CoatQuote is a quoting-first platform for epoxy & concrete floor-coating contractors. A homeowner configures a floor and gets an instant estimate; the contractor turns that lead into a slab-verified, branded proposal the homeowner e-signs and pays a deposit on — all powered by a pre-loaded coating-pricing brain.
The closest "vertical" competitor (Builder Prime) is a marketing vertical, not a product vertical — a horizontal home-improvement CRM running nine trades off one engine. No coating intelligence ships in the box. CoatQuote is the opinionated, pre-loaded engine that gets a new contractor to a defensible proposal on day one.
Three audiences, one shared pricing engine. The whole product advances a single path — and the slab gate keeps an estimate from ever masquerading as a binding price.
Area, space, system, finish & self-rated slab condition.
A clearly-stamped range — "Estimate, not a quote."
Name / email / phone → a lead lands in the contractor's worklist.
Customer + estimate snapshot, numbered CQ-YYYY-NNNN.
Real costs, every prep flag priced, live 3-way margin readout.
Binding price unlocks only after every slab condition is consciously resolved.
Web view + server-rendered PDF: logo, colors, scope, prep lines, terms.
Tokenized magic link by email — pricing & branding snapshotted & locked.
Capability-URL page; no PII leaks, no cost build-up shown.
Typed / drawn signature, timestamp, IP & consent. (M6)
Stripe — % or flat, computed from the quote. (M7)
Money down. Terminal state — the whole reason quoting-first beats a calculator.
Every feature either advances the golden path or protects the contractor's margin. Each one below pairs what it does with why it matters.
Systems, prep tiers, regional multipliers, volume breaks & job minimums ship as working defaults. Sign up at 9am, send a defensible proposal by 9:30 before touching a cost field.
In cost-up mode prep can't default to zero — every present slab condition (cracks, spall, oil, uneven, old coating) resolves to a quantified, priced line.
A real product state machine — not a disclaimer. An estimate can never become a binding quote until the slab is assessed and every flag resolved.
Cost-up (materials + labor + prep + overhead + margin) for the pro, per-SF shortcut for self-serve. One pure, server-authoritative module — the figure of record never trusts the browser.
Volume-solids, target mils, waste & pack sizes turn area into gallons, flake-lbs & kits — the bill of materials that later powers auto-ordering.
Seed-then-override: every contractor gets a working catalog, then edits their own systems, materials, prep ops, regions & branding. Six editors, all org-scoped.
A public configurator that emits an instant, honestly-labeled estimate and captures the lead — something no competitor ships for coatings.
A customer-facing scope of work — prep lines as proof of thoroughness, never the cost build-up — as both a web view and a pure-JS server-rendered PDF.
One line — <script src="…/embed.js"> — drops the configurator onto any contractor's site. Auto-resizing, CMS-aware, cost-data stripped.
A single full-stack app serves the public configurator, the authenticated contractor workspace and the token-gated homeowner proposal — all on one shared, pure pricing module. Money is snapshotted onto every quote, so a saved figure never silently re-prices.
The full golden path is built and verified up to a sendable, branded proposal. E-sign and deposit capture are the next two milestones; payments are flag-gated so they can ship without blocking launch.
Win on time-to-first-accurate-quote, prep/margin protection and homeowner self-serve. Then expand down the job lifecycle — auto material ordering and job costing the engine's material data uniquely enables — and replicate across adjacent "measure-and-coat" trades.
The wedge. Coating-intelligent quoting → configurator → branded proposal → e-sign → deposit. The full path to a signed job. (This product.)
Amplify the close. Financing options, automated follow-up on unsigned quotes, good-better-best upsell nudges.
The retention lock. Auto material ordering from the coverage math + job costing (actual vs. quoted). Generalists structurally can't — their quotes don't carry coating material data.
Become the platform. Scheduling / dispatch → CRM → reviews & reporting — arriving at the incumbent's territory from the quote outward.
The live homeowner configurator runs the real engine on a demo contractor's catalog — area in, instant estimate out.