Estimator+ and Cubit, side by side.
Two Australian estimating products, compared only on what each one publishes. Cubit is a mature takeoff and estimating package. Estimator+ is a live tender workspace your whole team — and your own AI — can open at once. Where Cubit is stronger, we have said so.
Every Cubit figure here comes from Buildsoft’s own published pages, read on 2 August 2026 and listed at the foot of this page. Where they do not publish a position we have written “Not published” rather than assume there isn’t one. All prices exclude GST.
| Feature | Estimator+ | Cubit |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | ||
| A seat that builds tenders | A$450 per seat, per month | A$167–$250 per user, per month billed annually — Standard, Professional or Enterprise. A$200–$299 month to month. |
| A read-only seat, for a director or a PM | A$150 per seat, per month | Not publishedNot publishedEvery edition is priced per user |
| Commitment | Monthly. Cancel any time. | Minimum 12 months |
| Trial | 14 days, no card, start immediately | 14 days on Enterprise, after a demonstration |
| Features held back for a higher tier | None. One estimator seat, and it is the whole product. | BIM, shared job access and custom reporting are Enterprise |
| What the AI costs | Nothing from us — it runs on the Claude or ChatGPT subscription you already pay for | AI Estimating add-on, A$20 per user, per month |
| Where it runs | ||
| To start work | Open a browser. Nothing to install. | Install the Windows application. Managed cloud hosting is available at custom pricing. |
| On a Mac | YesIt is a browser | Through Boot Camp or Parallels — Cubit is Windows software |
| Where the tender lives | Hosted in Australia, and the same copy everyone opens | Australian company. Desktop jobs sit on your own machine or network drive. |
| Drawings and takeoff | ||
| PDF and image plans | Yes | Yes |
| CAD — DWG and DXF | NoPDF and images only | Yes |
| BIM — quantities off an IFC model | No | YesEnterprise |
| Areas, lengths, counts and volumes | Yes | Yes |
| Wall areas by height, steel tonnage by section, joist runs at a spacing | YesEach one its own tool on the row | Not publishedNot publishedDimensioned takeoff, but the named set is not published |
| Counting symbols automatically | NoYou count them | YesWith the AI add-on |
| Detecting an area automatically | NoYou trace it | YesAuto Select, from Cubit 9 |
| Every sheet read and indexed on upload | YesSo your AI can find anything in the set | Not publishedNot published |
| Subcontractor quotes | ||
| Comparing quotes against your estimate | In the same workspace, in the seat you already pay for | Cubit Select — a separate product on its own subscription |
| Subcontractors submitting prices to you directly | NoYou enter what they send you | YesInvited subs submit into Cubit Select |
| The tender total moving as you pick a price | Yes | YesSelected quotes apply back to the estimate |
| What a sub has quoted you on every past job | YesIn the address book, across your whole company | Not publishedNot published |
| A note and an exclusion against one single price | YesOn the cell itself, so it is there when you go back | Not publishedNot publishedInclusions and exclusions are compared in Cubit Select |
| Working as a team | ||
| Two estimators in one tender at the same time | YesLive — you see each other’s cursors and edits as they happen | Shared Job Access on Enterprise — work assigned by trade, refresh to see others’ updates |
| A director who can look but not touch | YesA viewer seat, at a third of the price | Not publishedNot published |
| Outside takeoff help, without handing over the job | YesA temporary link that opens the drawings and nothing else | Not publishedNot published |
| Handing the won job to the build team | YesA link showing what was contracted, and where each item was measured | Not publishedNot published |
| The AI | ||
| Whose AI it is | Yours. Connect the Claude or ChatGPT account you already have. | Buildsoft’s, as a paid module |
| What it does | Reads the set and drafts the scope of works trade by trade, answers whether something is covered, searches every tender your company has ever priced, and checks the draft for codes and schedules nobody closed out | Automates repetitive takeoff — counts symbols, detects areas, finds text and labels on plans |
| Does it measure for you | NoQuantities are yours — drawn or typed. It will transcribe one a drawing prints, and say that it did. | YesThat is what it is for |
| Tracing an AI-drafted line back to the drawing | YesEvery line it adds is marked, and jumps to the sheet it came from | Not publishedNot published |
| Turning it off | YesOff, read-only or read-and-write for the whole company, and revoke any connection instantly | Not publishedNot published |
| Getting the tender out | ||
| Branded submission your client can read | Yes | YesBranded, customisable reports |
| Excel | The whole tender in one workbook — estimate, comparison, review and submission | PDF and Excel export |
| Margin trade by trade before it goes out | YesWith cost per square metre beside it | Trade breakdowns and cost analyses |
| Provisional sums carried inside the total | YesWith the statement behind each one printed for the client | Not publishedNot published |
| A frozen record of exactly what you sent | YesEvery submission snapshotted, and comparable against the next | Not publishedNot published |
| Accounting and site-management integrations | NoNot yet | YesXero, BuilderTREND, MudShark, LiveCosts |
Where Cubit is stronger
- It takes off from CAD and BIM. DWG, DXF and IFC models, with quantities pulled straight from model elements. We read PDFs and images, and that is all we read.
- Its AI does the measuring. Symbol counting and automatic area detection turn a repetitive afternoon into minutes. Ours will not measure anything — it reads, drafts and checks, and the quantities stay yours.
- It starts cheaper. From A$167 per user a month on an annual plan against our A$450, which is a real difference for a small team — though it comes with a twelve-month commitment where we bill monthly.
- Subcontractors can submit prices straight into it, through Cubit Select. We have the comparison and the history, but the chasing is still yours to do.
- It has been in Australian estimating far longer than we have. A lot of estimators already know it, and that is worth something on the day you have three tenders due.
The honest summary
If your work lives in CAD and BIM models, or repetitive symbol counting is the expensive part of your week, Cubit does things we do not. If what costs you is everything around the measuring — getting from a tender set to a scope of works, keeping the whole team in one live job, comparing quotes without a second subscription, and putting your own AI to work on the drawings without paying twice for it — that is the product we have built.
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