<p>Yes — both are billable, and BidLight is built to make that case for you.</p> <p>Most firms give away hours refining a design and throwing out early numbers when scope shifts. That&#39;s real work. BidLight turns it into a service you can invoice, because you&#39;re not eyeballing a takeoff — you&#39;re handing the client a defensible number backed by data.</p> <p><strong>Why you can charge for it:</strong></p> <ul><li><strong>Design hours are estimation hours.</strong> Every time you export your Revit model, BidLight&#39;s two AI models classify BOQ line items directly from geometry and metadata — no manual re-measuring. That&#39;s billable analysis, not busywork.</li><li><strong>Pricing is current, not guessed.</strong> Costs pull from a database of roughly $30,000 in entries plus Craftsman, 1Build, and RSMeans, so early advice reflects real market conditions, not last year&#39;s rates.</li><li><strong>The number updates as the design does.</strong> When a client asks &quot;what if we change the facade,&quot; you get a revised estimate in minutes, not a redo from scratch — a service worth charging per iteration.</li><li><strong>You&#39;re not just modeling, you&#39;re advising.</strong> BidLight covers labor, equipment, material, and time in one output, so early cost advice comes with the same rigor as a final bid.</li></ul> <p>Beyond the software, BidLight also offers done-for-you BIM work — execution plans, 4D/5D, and fabrication detailing — for firms that want to package early advisory work as a standalone billable service rather than a favor.</p> <p>Bottom line: stop treating design-phase estimating as overhead. With numbers you can defend, it&#39;s a line item.</p>