How to Use the Pricing Lab to Test Your Estimator Before Going Live

Why Use the Pricing Lab?

The number one concern we hear from contractors building their estimator is: “How do I know my pricing is right?”

Until now, the only way to check was to take your own estimator over and over, trying different combinations of answers to see what prices came out. That’s slow, tedious, and you’ll never cover every scenario.

The Pricing Lab solves this. It automatically tests every possible combination of answers across your estimator and shows you the full pricing output for every service in one view. You’ll see your budget, baseline and premium price points at a glance, and an AI analysis will flag anything that looks off before your customers ever see it.

No more guesswork. No more “let me just run through it one more time.”

How to Use It

Step 1: Open Your Estimator for Editing

From your Priceguide dashboard, find the estimator you want to test and click Edit.

Step 2: Click the Pricing Lab Tab

Along the top of the editor you’ll see: Questions, Pricing Lab, Content Settings, and Financing. Click Pricing Lab.

Step 3: Run the AI Analysis

At the top of the Pricing Lab, you can run an AI powered analysis of your estimator’s pricing. This scans every scenario and checks for potential issues: prices that seem too low, ranges that are unusually wide, services returning $0, or anything else that might catch a customer off guard.

If everything looks good, you’ll see an All Clear message confirming no typos or unusual pricing were detected across all scenarios. If the AI spots something, it will flag the specific issue so you know exactly what to fix before going live.

Step 4: Review the Price Range Summary

Below the AI analysis, the Price Range Summary table is where the real value sits. This shows every service in your estimator with three columns: Budget, Baseline, and Premium.

These represent the lowest, mid range and highest price outputs your estimator will produce for each service, based on every possible answer combination. For example, you might see:

• • Wired Security System Installation: Budget $2,200 | Baseline $3,300–$4,300 | Premium $3,750–$5,250
• • Wireless Security System Installation: Budget $1,200 | Baseline $1,950–$2,550 | Premium $2,350–$2,950

This is incredibly useful for a quick sanity check. You can instantly see whether each service sits where you expect it to. If your baseline for a premium service is lower than it should be, or your budget tier looks too high, you’ll spot it here in seconds.

Step 5: Explore the Full Scenario Breakdown

Below the summary, the Pricing Lab shows all of the individual test scenarios it ran to generate those averages. Each row represents a specific combination of answers and the resulting price.

This is the detail layer. If something in the summary looks unexpected, you can scroll through the scenarios to find exactly which answer combination is producing that result and go back to your questions to adjust it.

New: Ask the AI to Fix Your Pricing for You

This is the part contractors get most excited about. Instead of finding a problem, working out the fix yourself, and hunting for the right answer to edit, you can now just tell the Pricing Lab what you want and let it do the work.

Step 1: Tell It What You Want

At the bottom of the Pricing Lab you’ll see a box called Pricing expectations. This is where you talk to the AI in your own words.

You can use it two ways:

Describe what feels off. If something does not sit right but you are not sure how to fix it, just say so. For example: “Service Z feels expensive for my market, especially the ‘500+ people’ answer.” The AI will read that and suggest a fix.

Give it a direct instruction. If you already know what you want, tell it plainly. For example: “Make the bathroom renovation service increase by 20%,” or “Under ‘Lighting and Shading’ service, the ‘What finish best fits your project needs?’ question needs better options and pricing.” The AI will turn that into specific changes.

When you’re ready, click Run Analysis. Once you’ve run it once, that button becomes Recheck Analysis so you can run it again after tweaks.

Step 2: Review the Suggested Changes

The AI comes back with a section called AI Suggested Changes. Each suggestion is its own card, and each card is easy to read at a glance:

What it’s changing. The top of the card names the exact service, question and answer option it wants to adjust, so there’s no confusion about where the change lands.

The old price and the new price. You’ll see the current value crossed out next to the suggested value, for example $0 changing to $0–$2,000, or a vague “+10%” changing to a clear $2,000–$8,000 range. This makes it obvious what’s actually moving.

Why it’s suggesting it. A short, plain-English reason explains the thinking, such as a percentage that was producing unrealistically low totals in some scenarios, or an option that was too vague and created inconsistent results.

Scenario tabs. Each card has tabs like Baseline, Random 1 through Random 5, and Premium. Click through them to preview how the change plays out across different answer combinations before you commit to anything.

This is also how you catch the sneaky typos. A finish option set to 2,000% instead of 20%, for example, will jump out here, and the AI will suggest a sensible fix in its place.

Step 3: Apply a Fix (Nothing Goes Live Yet)

When a suggestion looks right, click Apply fix on that card. Once applied, the button changes to Applied so you can keep track of what you’ve accepted.

Here’s the important part: applying a fix does not push it live. It stages the change for review. Think of it as a draft edit sitting safely in the background, waiting for your final say. You stay in full control, and nothing reaches your customers until you decide it should.

You can apply as many suggestions as you like, one at a time, and they’ll all queue up for review together.

Step 4: Review the Change, Then Publish

As soon as you apply a fix, a small marker appears showing you have work waiting, for example “1 change ready to review” with a Review changes link. Next to the affected question you’ll also see “1 change to review” with a Jump to change link that takes you straight to the spot.

To finish up:

• Open the Questions tab and find the staged change (the Jump to change link takes you right to it).

• Check that the new option text and pricing read exactly how you want, at a level any customer can understand.

• When you’re happy, hit Save & Publish to make it live.

That’s the whole loop: describe what you want, review the AI’s suggestions, apply the ones you like, give them a final check, and publish. What used to be a manual hunt through every answer is now a quick conversation.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of the Pricing Lab

Run it before you publish. Make the Pricing Lab your final check before embedding your estimator on your site. A two minute review here can save you from an embarrassing pricing error in front of real customers.

Focus on the summary first. The individual scenarios are useful for debugging, but the Price Range Summary is your best friend. If the budget, baseline and premium numbers look right for each service, you’re in good shape.

Re-run after making changes. Every time you adjust pricing or questions in your estimator, come back to the Pricing Lab and run it again to confirm the changes had the effect you intended.