Plain answers.

Press Open an account: company name, your name, email, password. Type the code we email you. Then Setup: your company info, logo, prices and proposal text. Then add a card in Billing — nothing is charged until you buy something. 3 sample jobs to look around — they can't be sent or printed for a customer. Your first day, step by step.

Your first job: the Estimator, the 3D Designer and the cut sheet, everything on that one job. After that you pay for what a job uses.

It prices a cage from your own price book, makes the proposal with your company name on it, and gets it signed online. A line with no price says ENTER PRICE — it never makes up a number. $50 a month.

It draws the cage you measured on the house — L-shapes, angles, two pieces — and turns it around in 3D. $100 a job.

A card is needed to start. Nothing is charged until you buy something; cancel any time. The card goes in Billing. The price is on the button before you press it. Cancel the Estimator any time in Billing → manage billing; it stays on to the end of the month you paid for. Your jobs, proposals and cut sheets stay in your account. The terms.

Yes — the Easy pages (Estimator, Designer, cut-sheet measure) ask one question a page with big buttons, made for a phone in the yard.

Cage Layout Pro turns a guided field measure into a shop layout and cut sheet.

The finished sheet includes every bar, cut lengths to the sixteenth, angles, end cuts, punch marks, hash marks and a complete cut list.

If a field measurement was entered incorrectly, correct it and re-run the same cage free.

Cage Layout Pro will not print a shop sheet while a post is still unmeasured or the deck's squareness has not been checked, and every sheet checks itself before it prints.

The contractor remains responsible for verifying field measurements and reviewing the completed cut sheet before ordering, cutting or fabricating material.

If anything on a cut sheet appears wrong, stop and contact Cage Contractor Pro before fabrication.

Your layout person is valuable. That becomes a problem when every job depends on that one person.

Cage Layout Pro lets someone else collect the measurements while the software handles the repeatable calculator work.

Your experienced person can review the finished sheet instead of personally calculating every bar on every cage.

No.

Cage Layout Pro produces a shop layout and cut sheet. It is not an engineered drawing, sealed plan, permit set or statement of code compliance.

Engineering, permitting, structural decisions and required approvals remain with the contractor and the contractor's engineer.

The engineer's member schedule can be entered into the layout, but Cage Layout Pro does not create or approve that schedule.

Cage Layout Pro currently handles:

• Mansard
• Half mansard, including hips down one or both sides
• Reverse half mansard
• Gable, including an off-center ridge and different eave heights
• Gable A with hipped ends
• Optional gable wind bracing
• Dome
• A carry beam splitting a large cage into two sections

If a design is not supported, the software identifies it by name and stops instead of guessing.

Not yet: Gable A with one gable end and one hip end; a gable A slope over 200"; on an angled front, any roof but mansard, gable, half mansard or reverse half mansard, and a picture-window front on an angled wall under a gable, dome or transition. The 3D Designer draws it; Cage Layout Pro does not lay it out yet and stops before a price.

Cage Layout Pro currently handles:

• Rectangular decks, with beams running either way
• Out-of-square decks with angled walls (an angled front, standard or picture-window: mansard, half mansard, reverse half mansard, gable, gable A, dome or gable → mansard)
• L-shaped cages with inside corners (mansard or a carry beam)
• Jogged house walls (mansard or a carry beam)

Wall construction is selected wall by wall. Current options include:

• Standard screen walls with chair rails
• Clearview walls without chair rails
• Picture windows across a whole wall
• Picture windows in part of a straight wall
• Screen transoms standing on the gutter
• Picture-window transoms standing on the gutter
• Eave returns under the soffit

Different wall styles can be mixed on the same cage.

A picture window in part of a wall is not yet supported on an angled wall, on a transom, on a cage split by a carry beam or transition, or on a dome end with a rafter header (a level header works). Under a gable it works: pick how the header meets the gable. The software names those cases and stops.

Cage Layout Pro tells you which condition is unsupported and stops.

It does not force the layout through or give the shop a sheet based on a guess, and you are not charged for it.

Contact Curtis if there is a specific cage style your company needs regularly.

Yes. The measure sheet collects laser readings at every corner and post so the software can account for the deck and place the post tops level.

Yes. The measure sheet can collect readings at the top, chair rail and bottom of the house wall.

Yes. Different gutter heights can be entered for different sides of the house.

For tall walls, the software checks the 156-inch screen roll against the actual opening using the selected member sizes.

Narrow bays can be screened sideways.

Yes. Member sizes can be set for the entire cage, one line or one individual piece.

Cage Layout Pro does not create or approve the engineer's member schedule.

Yes. Every customer's data is completely separate from every other customer's data. That separation has been tested.

No. Cage Layout Pro runs in your browser. Nothing needs to be installed.

An internet connection is required for pricing, saving the job and producing the cut sheet.

Yes. Each job is saved so the measure can be picked up where it left off.

Correct the measurement and re-run the same cage free.

You pay once per cage, not once per run.

A correction is free within 14 days of the charge, when it is a measuring fix: the same cage, with no more than 5 side or height readings changed in all, none of them by more than 24 inches. Changing a gutter or a member size is also free. More than that is more than a measuring fix: email [email protected] and tell us what happened — we look at each one. A different cage on the same job is a new layout.

Made an honest mistake that falls outside that, such as a number written down backwards? Email [email protected], tell us what happened, and we will look at it and can reset the correction for that cage.

One flat price per cage, set by how cut up it is:

• Standard — $100
• Cut up — $200
• Custom — $300

There is no square-footage charge. No cage costs more than $300.

Gable, gable A and dome roofs start at Cut up. A gable that turns into a mansard, or a carry beam across the roof, starts at Custom.

Square footage is not what creates most of the calculator work.

A plain cage repeats measurements. A cut-up cage has more individual lengths, angles and end cuts.

A cut-up 2,000 sq ft cage can therefore cost more to lay out than a plain 4,000 sq ft cage.

Yes. Cage Layout Pro shows the named complexity tier and total price before you commit.

Cage Estimator Pro — $50 per month.

Cage Designer Pro — $100 per job, on its own, with the Estimator, or with a layout.

Material takeoff — free with a layout.

Yes. Estimator, Designer and a layout on the same job: save 15% — every time you use all three.

First job with all three: the Estimator month, the Designer and the layout are 15% off — a Standard job is $212.50 instead of $250.

After that, while the Estimator is on, every job that buys the Designer and a layout together is 15% off both — $170 instead of $200 for a Standard job.

When you add 3D to a job, its deck is locked — the floor plan's size and shape from the estimate. You can still change the roof (zones, dome, gable…), wall heights, doors, screens and options. You can draw it in more than one piece (two structures that share an edge) — all the pieces together must be the bought deck. A bigger or different deck needs 3D bought again for that job — or email [email protected] if you made a mistake.

Yes. Today: Gable A with one gable end and one hip end · a gable A slope over 200" · a picture window in part of a wall on a transition or carry-beam cage · a part window on a dome end with a rafter header. Cage Layout Pro does not lay these out yet and stops before a price, so you are not charged. Gable A with two gable ends, or two hipped ends, shows in 3D and lays out.

No. Cage Layout Pro is the guided measure, cage layout and shop cut sheet.

The Estimator (proposals, e-sign — $50 a month, on sale now) and the 3D Designer ($100 a job) are separate products on the same Cage Contractor Pro account.