Instant Metal Quote (IMQ) is the ERS Metals quoting platform for contractors. You enter the panel type, the roof dimensions, the substrate and finish, and the job location, and it returns a priced material list for a standing seam or 5V crimp roof. No phone call. No waiting on a rep to get back to their desk. No emailing a takeoff into a black hole and hoping. IMQ lives at quotes.ersroof.com, and if you bid metal roofing in Florida it is the fastest way we know to put a real supplier number in front of a customer.
This post covers what IMQ does, how a Florida contractor uses it on a live bid, what the tool factors in, and, just as important, what it does not replace. Read that last part carefully. A quoting tool that oversells its own accuracy costs you money on the reorder.
The problem IMQ was built to solve
Metal roofing is quoted slowly, and everybody in the trade knows it. A contractor wins a lead on a Tuesday, sends a takeoff to a supplier, and waits. Somebody on the other end prices the panel run, adds the trim, counts the clips and fasteners, guesses at the closures, checks freight, and sends a number back. That work is real work. It is also two or three days of dead time in the middle of a sales cycle where the homeowner is collecting three bids and the fastest credible one often wins.
Search for an instant metal roofing quote and you get two kinds of results, neither of which helps you. The first kind is an installer's instant quote widget: it takes an address, asks four questions, and produces an installed price range for a homeowner. That is a lead capture form with a calculator attached. It is genuinely useful to a homeowner. It is useless to a contractor who needs a material list they can order against.
The second kind is a supplier quote form. Those are honest tools, but they are still forms. One national direct-to-buyer standing seam seller tells buyers plainly that quotes are generally completed within three days, and another supplier describes its self-serve pricing as a ballpark estimate based on square footage, with a detailed materials and cost analysis available separately on request. Neither of those is a criticism. It is simply how supplier quoting works when a person has to do the arithmetic.
IMQ moves that arithmetic to you and runs it in minutes. It is a supplier's material quote, generated on your schedule, at 6am before the crew rolls or at 8pm after the last estimate.
How a Florida contractor actually uses it
- Pick the panel. Snaplock, nailstrip, mechanical lock, 5V crimp, rib or PBR. If you are still deciding between profiles, our standing seam guide for Florida contractors walks the six standing seam profiles end to end.
- Enter the roof. Dimensions, planes, and the details that drive trim quantity: ridges, hips, valleys, rakes, eaves, and wall terminations.
- Choose substrate and finish. 24 gauge Galvalume steel or 0.032 inch aluminum, mill finish or a coated finish. This is the single biggest lever on the material number.
- Enter the job location. Where the panels are going changes freight and delivery scheduling, and in two counties it changes which panels you are even allowed to specify.
- Review the priced material list. Panels, trim, fasteners, closures, sealants and underlayment come back itemized, not as one lump figure.
- Add the options you want on this job: field measurement verification, custom trim, or turnkey labor through ERS Installations.
- Save it. Quotes, orders and projects stay on your company dashboard so a job you priced in March is still there in June when the customer finally signs.
The dashboard matters more than it sounds. Most contractors lose quotes to a truck console, not to a competitor. Having every quote your company has generated in one place, searchable, is worth as much as the speed.
What IMQ factors in
- Panel profile, gauge and substrate, priced against current material pricing and availability.
- Finish, including PVDF and SMP coated options and matching trim from the same color run.
- Trim and flashings: ridge, hip, valley, drip edge, rake, endwall and sidewall.
- Fasteners, clips, foam and metal closures, and compatible sealants.
- High-temperature underlayment as part of the assembly rather than an afterthought.
- Fabrication of panels to exact length, and crated delivery to the jobsite.
- Optional add-ons: field measurement verification, pre-made trim delivery, and installation labor.
The itemization is deliberate. A single lump number is easy to produce and impossible to argue with. An itemized list lets you see that the trim count is what moved the price, go back, and change the detail.
What IMQ does not do
IMQ produces a material quote. It does not measure your roof.
That distinction is the whole ballgame on a system where panels are fabricated to exact length. IMQ prices the dimensions you give it. If those dimensions are off by six inches, the quote is off by six inches, and because there is no end lap to absorb the error, a short panel is a reorder rather than a trim cut. That is the tradeoff you accept in exchange for a roof with no end laps and far less scrap.
So: quote the job in IMQ to bid it, and verify the roof before you order it. That is what field measurement verification is for, and it is an add-on inside IMQ for exactly this reason. On a simple gable with clean access, your own tape is fine. On a cut-up roof, a re-roof over an old deck, or anything where you did not personally measure every plane, verification is cheap insurance against a fabrication run you cannot use.
Two other boundaries worth stating plainly. IMQ is not a permit package: the Florida Product Approval documents and installation instructions your building department wants are on our product approval and installation instructions page, and they travel with the submittal, not with the quote. And IMQ does not price your labor. It prices ours if you add turnkey installation, but your crew, your overhead and your margin are yours to set. We would rather hand you a clean material cost and let you build the bid than pretend we know what your crew is worth.
The Florida part: the panel list narrows before the price does
In most of the country, choosing a panel is a preference. In Miami-Dade and Broward it is a code question, and it gets answered before you price anything.
Those two counties are the High Velocity Hurricane Zone. Inside the HVHZ, a panel either holds HVHZ and Miami-Dade approval or it is not an option at any price. SL100 (FL41812.05-R1), SL150 (FL41812.02-R1) and NS150 (FL41812.01-R1) are HVHZ and Miami-Dade approved, as are our M100 and M150 mechanical lock panels. NS100, our 1 inch nailstrip, is approved under FL41812.04-R1 but is not HVHZ approved and belongs on jobs outside the zone. 5V crimp is likewise outside the HVHZ only.
We are blunt about this because the previous generation of product literature in this industry was not, and a panel that fails at plan review costs a contractor a schedule, not just a submittal fee. Approval revisions also change, so verify the current revision at floridabuilding.org before you submit.
Practically, that means a job in Miami or Fort Lauderdale starts from a shorter panel list than the same job in Orlando or Jacksonville. Getting that right at quote time is worth more than getting the price fast.
Who IMQ is for
Contractors. Roofing contractors, general contractors and builders buying metal as material, quoting their own jobs, and carrying their own labor. It is not a homeowner tool and we do not market it as one, because a homeowner does not need an itemized clip and closure count.
IMQ access is offered to select ERS contractor clients. If you are already buying standing seam or 5V from us, ask about getting your company set up. If you are not yet, that conversation and the access conversation are the same conversation. Contractors running volume through us should also look at the Contractor Rewards Program, which stacks on top of anything quoted through the platform.
Start with one real job
The fastest way to judge a quoting tool is to run a job you already priced by hand and compare. Take a standing seam or 5V roof you bid last month, put it through IMQ, and see how the material list lines up against what you actually ordered. If you want a walkthrough on your first one, contact sales or book a call and we will sit on it with you.
