Quick Answer: Estimators on r/estimators do not say AI takeoff does not work — they say it works for counting and fails on judgment. Across eight threads from April 2025 to September 2026, the recurring verdict is that automated counts save time on the first pass while a person still has to check every number, and the split between "saves time" and "slower than doing it yourself" depends almost entirely on the drawing.
How this page was built: Every quote below is verbatim from a public r/estimators thread, read on October 29, 2026. Each thread is linked and dated. Where a commenter is selling a product, that is stated next to the quote rather than hidden. CyanBuild publishes this page and sells takeoff software, so this is a synthesis of what estimators said, not a product pitch. No commenter was contacted and no comment was posted.
Key Takeaways
- The dominant view is that AI handles the counting pass and a person still owns the number. The phrase that recurs is verification, not replacement.
- Automatic detection of symbols is the strongest case. Whole-project quantity takeoff, and anything MEP, is where the complaints concentrate.
- The reported time saving is real but bounded: the saving is on the initial count, and it disappears if the correction pass costs more than the hand count would have.
- Drawing quality is the deciding variable, and several commenters say so explicitly.
- Pricing opacity draws as much criticism as accuracy. Several commenters object specifically to having to book a demo to see a number.
The verdict, in the estimators' own words
Here is what people actually wrote, with the thread each quote came from and the date it was posted.
| What the estimator said | Thread | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| “AI tools are not created equally. Just like each human estimator will come up with a different number, so will AI. But, they will all get better.” | Are there actually any AI-based takeoff software worth exploring? | Sep 25, 2026 |
| “The one thing I do NOT do and I recommend no one should do is take the output from any AI and use it for your work product. It is not good enough to be trusted fully and still makes tons of errors and omissions.” | Estimating / Preconstruction and AI — what are you using? | Jul 25, 2026 |
| “It’s usable now but still need estimator review. Biggest time save is on the initial count, not replacing your judgment.” (disclosed: the commenter builds an AI takeoff tool) | Is there an AI automated take-off software tool that actually works yet in 2026? | Jan 22, 2026 |
| “One I played with was for fixture counts and it missed about 20% on one page, while misidentifying other objects (and even a word in the details) as fixtures.” | Is there an AI automated take-off software tool that actually works yet in 2026? | Jan 22, 2026 |
| “The amount of time saved vs new time spent revising errors or checking the stuff just felt like why wouldn’t I just do the work myself?” | Is there an AI automated take-off software tool that actually works yet in 2026? | Jan 22, 2026 |
| “I wouldn’t call it smoke and mirrors but i think our jobs are still secure for a while to say the least.” | Are there actually any AI-based takeoff software worth exploring? | Apr 29, 2025 |
| “It ruined my day. Missed entire chapters, moved decimal points around. Checking the work took almost as long as typing it manually.” | Estimating / Preconstruction and AI — what are you using? | Jul 25, 2026 |
| “I don’t love the term ‘AI automated’, but prefer ‘AI-accelerated’. The former is prone to costly mistakes and kinda ends up creating more validation work in the end.” | Is there an AI automated take-off software tool that actually works yet in 2026? | Jan 22, 2026 |
Verbatim comments from r/estimators, checked October 29, 2026. Thread dates are the dates the comments were posted. Spelling and capitalisation are the commenters’ own. Two of the quoted accounts disclose a commercial interest in takeoff software; they are marked in the table.
Where AI takeoff works, according to the thread
The clearest positive consensus is about symbol counts and search — the mechanical part of counting a repeated symbol on a drawing. One commenter on the April 2025 thread describes using one AI takeoff product on division 9 electrical work and finishing about 30% of it automatically, with the rest as manual corrections, and concludes “easier to just count them.” Another, on the same thread, singles out lighting: “Lighting tends to be the best bang here since we’re counting hundreds, sometimes thousands of them.”
The other place AI is credited is on the boundary between takeoff and document handling: finding a detail on a drawing by keyword, or locating every instance of an image on a sheet. That is a search problem, and search is what these systems do reliably.
One commenter is unusually concrete about the split. Posting on the January 2026 roofing thread, they describe a workflow where AI reads the footnotes, identifies concrete types for walls, columns and slabs, and gives each a label and location on the plan — but explicitly “I wouldn’t use it for any take offs.” AI handles the specification reading; the takeoff stays manual. That is a common and productive division of labour.
| Task | Verdict in the thread | Representative comment |
|---|---|---|
| Counting a repeated symbol (lights, outlets, fixtures) | Works — with review | One estimator on the Sep 2026 thread: “It uses AI to do the auto-measurements, but unlike some of the AI we have used, the human can correct the AI assumptions.” |
| Finding a detail by keyword on a plan | Works — named as a time saver | Apr 2025 thread: “you can ask the AI to find certain details using key words and it tells you the page number.” |
| Reading specifications and footnotes | Works | Jan 2026 thread: AI “reads the footnotes” to identify concrete types, wall and column heights, and labels each one on the plan. |
| Counting doors against a door schedule | Works on large repetitive projects | Nov 2025 thread, on a tool that matches plan tags to the schedule: “It’s particularly effective for large projects with multiple floors, like multi family, hospitality, and hospitals.” |
| MEP quantification | Does not work — the main complaint | Apr 2025 thread: “I’ve looked into Togal and wasn’t satisfied at all with what it could do for HVAC.” |
| Whole-project quantity takeoff | Does not work | Apr 2025 thread: “No Precon tool, and especially takeoff software, is fully automated yet.” |
| Low-resolution or scanned drawings | Does not work | Jan 2026 thread, on AI accuracy: “With AI error rates still around 8–12%, that’s too much risk for construction estimating.” (the commenter’s own figure, not a measured benchmark) |
| Producing a price from a quantity | Out of scope for these tools | May 2026 thread: “An estimate is two parts: quantities and pricing. Any ‘estimating’ software that only addresses the quantity takeoff and doesn’t handle cost data natively is an incomplete product.” |
What estimators said AI takeoff is good at, and where they said it falls short. Synthesised from the eight threads checked on October 29, 2026. These are the commenters’ own experiences and opinions, not a measured benchmark, and they describe the tools available to them at the time.
The correction pass is the whole argument
The most useful thing in these threads is that estimators describe the economics of AI takeoff precisely, and it is not the vendor’s economics. The saving is not “AI does the takeoff.” It is “AI does a first pass that a person then checks.” Whether that is faster depends on the ratio of detected-and-correct items to missed-and-found items, and every thread that reaches a verdict reaches it by looking at that ratio.
The sharpest statement of the trade-off is from the January 2026 thread: the tool “missed about 20% on one page,” so “you still have to manually set scales, dimensions, and tell it exactly what to measure on each sheet, then double-check everything because it makes mistakes.” The comment’s conclusion is that the checking was as much work as the takeoff. That is a coherent, quantified argument from someone who tested it, and it is exactly the case a trial on your own drawings is designed to settle.
Two comments make the same point from the other direction. On the January 2026 thread: “Biggest time save is on the initial count, not replacing your judgment.” And on the September 2026 Excel-thread: the tool is not asked to produce a bid at all. The estimator uses it as a background first pass while they do other work, and plans to build their own product library on top. Neither describes replacing the estimator.
Drawing quality decides whether it is worth it
Several commenters say the deciding variable is the input, not the software. One on the January 2026 thread notes the tool they built “is entirely dependent on good plans.” Another, on the September 2026 thread, describes the painful case without naming a tool: “The BOMs started to make absolutely no sense and eventually I started getting to line items that just said something like ‘fitting unclear qty 1012′ 1 7/8’.” The estimator’s conclusion — “Shit in, shit out I suppose” — is the shared experience of the whole thread set.
This is the honest reason to test on your worst drawing rather than your best one. A tool that reads your cleanest vector PDF well tells you nothing about the scanned, hand-marked set that costs you the bid.
Pricing opacity is the other recurring complaint
The second theme is not accuracy but sales process. Several commenters object to having to book a demo before seeing a number. On the September 2026 Excel-thread, the author (whose handle identifies them with a takeoff vendor) opens by noting: “I was hesitant to comment because the last time I replied to a similar thread, I got flooded with DMs from people trying to sell me AI takeoff software.”
That thread also shows the other half of the market: most estimators are not using AI takeoff at all. The most-upvoted answer is that a twenty-year-old Excel template is still the industry default, because “it always needs to come back to Excel” — you must show breakdowns to a consultant and share with accounting, project management and the field in a format everyone knows.
That is the strongest argument in the thread set against judging AI takeoff on detection accuracy alone. Whatever tool produces the count, the bid still lands in a spreadsheet. AI versus spreadsheet estimating compares the two workflows directly.
What a fair test of any AI takeoff tool looks like
The threads converge on a test procedure without anyone organising it. Take one real project you have already bid by hand. Run the same sheet set through the 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. Add the time you spent checking. That sum, against the hours the hand takeoff took, is the only comparison that means anything — and it is the comparison the commenters describe when they say the checking is the whole argument.
Keep the two columns separate. A tool that gets many items slightly wrong fails differently from one that misses entire scopes, and the July 2026 comment about a document that “missed entire chapters” is the second kind of failure — not a correction problem.
Before you start, read how to count items on a floor plan for a hand-counted reference to compare against, and what happens on a scanned drawing if your plans are not clean PDFs. Then check what the subscription actually costs and how the tools compare.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do estimators say AI takeoff works?
Mostly yes, for counting and searching, with review required. The recurring sentence across the threads is that AI handles the initial count and the estimator still verifies every number. Where estimators say it does not work is whole-project quantification, anything MEP, and low-quality drawings.
What is the most common complaint about AI takeoff?
That the correction pass takes as long as the hand count would have, on drawings where the tool misreads the plan. The second most common complaint is pricing opacity — having to book a demo to see a number.
Which AI takeoff features do estimators say actually save time?
Symbol counts, especially of high-count items like lighting fixtures; keyword search to locate a detail on a plan; and matching plan tags to a door or equipment schedule on large repetitive projects. Reading specifications and footnotes is also cited as useful, usually as a step before the takeoff rather than part of it.
Are these quotes representative of all estimators?
No. These are eight public threads and roughly 450 comments on one subreddit, and people who post tend to be the ones with a strong view or a bad experience. Several quoted accounts also sell software and say so in the same comment. Treat this as what a self-selected group said, not as a survey.