Few tools quote wire harnesses from labour. Besides Cableteque, there are Zuken Harness Builder's Cost Estimator (with E3.series, Windows), Cadonix Arcadia Quote (in Arcadia Professional, on request) and Zorowire (browser, published prices, labour from your own table, formboard and cut list included). Many shops still quote in their own spreadsheets.
Cableteque is built for contract manufacturers that quote many assemblies from customer drawings: AI extraction of the BOM and wire list, supplier prices from 30+ distributors with your own API keys, labour templates, every quantity break at once, and implementation done for you. We found no public user complaints. The reasons shops look elsewhere are structural.
Why shops look for a Cableteque alternative
- No published price. Every tier says to talk to sales; prices are set in a short meeting (pricing).
- Sized by volume. Starter covers up to 80 assemblies quoted a month, Standard 150, Growth 300, weighted by BOM lines.
- Onboarding by design. Every plan includes a dedicated customer success manager and 20 hours of implementation — useful for a large shop, a lot for a small one.
- Add-ons for the rest. RFQ Intake (the missing-information check) and Manufacturing Engineering (formboards, cut lists) are paid add-ons with unpublished prices.
Is the estimate really the slow part?
A 2026 WHMA survey of 23 harness makers found 70 % blaming incomplete customer information and 70 % supplier price delays, against 17 % blaming the estimating work; 74 % rated a standard RFQ checklist very or extremely useful (electronics.org, 27 October 2026). The sample is small, and a quoting vendor sits on the same advisory team, but the message is clear: a faster calculator helps less than knowing what is missing.
The alternatives at a glance
| Tool | Cheapest paid, as listed | Free plan | Platform | 1:1 formboard | Quote from labour |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zorowire | Starter €24 a month; Shop €79 a month for 5 users | Unlimited harnesses × 150 connections, 3 quotes a month | Browser (macOS, Windows, Linux) | Yes; tiled with marks and a check ruler, or one piece | Yes: labour from operations, setup, breaks, margin, customer PDF |
| Cableteque | On request, after a meeting | None | Browser | Paid add-on | Yes: AI BOM, supplier prices, labour templates, breaks |
| Zuken E3.series + Harness Builder | From €164 a month per seat, harness modules on request | None | Windows desktop | Yes, with Harness Builder | Cost Estimator with assembly times |
| Cadonix Arcadia | Essentials bought online (price not visible to us) | None found | Browser | Yes, 1:1 and not-to-scale | Arcadia Quote in Professional (on request) |
| Excel | Your Excel licence | — | Windows, macOS, browser | No | Typed by hand |
Which one fits
- Start yourself, see the price first: Zorowire publishes its prices, starts free, and prices labour from your table. Missing part numbers and prices are flagged, and the RFQ checklist lists what the customer still has to supply.
- You already run E3.series: Harness Builder's Cost Estimator calculates assembly times next to your formboards and machine exports.
- Arcadia users: Arcadia Quote is part of Arcadia Professional.
- One-off jobs: a good spreadsheet still works; one HP Academy tutor's rule of thumb was parts plus 40 % and labour at three times the wage (2021).
Shops that show a paid Cableteque licence get their first year of Zorowire Shop at €49 a month. More on Zorowire vs Cableteque.
Start free
Start freeFrequently asked questions
How much does Cableteque cost?
Cableteque does not publish prices. Its pricing page says prices are set in a meeting and depend on assemblies quoted per month, their BOM complexity and add-ons (checked 30 October 2026).
Is there harness quoting software with a published price?
Zorowire publishes its prices: Free (3 quotes a month), Starter €24 a month, Shop €79 a month for five users, Pro €149 a month for fifteen, excluding VAT.
Does Zorowire read customer drawings with AI?
No. Zorowire imports connection lists from Excel, CSV, WireViz and harness.design files, and you enter the rest. It does not extract BOMs from PDFs or scans.
Does Zorowire look up distributor prices?
Not today. Quotes use your own price list; missing prices are listed instead of counted as zero.
Sources
- Cableteque, Pricing (tiers, CSM, 20 h implementation, add-ons) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Cableteque, Manufacturing Engineering add-on (formboards, cut lists) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Cableteque, Quote finalization (breaks, margins, PDF, revisions) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Zuken, E3.series 365 prices (node-locked and floating) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Zuken, Harness Builder for E3.series (formboard, Cost Estimator, machine and tester outputs; no published price) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Zuken, Harness Builder for E3.series 2026 release (Cost Estimator, Cableteque integration) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Cadonix Arcadia, Manufacturing Bundle (Essentials online; quoting in Professional) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Zorowire search of Etsy, Gumroad, Eloquens and Template.net for harness quoting templates — Zorowire test or research, 2026-10-30
- Cableteque, RFQ Intake (paid add-on) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- electronics.org, 'Missing information slows wire harness quotes, WHMA survey finds' (2026-10-27; n = 23) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- HP Academy forum, 'Pricing up harness' (2021) · retrieved 2026-10-30
