How this page was prepared: CyanBuild publishes this page and is one of the products discussed. The product facts below come from the linked vendor pages, each checked on October 29, 2026. No controlled, independent benchmark of these products was run for this page. The order is a reading order, not an accuracy or speed ranking, and published prices change — verify the current terms before you buy.
Twelve tools, one table, every price from the vendor's own page
The alternative pages that usually circulate are written to move you somewhere. This one is written to be usable whichever way you decide. Every price below was read on the vendor's own pricing page on October 29, 2026, and where a vendor publishes nothing, that is written down rather than left blank — because a blank cell reads as an oversight, and a missing price is itself information you need before you ask for a quote.
| Tool | Category | Platform | Pricing model | Published price | AI takeoff documented |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PlanSwift | Markup and measurement, with takeoff and estimating in one tool | Windows desktop; no native Mac install | Annual subscription per seat, 14-day trial | Essential $2,000/yr; Core $3,000/yr, one seat each. Additional seats $1,500 and $2,500. Volume pricing from 10 licences is quoted, not published. | Yes — Takeoff BOOST: Auto Takeoff, Auto Count, Auto Scale, Auto Bookmark. Auto Takeoff is the Core tier. |
| Countfire | AI takeoff for M&E symbol counting, plus pre-priced estimating | Cloud browser on Mac or PC; tablets not supported | Subscription, 7-day free trial, enterprise by call | Not published (checked October 29, 2026) | Yes — Smart Select, described as AI trained on real takeoff data. No numeric accuracy figure published. |
| Togal.AI | AI takeoff | Cloud browser | Annual subscription per user; Business custom from 4+ users | Growth $299/mo per user billed yearly; Business custom | Yes — a takeoff button that detects, measures and counts, plus AI image and text search and automatic naming. |
| Bluebeam Revu | Markup and measurement, with Excel-linked takeoff | Windows desktop plus web and mobile | Annual per-user subscription | Basics $260; Core $330; Complete $440; Max $590, per user billed annually. Max is an introductory price. | Partial — VisualSearch image counting, Dynamic Fill, and AI drawing review and comparison in Max. No feature is named as AI takeoff. |
| STACK | Full preconstruction platform: takeoff, estimating and field | Cloud browser plus mobile app | Monthly or annual per-user subscription; free tier | Free $0; Premium $299/mo billed annually, $349 monthly; Pro $349/mo billed annually, $399 monthly | Yes — AI Takeoff for counts, linear and area measurements, in the Premium tier. |
| Kreo | Full preconstruction platform: takeoff, estimating and cost planning | Browser | Annual per-user only; the vendor states there is no monthly subscription | Essential $100/user/mo; Pro $175/user/mo; Business $250/user/mo, all billed annually. Business includes 5 seats. | Yes — auto symbol counting and AI takeoff for rooms, walls, doors and windows, in Pro and above. |
| Contractor Foreman | Full construction management platform; the takeoff feature is not yet released | Web plus native mobile apps | Company-level subscription | Basic $49/mo; Standard $105; Plus $166; Pro $221; Unlimited $332, per company with a user tier | Not yet — the vendor states takeoffs are currently in development, with the AI Estimator in preview. |
| On-Screen Takeoff, ConstructConnect | AI takeoff in the browser | Browser | Annual contract with annual payment terms | Starter $100/mo per seat, one seat maximum; Professional $183/mo per seat | Yes — Auto Takeoff with Takeoff BOOST in the Professional tier; Auto Name and Auto Scale on Starter. |
| Autodesk Forma Takeoff | Full preconstruction platform with 2D and 3D quantification | Cloud | Monthly, annual or three-year term; 30-day trial | $108/mo paid annually, $1,290/yr; $160/mo paid monthly; $3,870 for three years. The unlimited-users tier is quote-only. | Documented as automated 3D takeoff from BIM models. No separately named AI takeoff feature. |
| eTakeoff Dimension | Markup and measurement with an AI add-on | Client and server software | Annual per-user subscription | Advanced $795/user/yr; Premier $1,495/user/yr; the Togal.AI add-on is $1,800/user/yr | Yes — a Togal.AI add-on for area, length and count on floor plans, plus a SnapAI feature listing. |
| Buildxact | Full preconstruction platform for residential builders | Web browser plus mobile app | Monthly or annual; annual requires a 12-month commitment | Foundation $199/mo; Pro $399; Master $599. The AI add-ons are priced on top: Takeoff Assistant $99/mo, Estimate Generator $99/mo, Estimate Reviewer $149/mo. | Yes — the Takeoff Assistant scales and measures digital plans, but it is a paid add-on rather than part of the base plan. |
| CyanBuild | PDF takeoff with draft quantities for review | Browser | Monthly subscription with a PDF page allowance | Free: 3 PDF pages per month; Starter: $29/month for 30 pages; Pro: $99/month for 120 pages; Enterprise: $299/month for 400 pages | Yes — draft detection counts from PDF, with a separate manual measurement tool where calibrated geometry is needed. |
Takeoff tools compared by what they publish (checked October 29, 2026). Every figure was read on the vendor's own pricing or product page on October 29, 2026. Not published means the vendor shows no price at all, which is not the same as free. The AI column records only what each vendor names on its own pages; no accuracy figure appears where none is published.
Which tool fits which job
The next table groups the same tools by what their own pages document, so you can find the tools that cover your situation before you compare their prices. A tool appears in more than one row when its vendor documents more than one use case.
| Situation | Tools that document that capability | What to verify yourself |
|---|---|---|
| Electrical or M&E subcontractor counting symbols | Countfire, for M&E symbol counting and pre-priced bids; PlanSwift Auto Count for fixtures, doors, windows, outlets and equipment; Bluebeam VisualSearch for image matching | Whether the counting is specific to your symbol set, how revised drawings are handled, and what error rate you actually get on your own drawings. No vendor publishes a validated per-symbol error rate. |
| GC running full preconstruction | STACK, Autodesk Forma Takeoff, Kreo, PlanSwift | Whether your preconstruction group hands off to project management in the same platform, whether 3D or BIM-derived quantities matter to you, and whether a suite price is negotiated per bundle. |
| Markup-only document control | Bluebeam Revu Basics and Core; ConstructConnect Takeoff Starter | That the tier you buy includes the measurement type you need, and that the export format matches what your estimating software expects. |
| Small residential builder needing takeoff and estimating in one | Buildxact, Kreo Essential and Pro, Togal.AI Growth for AI-only takeoff with export to your own estimating software | Whether the AI takeoff is in the base plan or sold as a paid add-on, whether your trade's assemblies exist out of the box, and what unlimited users means in practice. |
| Enterprise, multi-office estimating | Countfire enterprise, Autodesk Forma Takeoff unlimited users, Kreo Enterprise, PlanSwift volume pricing, Togal.AI Business, Buildxact | That the multi-branch price is negotiated rather than published, and what SSO, security compliance and data-residency terms your clients require. |
| Not yet a fit | Contractor Foreman, whose takeoff feature the vendor states is currently in development | The launch date, which plan tiers it ships in, and whether it is priced separately from the base plans. |
Which tool fits which job, by documented capability (checked October 29, 2026). Rows are grouped by what each vendor's own pages document, not by marketing adjectives. A tool can appear in more than one row. The right-hand column lists the claims a reader cannot confirm from a vendor page — typically the accuracy figures, which only two vendors in this table publish at all.
The part that is easy to get wrong
Most published comparisons of these tools fail at the same step: they line up numbers that measure different things and call the result a price comparison. A per-seat annual licence buys a person a year of access. A per-user monthly price billed annually is an instalment, not a month you can buy. A per-company price has no denominator at all. A PDF page allowance is a capacity limit, not a price. And a custom quote has no number to divide.
| Pricing unit | What it measures | Example | Why it cannot be converted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per user per year | One named seat's right to use the software for a year | eTakeoff Dimension at $795 and $1,495 per user per year | It does not scale with drawing count, page count or project volume, so it cannot become a per-page price without knowing how the person actually works. |
| Per user per month, billed annually | One named seat at a monthly rate, prepaid for twelve months | Bluebeam Revu at $260 to $590 per user billed annually; Kreo at $100 to $250 per user per month billed annually | The displayed monthly number is a divided annual total, not a month you can buy. Kreo states outright that there is no monthly subscription. |
| Per user per month, billed monthly | One named seat for a rolling month | STACK at $349 and $399; Autodesk Forma Takeoff at $160; Contractor Foreman at $139 to $399 | The monthly and annual rates for the same product differ. A monthly figure is not a discount and an annual figure is not a monthly rate. |
| Per seat per year with a declining additional-seat price | Each licensed seat, with a ladder price from seat two | ConstructConnect Takeoff, where the first seat and each additional seat are priced differently | The effective cost per seat depends on how many seats you buy, so a single-user figure cannot be scaled to a team figure. |
| Per company | The whole organisation's right to use the product | Contractor Foreman at $49 to $332 per month; Buildxact at $199 to $599 per month | It has no denominator. You cannot divide it by a headcount to compare with a per-seat vendor without knowing how many of those people are named seats elsewhere. |
| Per user per month with a seat floor | Per-seat pricing where the plan requires a minimum number of paid users | Kreo Business at $250 per user per month, billed annually at $15,000, including 5 seats | The published figure is only valid at or above the floor. The same label means different amounts at different seat counts. |
| Per PDF page allowance | The number of drawing pages included before a paid tier is needed | CyanBuild Free at 3 pages per month; STACK Free at up to 300 plan pages | It is a capacity limit, not a price. It tells you when the free tier runs out, not what the next unit costs. |
| Custom or quote-based | No published number at all | Countfire across the whole site, Kreo Enterprise, Togal.AI Business, Autodesk unlimited users, PlanSwift volume pricing | There is nothing to divide. Any comparison quoting a number for these vendors is using an estimate, not a published price. |
Pricing units, and why they cannot be divided into one another. This table exists so that nobody divides one vendor's price by another vendor's unit and calls the result a comparison. Every figure in the example column is a published number read on that vendor's own page on October 29, 2026.
Two of the vendors in the table make this concrete. Kreo states outright that there is no monthly subscription, so comparing Kreo's displayed $100 per user per month with a vendor's genuine month-to-month price compares an instalment with a commitment. And for the same product, STACK publishes $299 per user per month billed annually against $349 billed monthly, while Autodesk publishes $108 paid annually against $160 paid monthly — so the monthly figure is not a discount and the annual figure is not a monthly rate.
How to run the comparison yourself
- Check the platform constraint first. It eliminates options before price does. PlanSwift's own installation documentation states it is Windows-only and cannot be installed directly on a Mac.
- Convert to one deliverable. Take one project you have already bid by hand and put the same sheet set through each shortlisted tool.
- Count the corrections in two columns. Items it got wrong that you had to fix, and items it missed that you had to add from scratch. Keep them separate: a tool that gets many items slightly wrong fails differently from one that misses entire scopes.
- Add your checking time. This is usually the deciding number, and it is the one no pricing page mentions.
- Compare total cost for the same work, in the same unit, with the subscription terms confirmed in writing by each vendor.
- Check what happens at renewal, and what cancelling costs. PlanSwift's plan is annual, so the renewal is a real date in your budget.
For the migration sequence specifically, read PlanSwift alternatives and the migration checklist. For the published-price detail on the two vendors in this comparison, see PlanSwift pricing per month and what Countfire does not publish.
Pricing units are not interchangeable. A per-seat annual licence, a per-user monthly subscription and a monthly PDF page allowance measure different things, so they cannot be divided into one another or compared as if they were the same product. Compare the work each tool does on your drawing, and confirm the commercial terms with the vendor.
Frequently asked questions
What is the closest alternative to PlanSwift on price?
It depends on the unit. Kreo Essential at $100 per user per month billed annually and STACK Premium at $299 per user per month billed annually are both lower per user, but they are annual commitments and a different licensing model. Bluebeam Revu at $260 per user per year is closer still, and it is a markup-and-measurement tool rather than a full takeoff-and-estimating suite. The comparison that matters is the total cost of the same deliverable on the same drawings.
Why does PlanSwift cost more than the per-user tools?
That is not a published statement, and this page does not claim it as one. What is documented is the licensing model: PlanSwift's FAQ states that Essential and Core are annual plans, and its EULA defines a single-seat licence as use by one user on one device at a time. An annual per-seat licence for a desktop application and an annual per-user subscription for a browser product are different products with different scopes.
Can I run PlanSwift on a Mac?
Not natively. The vendor's installation documentation states that PlanSwift is Windows-only and cannot be installed directly on a Mac, requiring Bootcamp or a virtual machine instead. The supported operating systems listed on the features page are Windows 11 and Windows 10. If you work on a Mac, that constraint removes the comparison before price does.
Which of these tools publish an accuracy figure?
Very few. Togal.AI publishes an accuracy claim with no stated methodology, and one vendor in the wider category publishes a QA-checked figure. Nobody publishes a validated per-symbol error rate. That absence is why the review column in the table above asks you to measure the error rate on your own drawings rather than compare published numbers.
Which tool should I choose for a small residential job?
The tables group tools by documented capability rather than by recommendation, but they do show which tools have an AI takeoff in the base plan and which sell it as an add-on. Buildxact's Takeoff Assistant is priced at $99 per month on top of the base plan, and Contractor Foreman's takeoff feature is still in development. Verify the same points on your own job before choosing.