and reinforcement. It does not decide either one on its own. A patio and a driveway can be the same shape and are not the same slab.
- 05
Where would a concrete truck park, how many steps is it from there to the work, and is anything overhead — wires, branches, a carport?
A chute only reaches so far. Past that it is buggies, wheelbarrows or a pump, and a boom needs open air above the site.
- 06
Which way does water run right now — toward the house, or away from it?
New concrete changes where water goes. Getting that wrong is the most expensive callback in this trade.
- 07
Are there steps involved, and how many?
Steps price per riser because the hours are in the formwork, not in the concrete.
- 08
What does the new pour have to meet — a garage threshold, a door sill, a sidewalk, an existing patio?
Tie-in elevation is the job. A quarter inch wrong at a garage door is water in the garage every spring.
- 09
What finish are you after — broom, smooth, exposed aggregate, stamped?
Finish is a labor rate and a crew size. It is the difference between three people and five on pour day.
Photo tasks
The photos that matter for concrete.
Concrete photos are about elevation and access. Two things decide the labor line: what the pour has to meet, and how far the material has to travel from the truck.
The tie-in, low and straight on
The garage threshold, the door sill, the sidewalk edge the pour has to meet. Shoot it at slab height, not from standing. Elevation is the whole job.
A broken edge or an expansion joint
A useful look at the local thickness of the existing slab, but not proof of the whole section. If thickness is not confirmed, demo stays a range or comes back to your team.
The truck path, with the narrow point measured
Where the mixer can sit, and what stands between it and the forms. Every step past the chute is a buggy trip somebody has to price.
Overhead
Wires, branches, eaves, carports. A pump boom and a raised chute both need room above the site, and neither one is negotiable on pour day.
Where water sits after rain
The most useful photo on any concrete job, and the only one worth waiting for weather to take. It starts the grading conversation before the quote instead of after the pour.
The subgrade, if it is open
Dirt, sand, gravel, or mud. Soft ground means stone and compaction before anybody pours, and that is stone somebody has to pay for.
Cracks in the neighboring slab
Which direction they run, and whether they run toward the new work. Existing movement tells you what the new pour is being tied to.
Rate sheet
How concrete quotes get priced.
Your sheet stays your sheet. Mason reads it and asks the customer for what it needs. How quoting works.
The units you actually sell
Flatwork prices by the square foot at a stated thickness and finish, while the material behind it is ordered by the cubic yard, where a short load carries its own charge. Curb and ribbon price by the linear foot. Steps price per riser. Demo prices by the square foot and by thickness, plus haul-off by the ton or by the load. Mesh, rebar and fiber are adds. Saw cuts price by the foot. A pump or a buggy is its own line. The minimum charge exists because a truck rolling out for two yards costs what it costs.
What the site moves
Distance from the truck to the forms is the number that quietly rewrites the labor line. Access width. Subgrade, because soft spots need stone and compaction before anybody pours. Cut and fill to make the grade work. Thickness and reinforcement going up because something heavy is going to park on it. Hot weather and cold weather, with the blankets, the admixture or the five o'clock start that come with them.
How the customer gets an answer
Measured dimensions, company-confirmed depth and reinforcement, known base and drainage, a known finish, clear access, and clean tie-in photos can support an exact quote from your prices. Any uncertainty about those inputs comes back as a price range, a note that your team is reviewing it, or a request for an on-site look. Mason does not invent a rate you never set.
Honest limits
What a slab photo cannot price.
Concrete is unforgiving about the things nobody can see. These come back to your office, with the customer's measurements and photos already collected.
What is under it
Soil bearing, an old buried footing, a stump, the soft trench where somebody ran a line. The ground is the part of a concrete job nobody photographs and everybody pays for.
Whether there is steel in the old slab
Rebar or mesh turns a tear-out into a different day with different equipment. You find out when you break it, and a quote written before that has to say so.
Where the water goes next
Every new slab is one more surface water cannot soak through. Where it goes instead is a grade conversation standing in the yard, not a number pulled off a snapshot.
Anything somebody else signs off on
Structural work, anything holding back soil, and anything the local inspector has an opinion about is not a photo quote. It is a site visit with your name on it.
Illustrative example
A driveway extension, twenty-four by twenty-four, broom finish, tying into the existing apron. The photos show the drop from the garage slab to grade and a mixer spot about ninety steps from the forms. Mason prices the square footage, the finish and that company's buggy line from their own sheet — then returns a range instead of one number, because the photo of the broken edge does not say whether there is steel in the section coming out.
The calendar
Coming soonWhat concrete jobs need on the calendar.
No other trade schedules against a delivery window this hard. Scheduling is being built for exactly this. Quoting and follow-up are what ship today.
01
The pour is the appointment
Everything else gets scheduled around a truck that shows up in a window and cannot sit and wait. A missed window is not a delay, it is a load nobody is paying for.
02
The order does not bend
Demo and haul-off, subgrade and compaction, forms and steel, inspection if there is one, pour, finish, cut the joints, strip the forms. Every step gates the one behind it.
03
Finishers set the crew size
You do not finish twelve hundred square feet with the crew that finishes three hundred. Concrete does not wait for anybody to catch up, which is why crew size gets decided before the truck is ordered.
04
Weather is the schedule
Nobody pours into rain, into a freeze, or into the afternoon of a ninety-five degree day without help. A pour is booked against a forecast, and a cancelled pour moves a crew, a truck, and a customer's parking for a week.
05
Cure time is customer time
Foot traffic and vehicle traffic come back on your rules, and not on the same day. Whatever those rules are, the customer needs them in writing before the crew pulls out.
06
Inspections you do not control
Driveway approaches, right-of-way work and anything structural can need a permit and a look before the pour. That is a date on somebody else's calendar that your concrete order depends on.
07
The season closes
In cold country the ground freezes and flatwork stops. The fall book and the March backlog are both real, and they are both a scheduling problem before they are anything else.
Flatwork rarely shows up on a property by itself. The fencing crew wants posts set before you pour against them, and the landscaping crew is waiting to put the yard back once the forms are gone.
01Can it quote a driveway from photos?
Measured dimensions, company-confirmed depth and reinforcement, known base and drainage, a finish you sell, clear truck access and a clean tie-in can come back as an exact quote from your prices. If any of those are uncertain, the job comes back as a range or lands on your desk with the photos attached.
02Does it work out how many yards to order?
It prices in the units on your sheet — square feet at a thickness, per riser, per linear foot, your own yard rate. What you order from the plant and what the plant charges you stays between you and the plant.
03What about stamped and decorative work?
If you priced the pattern, it quotes the pattern. If a customer sends a photo of something you do not run, it comes to you instead of getting a number nobody stands behind.
04Can it book the crew around a pour window?Coming soon
Not yet. Quoting and email follow-up ship today. Sequencing demo, forms, inspection and the pour on one calendar is what we are building next.