If your harnesses live in Excel, the easiest step is a tool that imports your sheet as it is. Zorowire reads .xlsx and .csv lists with column mapping and keeps the board, cut list, BOM and quote in sync; Splice CAD round-trips its own XLSX format; Rapid Harness imports from-to lists on Windows; harness.design imports Excel through an AI assistant.
Spreadsheets are where most harness shops start and many stay: a from-to list, a cut list, a BOM, a quote sheet. They are free to change and everyone can use them. One builder on HP Academy bills a complete harness in about 30 minutes with his own sheet (2022). For one-off jobs that is hard to beat.
Where spreadsheets start to hurt
- Every change, every sheet. A wire changes, and the cut list, the label list, the BOM and the drawing all need the same edit. Builders describe the main rule as remembering to update the spreadsheet after each change (HP Academy, 2016), and losing track across the from-to table and the diagrams (Hacker News, 2025).
- Lengths by hand. A sheet does not know the branch tree, so each cut length is worked out and typed.
- What to charge for labour. The same 2022 thread shows a builder unsure what to charge for labour; a sheet holds a number, not a method.
- No drawing. Connectors and the board are drawn separately, by hand or in Visio.
- No template to buy. We found no harness-specific quoting template for sale on Etsy, Gumroad, Eloquens or Template.net (searched 30 October 2026).
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 |
| Excel | Your Excel licence | — | Windows, macOS, browser | No | Typed by hand |
| harness.design | $29 per seat a month; $24 billed yearly | Unlimited harnesses × 100 connections | Browser, macOS and Windows apps | Yes, tiled panels | None found |
| Splice CAD | No paid plan yet | 50 harnesses on the web | Browser and desktop | No 1:1 formboard in our test | None |
| Rapid Harness | $219 a month per user (Standard) | 5 designs × 30 connections | Windows desktop | Yes, every plan | None found |
| WireViz / Filare | Free (GPL-3.0) | Everything | Python command line | No | No |
Keep Excel, stop retyping
Zorowire treats your spreadsheet as the way in and out, not as something to throw away. Import the from-to list as it is: the header row is found, column names in English, German, Romanian and Polish are recognised, gauges can be mm² or AWG and lengths any unit. Everything the importer assumed is listed. Then the board, the cut list, the BOM and the quote all come from that one record, and the cut list and BOM export back to CSV with a comma or a semicolon.
More on Zorowire vs Excel, and how to set up the sheet in How to calculate wire cut lengths.
Import a list
Start freeFrequently asked questions
Can I keep using Excel with Zorowire?
Yes. Import connection lists from .xlsx or .csv and export the cut list and BOM as CSV whenever you need them in Excel.
Which columns does my Excel list need?
At minimum: where each wire starts and ends (connector and cavity, or combined as X1:3) and the wire. Gauge, colour, length, terminal and seal part numbers are optional and used when present.
Is there a free wire harness quote template?
We found none for sale specifically for harnesses (October 2026). Zorowire's Free plan includes 3 quotes a month built from the harness and a default labour table whose values are labelled estimates.
Why not just use a better spreadsheet?
For one-off harnesses, do. A tool pays off when harnesses repeat and change, because every document comes from one record.
Sources
- Zorowire search of Etsy, Gumroad, Eloquens and Template.net for harness quoting templates — Zorowire test or research, 2026-10-30
- harness.design, homepage and pricing section · retrieved 2026-10-30
- harness.design docs, FAQ (Free limits, platforms, offline) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- harness.design docs, Formboard mode and panels · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Zorowire hands-on test of harness.design (Free plan, fixture F2) — Zorowire test or research, 2026-10-30
- Splice CAD, Pricing (Free: 50 harnesses on the web) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Zorowire hands-on test of Splice CAD, web app (fixture F2) — Zorowire test or research, 2026-10-31
- Rapid Harness, Pricing · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Rapid Harness, homepage (features, Windows desktop app) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Rapid Harness, version history · retrieved 2026-10-30
- WireViz on GitHub (GPL-3.0, latest release v0.4.1 of 2024-07-13) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- HP Academy forum, 'How do you sell your harnesses' (2021–2022) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- HP Academy forum, 'How to make wiring diagrams' (2016) · retrieved 2026-10-30
- Hacker News thread on keeping a from-to table and diagrams in sync (2025) · retrieved 2026-10-30
