AI quoting for pressure vessel manufacturers

Price the vessel package while your competitor is still reading it.

On a vessel bid, the shop that finishes reading first has time to ask its questions and still send its price early. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine turns each bid package into a priced draft quote in your own pricing within minutes, so your team answers sooner, bids on more vessels and stops losing work to slow quotes. Your estimator checks the draft and sets the final number.

Book a Demo How we test it →

From a public 283-page refinery package

p.230The data sheet gives heat treatment after welding (PWHT) as “NIL”.
p.157The carbon steel standard still asks for cold-formed heads to be stress relieved.
p.125The job instructions replace the standard rule for spot radiography with a lighter one.
p.143Another page says the strictest requirement governs.

In our sample quote, the head stress relief is a $6,900 line that an estimator reading only the PWHT line would leave out, and the radiography rule moves the total by $5,800. The draft keeps the line, prices both readings and writes the question to send before the due date.

Why speed decides who wins

The shop that reads first gets its answers before the due date.

Some owners leave no room for a second try. In the Kochi refinery package in our guide, the covering letter says bids are evaluated as received and technical queries may not be issued (page 2), and the bid instructions say an offer that carries any clarification is liable for rejection (page 123). So every question has to reach the customer, and the answer has to come back, before the due date. The shop that finishes reading early can ask, hear back and price the right reading. The shop that finishes late has to guess, or price the safe reading and come in higher.

283

Pages in the refinery vessel package in our guide

Pages that set all ten lines of the example quote

$5,800

What the safe radiography reading adds in our sample quote

Minutes

From a vessel bid package to a priced draft quote

Pressure vessel cost estimation on a package like this is mostly reading. The ten lines of the example quote rest on just nine of its pages, and the costs that are easy to miss sit on those pages: heads that need stress relieving when the data sheet says PWHT “NIL”, drawing weights you may not price from, and a price that must include five items still on hold.

The AI Quoting Engine reads the whole package and drafts the quote in your own pricing within minutes, with every line tied to its page and every open question already written. Your estimator can send the questions on the first day, use the answers when they come back, and put your price in before a competitor has finished reading.

Video: AI Quoting for Pressure Vessels: From Bid Package to Draft Quote (2:08)

Read the vessel quoting guide →Where the days go in a quote →

What goes in

The data sheet is one page. The price comes from the whole package.

A vessel is rarely priced from its data sheet alone. The owner's standards, the job instructions and the bid rules all add costs, and they do not always agree with the data sheet or with each other.

Vessel data sheet

The vessel itself: its material, corrosion allowance, heat treatment, nozzles and the items still on hold.

The data sheet sets a 3 mm corrosion allowance, strikes the words “or equivalent” from the material heading and puts five items on hold.

Data sheet, page 230

The owner's standards

The rules for making, testing and documenting every vessel this owner buys.

EIL's carbon steel supplement asks for cold-formed heads to be stress relieved, and its general standard asks for hydrotest water that is clean and potable, never sea water.

6-12-0002, page 157, and 6-12-0001, page 149

Job instructions

What changes for this one job: rules that are replaced, inspection that is added, and who pays for it.

They replace the standard rule for spot radiography with one 150 mm spot per seam, and make a vendor outside India include third-party inspection in its price.

Job instructions, page 125

Bid rules and covering letter

What the offer may say, what the price must include, and when questions can still be asked.

Bids are evaluated as received, an offer with any technical clarification is liable for rejection, and the quoted price must include the items on hold.

Covering letter, page 2, and instructions to bidders, page 123

What you get back

A priced vessel quote, with every line tied to its page.

The engine learns how your shop prices vessels from your own past bid packages, the quotes you sent and your costing workbooks, including how you build hours, such as hours per ton of shell and per nozzle by size. Each new package then comes back as a draft in that same pricing, ready for your estimator to check line by line.

Priced lines with their pages

Every line carries a quantity, a price from your own rates and the pages that set it, so a second person can check it.

p.123Welding hours from your own weight take-off, not the drawing weights

Calls priced both ways

Where two pages disagree, the draft carries the likely reading and prices the other one beside it. Flip the call and the total moves at once.

p.125Spot radiography at $4,600 or $10,400 in our sample quote

TBD instead of a guess

An item the package has not settled says TBD, so nobody hides a guess inside a firm total.

p.230Level instrument nozzles, size and number on hold

Questions ready for the customer

Anything only the customer can answer becomes a question, written so it can be pasted into an email before the due date.

p.143May we offer an equivalent plate grade?

Then the quote

Your estimator reviews the draft, settles the calls, sends the questions and puts the final number on it. The hours that used to go into turning pages go into the few decisions that win or lose the bid.

What it does not do

It does not design the vessel, run code calculations, decide compliance or set your margin, and it never sends anything to your customer. Your team decides every number that goes out.

How it differs

A vessel is not a part number, so it needs a different kind of quoting tool.

If you are comparing pressure vessel estimating software, it helps to know that each kind of quoting tool below was built for a different kind of request. Here is what goes into each one and where its price comes from, so you can pick the right one for vessel work.

Kind of tool	What goes in	Where the price comes from	Fits best when
Configure-price-quote toolsTacton, Salesforce Revenue Cloud, Epicor CPQ	A salesperson picks options from your product catalogue.	Pricing rules you set up for each option.	You sell standard models, such as a catalogue air receiver, that a few choices describe.
Job-shop quoting softwarePaperless Parts, SecturaFAB, Costimator	Part files and part drawings.	The part's geometry, its operations and your shop rates.	You machine or fabricate single parts from customer drawings.
Quoting inside your ERPJobBOSS², MRPeasy	The materials and routing your estimator types in.	The rates and routings already stored in your ERP.	You run the shop in that ERP and quote work like jobs you have done before.
Drawing data toolsWerk24	Single engineering drawings.	No price. It turns drawings into data for your other systems.	You want drawing data inside your own ERP or quoting tool.
Manufacturing data searchCADDi	Your archive of drawings and manufacturing data.	The past jobs and costs it finds for you.	You quote repeat parts and want to find what you made before.
Should-cost simulationaPriori	3D CAD models.	A simulated cost of making the part.	You run cost engineering or check what suppliers charge.
Mavlon AI Quoting EngineFor engineered equipment quoted from bid packages	The whole bid package: specification, data sheets, drawings, bid form, addenda and the covering email.	Your own rate book, costing spreadsheets and past quotes.	You build pressure vessels to an owner's specification and data sheet, such as drums, separators and storage vessels, and each job comes with its own package.

We make Mavlon, so read this table with that in mind. Descriptions of other tools come from their own websites in October 2026, and corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co. Many teams use a configurator for standard models and Mavlon for the jobs that arrive as a bid package.

Where it fits

Built for the vessel bids that tie up your best estimator.

Custom work

Mavlon is the right tool when

The request arrives as a package: the owner's specification and standards, data sheets, drawings, bid rules and addenda.
Each vessel is built to the owner's own rules, which add costs that the pressure vessel code alone does not ask for.
Your senior estimator spends days reading before anyone can price, so the questions go to the customer late.
You pass on vessel bids you could win, because nobody has the time to read them.

Standard work

A different tool fits better when

You sell catalogue vessels, such as standard air receivers, that a few options describe. A configurator is faster for that.
Your requests are a one-page data sheet with nothing behind it. A good estimator will price those faster than any tool.
You need the vessel designed, with wall thickness and nozzle reinforcement worked out to the code. Vessel design programs are built for that.

We make Mavlon. Corrections are welcome at atishay@mavlon.co.

Prove it on your own vessels

Before a live bid, test it on vessels you already quoted.

We run the engine on past vessel jobs your team has already priced, and we agree the pass mark in writing before the test starts.

Choose one vessel family you quote often, such as carbon steel drums or horizontal separators.
Hold back a set of past jobs, and keep their quotes away from the engine.
The engine prices each one from the package the customer sent.
We compare its totals with the prices your team actually quoted.

A US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures went live in production after a test like this. Its drafts come within about 2 to 3 percent of its own price on familiar product lines, and within about 10 to 15 percent on brand-new jobs with many add-ons.

The pilot protocol →The waterfront structures case study →

What we have published so far

A live customer: a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures, name withheld at its request.
The Cape Vincent demo: a public 179-page bid package turned into a priced draft quote.
The pressure vessel guide: a public 283-page refinery package, priced line by line with sample rates.

The pass bar: seven of ten totals within 15 percent, agreed in writing first.

Read before you book

Guides for vessel and exchanger quotes.

GuidePressure vessel specificationFrom the owner's specification to a priced quote, on a public 283-page refinery package.GuideHeat exchanger specification sheetsWhat each line of the sheet does to the price, with an example draft quote and the questions to ask.GuidePre-bid risk assessmentA risk register read from the customer's document page by page, with a template.GuideFixed price contract riskWhat 32 manufacturers' annual reports say about fixed prices, and why the risk starts at the quote.ToolSpecification compliance matrixAn Excel template for listing every requirement in a package against your offer.ToolMetal weight calculatorSee what a few extra millimetres of corrosion or forming allowance do to the plate weight.

What is AI quoting for pressure vessel manufacturers?

It is the use of AI to read a customer's bid package for a pressure vessel, meaning the specification, the owner's standards, data sheets, drawings, bid rules and addenda, and to draft a priced quote from it. Mavlon's AI Quoting Engine does this in the manufacturer's own pricing, with every line tied to the page that set it, so an estimator can check it and send it. Pressure vessel shops are custom manufacturers, sometimes called engineer-to-order manufacturers: each vessel is built to one owner's specification, so there is no catalogue price to look up.

Is the AI Quoting Engine a kind of pressure vessel estimating software?

It does the job most shops want from pressure vessel estimating software, which is getting a reliable price out sooner, but it starts one step earlier. Instead of waiting for your estimator to enter plate, nozzles and hours, it reads the customer's bid package, works out what is being asked for and drafts the priced quote in your own pricing, with each line tied to its page. That makes pressure vessel cost estimation a check of a draft instead of a long read, and your estimator still sets the final number.

How is Mavlon different from a configurator or CPQ tool?

A configurator prices standard options that a salesperson picks from your catalogue, which suits stock vessels such as standard air receivers. Mavlon starts one step earlier, from the owner's documents, and works out what is being asked for before anything can be priced. Many shops use both: a configurator for catalogue models and Mavlon for vessels that arrive as a bid package.

How is it different from Paperless Parts, SecturaFAB or Costimator?

Those tools price machined and fabricated parts from part files and drawings, using the part's geometry, its operations and the shop's rates. Mavlon prices a whole vessel from the owner's bid package, including the costs the package adds beyond steel and welding, such as heat treatment, radiography, the hydrotest, third-party inspection and the data folder, in the manufacturer's own pricing. A shop quoting single parts is better served by them, and a shop answering vessel bid packages is better served by Mavlon.

How does it learn our pricing?

From your own records: past bid packages paired with the quotes you sent, your costing workbooks and your rate book. If your hours per ton of shell or per nozzle live in a senior estimator's workbook, the engine learns them from that workbook and the jobs priced with it. Where a rule is not written down anywhere, it becomes a question for your estimator rather than a guess.

How fast is the draft?

A priced draft comes back within minutes of the upload, which leaves time to send your questions to the customer while the due date is still days away. The time your estimator then spends depends on how many decisions the package leaves open, and each one arrives already priced both ways.

Does it replace our estimators?

No. It drafts the quote, and your estimator decides. It does not run code calculations, decide compliance, set margins or send anything to your customer. What changes is how many vessel bids your team can answer, and how early.

Who is behind Mavlon?

Mavlon, Inc. is a US company founded in 2024 by Atishay Jain, an AI engineer. It builds the AI Quoting Engine for custom manufacturers, and it is live in production with a US manufacturer of engineered waterfront structures. Read that case study.

Questions buyers ask

What vessel shops ask us first.

Send the first credible price on every vessel bid.

Book a demo and watch the AI Quoting Engine turn a pressure vessel bid package into a priced draft quote in minutes, with every line tied to its page and each open call priced both ways.

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