Best takeoff software in Australia: the one that does the takeoff

So which takeoff software actually does the takeoff?

You've been through a few takeoff websites, they all seem to promise some kind of automation, and you just want someone to tell you which one's best for a commercial builder. Fair enough. We think it's Estimator+, and the reason's pretty simple: it does the takeoff. Most takeoff products help your estimator measure. Estimator+ measures the job, and your estimator checks what it did.

Mind you, the others describe their automation too, so here it is in their own words. Buildsoft says AI Estimating "adds AI-powered tools to your takeoff workflow to automate repetitive tasks and reduce manual work." Groundplan's Count Assist promises "Select One, We'll Find The Rest." Kreo's Pro plan lists Auto Measure, One-Click Area and Auto Count.

PlanSwift goes further. On its Core plan, Auto Takeoff produces "a first-pass takeoff for areas, lengths, and counts." So automation on its own doesn't set anyone apart. What you actually want to know is how much of the job the AI takes on. And where its quantities end up once it's done.

It starts from the whole set

You kick the takeoff off in Claude Code or Codex, on the Claude or ChatGPT plan you're already paying for. The AI works from the whole set, which Estimator+ read and named when you uploaded it. Codes are checked against the schedules, anything no schedule defines gets flagged, and superseded sheets are left out.

Then the AI measures every plan, along with the sections and details that belong to it, and checks the finished takeoff against the drawings.

What about the stuff only the client can answer? Where the answer changes the price, those questions are raised as RFIs, and each one names the sheet or line it's about.

You don't have to point it at everything, either. Maybe you only want the concrete and structural steel. Or everything except mechanical. It'll tell you what it found for that part and what it couldn't.

On a real tender, that shifts where your estimator's days go. Instead of opening a fresh set, they start with a measured takeoff to check, and then they get to spend the run-up to close on quotes, scope gaps and RFIs, which, if you ask us, is where tenders are actually won.

So where do the numbers actually come from?

Short version: the drawing. Every quantity is measured where things are drawn, so you'll see dots on fixtures, runs along walls and outlines over floor finishes, all at the sheet's printed scale.

Units follow whatever the drawing prints. If a wall type has a printed height, it becomes wall area. A steel member with a printed section becomes tonnes, and a slab with a printed thickness becomes volume. And the same partition at 2700 and at 2400 makes two lines, as it should.

Where a steel section can't be matched exactly, it doesn't guess. The line goes to your estimator instead, because a guessed section would mean an invented tonnage, and nobody wants to be the one explaining that later.

So every quantity in an AI takeoff traces back to a shape, on a sheet, at that sheet's scale. If someone questions a number after award, the answer's sitting on the drawing. Not in someone's memory of what they did late one night three months ago.

Then the quantity has to get priced

Look, measuring is half the job. The quantity still has to be priced, compared across quotes and carried through every addendum.

Here's how the others handle that bit. Bluebeam's Quantity Link, on its Complete and Max plans, sends measurement totals "from a local PDF to an Excel spreadsheet in real-time". RIB says CostX workbooks "are live-linked to the drawings". Cubit keeps takeoff and estimate in one job, and quote comparison sits in a separate product, Cubit Select.

In Estimator+, the line the AI measures is the same line your subcontractors price. A rate follows the live quantity. A lump sum stays fixed to the quantity it was given for. And an exclusion sits on the price it belongs to.

Nothing gets copied from one file to another, which means nothing gets retyped at midnight before close (you know the feeling). If you want to see that join up close, Bluebeam and Excel vs estimating software follows one wall type all the way through it.

What happens when the addendum lands?

Say it's Thursday, close is a few days off, and the addendum just landed. In Estimator+, it revises the sheets you've already measured. A new page that carries the drawing number of a sheet on the tender takes that sheet's place, tagged with the addendum's name. Your measurements and the scale carry over, and the old sheet stays underneath.

Flick between the old and new sheets to see what changed, with additions, removals and changes highlighted. Your shapes stay put, so you only redraw the ones the revision touched, and in the week before close that's a handful of shapes rather than a whole set to measure again.

To be fair, CostX also publishes a revision mode that "highlights new updates". Where we differ is where the redraw lands: on the priced line. Rates recalculate straight away, and each lump sum holds at its quoted figure until you've spoken to that subcontractor.

Can you actually check what it did?

You should, and you can. You check an AI takeoff the way you'd check a colleague's work, shape by shape, on the drawing. Review mode writes each shape's line name right beside it. Click a line and its shapes stand out, or click a shape and its line lights up.

Each line can show the sheet it came from. Every line the AI made is marked as the AI's, and the lines your team drew stay exactly as they were. You can even watch it work, as its cursor draws each shape on the drawing (weirdly satisfying, honestly).

Now, the honest bit. Some calls stay with your estimator. The AI doesn't deduct openings, so a partition run goes straight through the doors, and deductions are still your call. It never prices a line unless you ask, never picks a quote and never sets a margin.

And Estimator+ takes off from PDF drawings. If you price from BIM models, keep a model-based tool for that part of the work. We'd rather you hear that from us now than find out halfway through a tender.

Want to try it on a job you've already priced?

A vendor's sample job is picked to look good (ours included, let's be real), so bring your own. Choose a tender you've already priced, ideally one with an addendum, and we'll run the AI takeoff on your drawings.

Then check it the way you'd check a new estimator's work: against your own takeoff, line by line. If it misses something you caught, you'll have seen that for yourself, on your own job.

Book a demo and bring the set you know best.