Steel quotes priced by weight and processing, checked against the quotes you sent.

Requests arrive as an email with sizes in the body, a fabricator's cut list, a drawing with a part outline, or a spreadsheet of coil widths. For each line someone finds the item, works out pieces and weight, adds the cuts or processing, applies the customer's price and checks the rack or plans a buyout.

For the test, AI reads copies of those requests and drafts each quote line by line: item, pieces and weight, processing with its charge, the price and where it came from. Anything it can't settle from your records goes on a short list for inside sales, with the reason. Nothing is sent to a customer.

Which weight the price rides on. A price per cwt or per pound means nothing until the quote says whose weight. Steel Market Update's billing conversion tables separate theoretical nominal weight, sometimes called book weight, from theoretical minimum weight, figured on the minimum thickness ordered, and from actual weight on the average decimal received, with a factor of 0.9756 between nominal and actual. Some service centers settle it in their terms: Infra-Metals, doing business as Sugar Steel, says all its weights are theoretical and determined by ASTM standards. The draft states the weight basis on every line, so a per-cwt price and a per-piece price can be checked against each other.

Quantity and timing are part of the deal. The same terms make quoted prices contingent on the customer buying the entire quoted quantity, say prices may vary if less is bought, make quotes on stocked items subject to prior sale, and rule out cancelling processed product. A draft that splits a quote, drops a line or carries a stale date changes all of that. Each line keeps its quantity tied to its price, and your validity and prior-sale wording is carried as your desk writes it.

A cut is a tolerance and a kerf. Haynes International publishes a cut-to-length tolerance of plus 1/8 inch, minus nothing, for its U.S. service centers, and a 1/8-inch kerf. Alro's precision saw sheet from March 2025 gives plus or minus .004 inch on its cold saws and .010 inch on its precision band saws. So 40 pieces held to a few thousandths are a different saw, a different charge and a different number of pieces per bar than the same pieces at a standard cut. The draft reads the tolerance off the request and prices the cut your team would.

Bars come in randoms. Associated Steel calls the 12-foot random the most universally accepted random bar length, which makes pieces per bar a question of the stock actually on the rack, kerf included. Whether the drop is charged to the job, kept as remnant stock or shipped with the order is your desk's rule. The draft follows the quotes you send, with its piece count, bar count and drop on the line.

Plate is quoted as shapes. Invera describes INVEX plate entry that takes circles, rings, triangles and irregular sketches, with a DXF attached to the line and price books that build up the cutting charge; its general-line entry takes several lengths of one cross section at once, each with a piece mark. Your reviewer, usually the inside sales manager, watches the weight basis, cut counts per bar, burn and slitting charges, buyouts priced from a real vendor quote, and validity dates.

Once your reviewer says yes against the success criteria, the same job drafts quotes on new requests for about 30 days.

A salesperson checks, changes or discards every draft, and only a person sends a quote. Prices still come only from your own sheets and records.

The live run has a fixed price you see before signing, and any next job is priced separately.