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A good estimator decides whether you get paid or leave money on the job. You can train one for close to nothing with free resources you may already own, and pay only for the credential.
An awareness-level resource for restoration teams, backed by decades of experience in the trade. This page points you to outside training providers and tools; it is not a substitute for any provider's own program. Levels, pricing, and schedules change, so confirm the current details with each provider directly before you budget.
The near-zero-cost ramp
Plenty of shops assume training an estimator means buying a course and a seat. It often does not. If you already run Xactimate, a large part of the ramp is already paid for. Start here before you spend a dollar:
- Use the training instance in your existing subscription. An Xactimate subscription includes a practice environment where a new estimator can build mock estimates without touching a live claim. Let them break things in there first.
- Verisk's Xactware Classroom. Your annual subscription includes unlimited access to Xactware Classroom, an online library of self-paced courses, learning paths, and short tip videos. Verisk describes it as over 100 hours of content included with an annual subscription, which is training already sitting inside the seat you pay for. Free tip videos cover specific tasks (sketching a room, adding a line item, running a report) in a few minutes each. Start at verisk.com/products/xactimate/training.
- The self-paced course catalog. Beyond the tip videos, the Classroom holds full self-paced courses that walk a beginner from setup to a finished estimate. A motivated new hire can work through the fundamentals in a couple of weeks at their own pace.
- Vetted contractor-side video. There is good free instruction on the open web, but choose carefully. Confirm two things before you trust a video: that it is recent enough to match the current Xactimate version, and that the creator writes as a contractor, not as an adjuster. The same line item gets scoped differently depending on which side of the claim the teacher sits on.
- A trial seat for hands-on reps. Verisk offers a software trial. If you want to give a candidate or a cross-training tech real keyboard time before you commit a paid seat, a trial buys practice at no cost. Confirm the current trial length with Verisk directly, because it has changed before.
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Start with the estimating and getting-paid basics already in the library:
Estimating Beyond Xactimate: Cotality, Symbility, and Carrier Platforms
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Low-cost, restoration-contractor-specific schools
The free ramp teaches the software. These independent schools teach you to write estimates that get paid the first time, scoped the way a restoration contractor scopes them, not the way an adjuster does. They cost money, but they are a fraction of a salaried trainer's time, and most are built for the trade. A short comparison:
- Reets Drying Academy: best for tying estimating to the standards and to negotiation. Their estimating and negotiating track teaches you to build defensible mitigation scopes and hold them up in a conversation with an adjuster: reetsdryingacademy.com.
- America's Restoration Training Institute (ARTI): best for live, instructor-led online Xactimate Level 1 and Level 2 certification. ARTI also runs infection control risk assessment (ICRA) and Symbility (Cotality) bootcamps: americasrti.com.
- Aramsco: best for catching Xactimate and broader restoration classes through a major industry distributor, on a rolling national calendar, often alongside the equipment and supplies your shop already buys from them: aramsco.com/education.
Pick by the gap you are filling. An estimator who already navigates the software but leaves money on the table needs the contractor-side and negotiation training (Reets). A shop that wants live, instructor-led Level 1 and 2 certification goes to ARTI. A shop that would rather catch a class on a rolling national calendar goes to Aramsco.
The certification catch