Best construction estimating software in Australia is Estimator+

So which estimating software should you actually be on?

"Drawings changed again, quotes all over the place, and still no idea what this should even be priced in." Sound familiar? If you're a commercial builder pricing through subcontractors, our answer is Estimator+, and we're not going to pretend to be neutral about it.

Here's why. Most of the money in a commercial tender comes from subcontractors. And the drawings keep changing right up until close. So we built Estimator+ around both of those facts.

Think about what a trade's price actually rests on. A quantity. The quotes. What each quote leaves out. Then the pick, and the margin. Estimator+ keeps every one of those decisions on the price, in one live tender, from the drawings all the way through to the submission.

But first, somebody has to do the takeoff. We do that too.

The takeoff? The AI does that bit

You ask for the takeoff in Claude Code or Codex, on the Claude or ChatGPT plan you're already paying for. The AI reads the set, works out the codes from the schedules, and measures every sheet into the tender's takeoff panel. Every quantity comes off the drawing at its printed scale.

So what's it allowed to touch? The AI never prices a line unless you ask it to. It never picks a quote and it never sets a margin. Every line it makes is marked as the AI's, so your estimator checks its work the way they'd check a colleague's.

Once it's measured, the takeoff exports as an unpriced scope of works, one sheet per trade, ready to go out to each subcontractor. So your estimator spends the tender period levelling quotes and closing scope gaps, instead of sitting there drawing. For the nuts and bolts, our best takeoff software post sets out how the AI takeoff works.

Where do the subbies' quotes actually go?

Straight onto the lines they cover, next to the measured quantity. A rate follows the live quantity, and a lump sum stays fixed to the quantity it was given for. If a sub left a line out, that line's marked excluded, and an excluded price can't be picked. Honestly, that last bit is our favourite.

Their written exclusions get recorded against them too, in their own words. Pick their price and those exclusions turn up on the Clarifications tab under their trade, ready for you to bring across to the client.

The tender total is just the sum of the picks. A line with no pick adds nothing, so an undecided price shows up as a gap. It doesn't get to hide as a guess.

And if your connected AI files a quote from the PDF, it enters the figures exactly as printed and records the exclusions. The total doesn't budge until you pick.

"Why are we carrying the dearer ceilings quote?"

Let's make it real. The figures here are illustrative, and all of them are ex GST. A fitout's ceilings measure 936 m² on the current reflected ceiling plans, Revision C. The director reviewing the tender stops at the ceilings line, carried at $86,112, and asks why when two quotes came in lower. Fair question.

So what's going on? B comes in lower because it priced less: 46 m² fewer, and no plant room ceiling. C comes in lower because a cost has moved to another trade, where someone still has to carry it. A covers the ceilings as drawn, and that's why it got picked.

In Estimator+, the director reads all of that in the tender itself. B's lump sum sits at $81,900 on a line that now measures 936 m², with a note on the cell saying it was priced on Revision B. B's and C's exclusions sit on their own prices. In a workbook? Those same reasons end up scattered across a cell comment, a Word document and the estimator's memory.

Can the whole team be in it at once?

Yep. Every tender in Estimator+ is one live project. Any number of people can work in it at the same time, and each change shows on everyone's screen as it's made. There's nothing to lock, check out or merge. Your undo reverses your own changes, never a colleague's, so nobody's wiping out someone else's afternoon.

For contrast, Buildsoft describes Cubit as "a desktop application and a fully managed cloud-hosted solution", and quote comparison sits in Cubit Select, into which "you send your live estimate". Estimator+ runs in the browser on Mac or Windows. Its database is hosted in Sydney, and the quotes are already in the tender, so there's nothing to send across.

Now picture the last week before close. One estimator's redrawing an addendum, another's entering quotes, and the director's checking margins. All three of them are on the same numbers at the same moment.

What happens when the addendum lands?

You know the feeling. It's Thursday and a fresh set of sheets just landed. In Estimator+ an addendum is filed against the sheets it revises. Each new sheet takes the old one's place, with the measurements and the scale carried over, and you can flick between the two to see what changed.

When you redraw what moved, the rates on those lines recalculate, and each lump sum holds at its quoted figure. And the lump sums that no longer match their lines? That's your list of calls to make.

Review, margin and getting it out the door

The Review tab adds the picks up into each trade's cost, and you set the margin right there, trade by trade. Measure the internal GFA and it shows the cost per square metre.

You can put up to three past submitted tenders beside this one. Trades get matched even when the two jobs name them differently (and they always seem to), so a trade that's out of line stands out.

The client's clarifications are built from three sources: your notes from the takeoff, the picked subcontractors' exclusions and your company's standard items. Hit Mark as submitted and it saves a permanent copy of the tender as sent. Every re-issue after that is saved as a numbered revision, with a note of what changed.

The full Excel export carries a transmittal of every drawing the tender was priced from, with its revision and the addendum it came in. So when a subcontract scope gets argued over after award, the tender you sent and the drawings behind it are still right there to open.

What if you price from models?

Then honestly, you'll want something else for that part. RIB says CostX workbooks "are live-linked to the drawings and their own cost database", and it offers 2D and BIM takeoff. If you price from BIM models, that work belongs in a tool built for models. Estimator+ works from PDF drawings.

What about the other names that come up in search?

A lot of the tools you'll find in an Australian search are described by their own makers for a different kind of business. Buildxact is for "Residential contractors who do it all" and is "Uniquely designed for renovation trades and home builders". Groundplan is for "construction and trade businesses", with modules for electricians, plumbers and HVAC contractors.

Databuild joins quoting, estimating and ordering up to accounting, job cost reporting and payroll. Each of these tools tells you plainly what business it serves, and it may well suit that business. Nothing wrong with that.

But a commercial tender, priced trade by trade through subcontractors against drawings that keep changing? That's the job we built Estimator+ for.

So here's what we'd suggest. Grab a tender you've already sent, with its quotes and an addendum, and book a demo to see it taken off and priced in one place.