Every dollar on an MRQ estimate is a quantity the engine read from the space multiplied by a rate you control, plus the call-outs you set once and the contingency you choose. This page is the long version, including the parts MRQ will not claim.
Last updated 19 September 2026
The short version. Rate × quantity. The engine reads the room and proposes quantities; the rates are national averages until you load your own sheet, and yours after that. Your call-out items are added as their own lines at your prices. Nothing here is a pricing database, and no number is invented for a category you did not price.
A new account has no rate card, so MRQ ships with nine starter rates. They are US national average installed costs, researched on 18 September 2026 from published cost guides, with the source and date recorded per category in the file that holds them.
| Category | Unit | Good / Better / Best | Sourced from |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cabinetry | per linear ft | $250 / $425 / $850 | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor |
| Countertops | per sq ft | $55 / $100 / $175 | HomeGuide, Angi |
| Flooring | per sq ft | $8 / $14 / $25 | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor |
| Appliance package | per package | $4,000 / $10,000 / $32,000 | HomeGuide, Yale Appliance |
| Tub or shower | per unit | $4,000 / $8,000 / $16,000 | HomeGuide, HomeAdvisor |
| Plumbing fixtures | per fixture | $350 / $650 / $1,500 | HomeGuide |
| Electrical & lighting | per room | $1,200 / $2,500 / $5,500 | built from components |
| Painting | per sq ft of wall | $1.75 / $2.75 / $4.00 | HomeAdvisor, Homewyse |
| Demo & haul-off | per room | $1,500 / $2,500 / $4,500 | HomeGuide, This Old House |
Two of those are weaker than the rest, and it is worth saying which. No cost guide publishes a per-room figure for electrical or for general site labour, so those two were built up from component costs: a kitchen rewire, recessed cans, a dumpster pull, a demolition range. Treat them as the first two you replace.
They are national, not regional. There is no ZIP field, no cost index and no supplier catalogue behind them. Several competing tools do sell regional pricing; MRQ does not have it, and would rather say so than imply otherwise. That is also the argument for loading your own sheet on day one: your market, your suppliers, your crew.
Upload the CSV from the free rate card kit or type your rates in the admin portal, and every quote switches to your numbers. Until then the app shows a banner on every estimate saying you are quoting on starter pricing, because a quote built on someone else's averages should never reach a client by accident.
The engine reads photos, an iPhone LiDAR scan, or an uploaded plan set, and proposes a quantity for each category on your card. Every line then carries its own basis and confidence, because a countertop area eyeballed from a photo is not the same fact as one taken from a scan:
A room's overall confidence is the lowest of its priced lines, not an average, so one weak line is visible instead of diluted. The live demo labels which is which on a real kitchen and bathroom. From a plan set with no photos, the dimensions are read from the drawing's own text layer rather than scaled off an image, but the scope has to be assumed, and the result says so.
Demo, haul-off, protection, permits, access. It is in every job and in no picture, so it lives on a call-out list you set once in the admin portal, with a price against each item.
Each line is priced at three finish levels from your card, which is where Good / Better / Best comes from: the same scope, three finish levels, not three different jobs. Contingency is a percentage you set, 12% by default, applied to the subtotal and shown as its own line rather than hidden in the rates. Published guidance for remodels runs 10 to 20 percent; the default sits near the bottom of that because it is your money and your call.
New construction does not use the finish rate card at all: it is priced from your own dollars per square foot, split between the building-wide shell and systems and the per-room finishes. A patio or garage is priced at your unconditioned rate, not the conditioned one.
There is no accuracy percentage. Accuracy depends on whose rates are loaded and what the photos showed. A single published figure across every job would describe something nobody measured. The per-line confidence above is the honest version of that number, and it is on every line rather than in a marketing claim. The contractor FAQ answers the same question the same way.
An estimate is not a promise. MRQ's terms are explicit: generated estimates are preliminary and subject to the accuracy of your rate card and the completeness of the inputs. What you send a client is your quote, reviewed by you, on your terms.
MRQ never sets your prices. It will not mark up your rates, apply a regional multiplier, or price a job on your behalf. The starter rates are the only numbers it brings, and they exist to be replaced.
The call-out list is the cheapest defence against the first two: the work you always do, priced once, on every quote automatically.