ConstructionTakeoff
SoftwareMadeSimple

A construction takeoff (also called a quantity takeoff or material takeoff) is the process of measuring and counting everything on a set of blueprints to determine how much material a project requires. You work through each sheet in the plan set and pull measurements: linear feet of walls, square footage of flooring, counts of doors and windows, lengths of piping runs, areas of concrete slabs, and anything else your scope of work covers. The word "takeoff" comes from "taking off" quantities from the drawings, and it is the bridge between a set of plans and a number you can put on a bid. Without an accurate takeoff, your estimate is a guess. Digital takeoff software lets you do this work directly on PDF blueprints with tools that calculate lengths, areas, and counts instantly, replacing the printed plans, scale ruler, and calculator that contractors have relied on for decades.

Easy Takeoffs is $39 a month or $399 a year, billed through Stripe. Every new account gets a 14-day free trial with no credit card required, and you can cancel any time from the customer portal. At $399 a year on annual billing, it is the cheapest dedicated construction takeoff tool in this comparison with a published fixed price. PlanSwift charges $2,000 per year per seat, STACK starts at $2,988 per year, and Bluebeam Revu Complete is $440 per year. On-Screen Takeoff uses annual subscription licensing through a custom sales quote, so ConstructConnect does not publish a fixed current price. Switching from PlanSwift saves you $1,532 a year on monthly billing. Switching from STACK saves $2,520. You get the full toolkit during the trial and after you subscribe: linear, polyline, area, count, and angle tools, with true curved segments on lines, polylines, and areas, AI page naming, automatic scale detection, text search across every sheet, symbol search with confirmed matches checked by default for optional review before bulk addition, 43 built-in material assembly templates that calculate quantities with waste factors, a community template library, measurement groups with color coding and live totals, thirteen markup tools with grab-handle reshaping on eleven, shareable read-only links, annotated PDF and CSV export, plan revision comparison, and unlimited projects with cloud storage. Individual PDFs can be up to 1 GB. We built Easy Takeoffs because most takeoff software was priced for large GCs with dedicated estimating departments. For an independent contractor, a small crew, or an estimator bidding residential and light commercial work, spending thousands per year on takeoff software does not pencil out. Easy Takeoffs covers the core workflow at a price that makes sense for a small operation.

A takeoff measures quantities from the drawings. An estimate prices those quantities. They are two distinct steps in the preconstruction process, and confusing them is one of the most common mistakes new contractors make when learning to bid. The takeoff tells you that a project needs 2,400 square feet of drywall, 320 linear feet of baseboard, 14 interior doors, and 6 recessed light fixtures. It is pure measurement with no dollar signs attached. The estimate takes those quantities and applies unit costs: material prices from your suppliers, labor rates based on crew productivity, equipment, overhead, and profit margin. Easy Takeoffs handles the measurement side and exports clean CSV files that plug directly into whatever estimating workflow you already use, whether that is a spreadsheet, dedicated estimating software, or a handwritten bid sheet. Getting the quantities right is the foundation, because if your takeoff is off, every dollar amount downstream is wrong.

Most contractors cut their takeoff time by half or more after switching from printed plans and a scale ruler to digital takeoff software. On a typical residential project with 30 to 50 pages of drawings, a manual takeoff might take four to six hours. The same scope in Easy Takeoffs usually takes two to three hours because there is no printing, no ruler math, no manual transfer of numbers into a spreadsheet, and no remeasuring when you realize you misread a scale. The time savings compound the more you bid. If you submit eight to ten bids a month and each takeoff runs two hours faster, that is 20 extra hours recovered, essentially half a work week. Where the savings really stack up is on revisions. When the architect issues an addendum and three sheets change, a manual takeoff means reprinting and remeasuring. With digital takeoffs, you swap the updated pages, adjust the affected measurements, and your totals recalculate instantly.

Digital takeoffs are significantly more accurate than working from printed plans with a scale ruler. Easy Takeoffs measures against the original vector data embedded in your PDF, calculating to subpixel precision. The snap engine locks your click points to walls, corners, and intersections automatically, which eliminates the guesswork of freehand ruler placement. With a printed plan, you are subject to parallax error from looking at the ruler at a slight angle, ruler slippage across the sheet, rounding to the nearest tick mark, and paper distortion from printing or folding. On an architectural scale ruler, one tick mark off at quarter inch scale represents four inches in real dimensions. Over a 60 foot wall run, those small errors compound into material quantities that can be off by five to ten percent, enough to blow a budget or leave you short on material in the middle of a job. Digital measurements read the drawing geometry directly, so the measurement is as accurate as the drawing itself.

Any trade that measures from construction drawings. General contractors use it for overall square footages, perimeter measurements, and room counts across entire plan sets. Flooring contractors measure rooms and apply tile, carpet, or hardwood templates that calculate materials, waste, and adhesive automatically. Painters measure wall and ceiling areas and get paint quantity estimates through built-in templates. Electricians count receptacles, switches, panels, and fixtures while measuring conduit and wire runs. Plumbers trace supply and waste piping layouts and count fixture rough-ins. HVAC contractors measure ductwork runs and count registers. Concrete contractors measure slab areas, footing lengths, and foundation walls, then apply templates for rebar, formwork, and pour volume. Roofers calculate roof area from plan view with shingle and membrane templates. Drywall contractors measure wall lengths and ceiling areas with templates that calculate board count, joint compound, and fasteners. Insulation contractors measure cavity areas with batt, blown-in, and spray foam templates. Each trade has pre-built assembly templates with adjustable properties so the material calculations match your specific job. It works on residential remodels, new home construction, tenant improvements, restaurant and retail buildouts, medical offices, and light commercial projects. If the plans come as a PDF, Easy Takeoffs can measure them.

When you upload a PDF, Easy Takeoffs reads each sheet for printed scale notations like 1/4" = 1'-0", 1/8" = 1'-0", or metric scales like 1:100, and AI reads the scale off sheets that have no scale text (common with existing condition surveys, older scanned plans, or hand sketches). Everything it finds shows up in the scale menu on the toolbar, labeled as detected, and one tap applies it to the page. On a big set, one click on "Set all pages automatically" applies each page's own detected scale across the whole document in a single run, and a single undo reverses it. You can also type any scale directly or calibrate by clicking two points on the drawing where you know the real distance, like a dimension line or the span between two column gridlines. Each page holds its own independent scale, so architectural floor plans at quarter inch, structural details at three quarter inch, and site plans at 1 inch 40 scale can all live in the same document without conflicting. If a page's applied scale ever contradicts what is printed on that sheet, Scale Check warns you before the mistake reaches your numbers.

Yes. When you upload a plan set, AI reads the title block on each sheet and names the page by its sheet number and title, like "A-101 First Floor Plan" or "S-2.1 Foundation Plan", as it works through the set. A 40-page set is navigable the moment it finishes loading, instead of reading Page 1 through Page 40 with no hint of what is on each one. It works on scanned and photographed plans too, because it reads a rendered image of the sheet rather than a hidden text layer. Any page you name yourself is never overwritten, and every AI-applied name stays fully editable. You can also re-run naming from the AI button in the toolbar on any document, including plans you uploaded before the feature existed.

Yes to both. Press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on Mac) and type anything: a door tag, a keynote, an equipment label. Results stream in grouped by sheet, and clicking one lands you right on it, highlighted. Scanned sheets without live text are read automatically, so an old photocopied set searches like a new one. For counting, switch Search to Symbol and draw a box around one example. On drawn plans, Vector mode reads the sheet's own linework and returns exact copies in seconds. Image mode handles everything else, scanned sheets included, and an AI double-checks each match before it appears. Confirmed matches arrive checked by default with picture previews. You can review or uncheck any result, then add the checked set as count measurements in one bulk step, grouped and ready to total. Both search modes are included in the subscription, not sold as add-ons.

No. Easy Takeoffs is a cloud based web application that runs entirely in your browser. There is nothing to download, no installer, no license key, no USB dongle, and no IT department involved. It works on Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge across Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chromebooks. Because it runs in the browser, you always have the latest version with no update prompts and no compatibility issues. This is a significant difference from desktop takeoff tools like PlanSwift, which only runs on Windows and requires a local installation. Your projects, measurements, and PDFs are stored securely in the cloud and accessible from any device with a browser. Start a takeoff on your office desktop, pick it back up on your laptop at home, and check quantities on your tablet at the job site. Everything is saved automatically, so there are no files to email or copy between machines.

Yes. The interface is fully responsive and works on any screen size, including iPads, Android tablets, and smartphones. A tablet is the best option for field use because the screen is large enough to read plan details and place accurate measurements while staying portable enough to carry around a job site. For primary takeoff sessions where you are measuring an entire plan set, most contractors prefer a desktop or laptop with a mouse because the precision of a mouse pointer and the screen real estate of a full monitor make extended sessions faster and more comfortable. Your projects are saved to the cloud automatically, so you can start a takeoff at the office and pull it up on your iPad when you visit the site to verify field conditions against your measurements. Touch input works natively with pinch to zoom, two finger pan, and tap to place measurement points. There is no separate mobile app to install.

Assembly templates are material calculation formulas that attach to your measurement groups. When you apply a template, every measurement in that group gets an automatic material breakdown with quantities, waste factors, and rounding. For example, the Concrete Slab template takes your square footage and calculates cubic yards of concrete, linear feet of edge forms, square feet of vapor barrier, rebar, wire mesh, and curing compound. Change the area and every material recalculates instantly. Easy Takeoffs includes built-in templates covering concrete, framing, drywall, insulation, roofing, siding, flooring, painting, electrical, plumbing, HVAC, fencing, landscaping, and more. Each template has adjustable properties like stud spacing, slab thickness, or tile size so the calculations match your specific job. You can also build custom templates with your own formulas and share them with the community.

Yes. Open sharing on any document, turn the link on, and copy it. Anyone with the link can view the takeoff including the PDF, all measurements, group totals, and material calculations without needing an account. Viewers can click on measurements to see details but cannot edit or delete anything. You control access and can disable the link at any time. View counts are tracked so you know when someone has looked at your takeoff. This is useful for sending quantities to suppliers, sharing scope breakdowns with subcontractors, or showing clients exactly what was measured and how the numbers were calculated.

Most takeoff software was built for large general contractors with dedicated estimating departments and priced accordingly. PlanSwift costs $2,000 per year per seat. Bluebeam Revu Complete runs $440. STACK starts at $2,988 per year. On-Screen Takeoff uses annual subscription licensing and requires a custom quote. That pricing can be difficult for a drywall sub, a two-person painting crew, or an independent estimator bidding residential remodels to justify. This is why Easy Takeoffs exists. Most contractors only need to measure lengths, areas, and counts from PDF blueprints, organize the data by group, and export it. That core workflow does not require enterprise pricing. Easy Takeoffs covers it for $39 a month or $399 a year, with a 14-day free trial and no credit card required. That is $1,532 a year less than PlanSwift on monthly billing and $2,520 less than STACK. Annual billing saves you another $69. Accurate bidding is too important to be gated behind a price tag most small contractors cannot justify.