Machine Shop Quoting Spreadsheet: The Free Template Logic (and Its Ceiling)
Most machine shop quotes in America come out of a spreadsheet, and a good one is genuinely hard to beat: shop rate times estimated hours, material with a scrap allowance, outside processing with minimums, margin per quantity break. If yours works, this page won't tell you to burn it.
It will tell you exactly what the spreadsheet can't do — because those four gaps are where shops lose money and work.
The spreadsheet, done right
Columns that belong in every quoting sheet: setup hours and run minutes per op at per-work-center rates (not one blended rate — your 5-axis time is not your saw time); material as parts-per-bar math with kerf and facing, not weight-times-price guessing; outside processing at the vendor's lot minimum, not unit price; and a margin row per quantity break with setup amortized — the '8 hours at $150 spread across 25/50/100' column.
Use our free bar stock calculator for the material math — it's the same engine Traveler uses, with kerf, facing, end allowance, and drops handled.
Where it stops scaling
Four ceilings, all documented in shop-owner forums. History: 'have we quoted this before' means opening old files one by one. Feedback: the spreadsheet never learns what the job actually took, so bad estimates repeat forever. Delivery: quotes die as attachments in inboxes with no view tracking, no online acceptance, no follow-up. And bus factor: the whole thing lives in one person's head and one fragile file.
That's the honest pitch for graduating: not that software quotes better than your spreadsheet, but that it remembers, learns from actuals, and closes the loop with the customer — at $109/month, less than one quoting evening of your time.
Want it handled?
Traveler Cloud does this for $109/month — or follow the steps above yourself, free.
See pricingStraight answers
▸What shop rate should I use in my quoting spreadsheet?
Per work center: machine cost recovery + labor + overhead allocation ÷ realistic utilization (60–75%, not 100%). Blended single rates systematically underprice your expensive machines and overprice your saw.
▸How much scrap allowance should quotes carry?
Common practice: one setup piece per op minimum on short runs, plus 2–5% on production quantities depending on tolerance band — and track actual scrap by reason so the number stops being folklore.