A sheet metal worker has turned a £225 mistake into a new software business aimed squarely at fabrication shops.
Every fabricator knows the feeling: the job is priced, the material is ordered, and a full sheet of stainless sits untouched at the end of it. For Ryan, a sheet metal worker turned sales engineer at a bespoke fabrication company in Newcastle upon Tyne, that experience became the starting point for a new venture.
Quoting jobs daily, Ryan saw the same pattern again and again. Sheet requirements were being worked out on a calculator or sketched by hand, and orders regularly came out one sheet heavier than needed. The moment it hit home was on one of his own jobs, calculated at four sheets of 316 brushed stainless. Properly nested, it needed three. At £225 a sheet, the difference came straight off the margin.
“Nobody gets that wrong because they’re bad at their job,” he says. “It’s late on a Friday, the parts are big, and drawing it out in rows is how most of us were taught. I wanted something that did it properly in the time it takes to type the list in.”
Built for the browser, built for the trade
The result is CutNest, a browser-based cut list optimiser that requires no installation. Users enter or paste in their parts, select the sheet sizes they actually stock, and the software calculates the minimum number of sheets, allowing for kerf, with every sheet drawn to scale. Where it can prove no layout could use fewer sheets, it confirms it.
The tool also covers bar and tube. For box section, angle, flat bar and extrusion, CutNest calculates the fewest lengths required, can mix stock lengths such as 6m and 7.5m to find the cheapest order, and produces a cutting plan for each bar with marks measured from the bar end. Usable offcuts are flagged, so they go back on the rack rather than into the skip.
A freemium model for fabricators
Like many software start-ups, CutNest has opted for a freemium approach. Sheet nesting and bar cutting are free, with no account required. The Pro plan extends the workflow beyond the layout, adding customer quotes with material markup and cutting time, printed cut sheets and part labels for the shop floor, DXF export, grain lock for brushed finishes, and unlimited materials per job.
Pro costs £12 a month or £99 a year (plus VAT) per company, with one licence shared across the whole team and a 14-day free trial.
“I built it for the way fabrication shops actually work,” Ryan says. “Most jobs are a few different materials, someone needs a price out the door the same day, and whoever is cutting it needs a sheet they can follow.”
The site also offers a free metal weight calculator covering plate, bar, box section, tube and angle in steel, stainless, aluminium, brass and copper.
Shaped by the industry
As an early-stage business, CutNest is actively seeking feedback from fabricators to guide its development.
“It’s built by someone from the trade, and I’d like it shaped by the trade as well,” says Ryan. “If something’s missing, tell me and I’ll look at adding it.”
