The problem: board is ordered in sheets, not square feet
- Square footage is what you measure; 4x8, 4x10 and 4x12 sheets are what you buy, and the best sheet length changes with ceiling height.
- Openings have to come out of the wall they sit in, not off the job total, or the deduction lands on the wrong condition.
- Walls and ceilings take different board, different finish levels and different production rates — but they are on the same plan.
- Tape and bead are linear, driven by the same wall lines you just measured for area, plus every inside and outside corner.
Counting sheets off a plan by hand is slow and it is the first thing to go wrong when a drawing is revised. One moved wall changes board, tape, bead, screws, compound and hours at the same time.
How the tool handles it
A wall condition gives square footage from one trace, converts it to sheet count at the sheet length you specify, and subtracts each opening from its parent wall. Tape and bead come off the same geometry, and inside and outside corner counts are derived from the traced polyline rather than tallied by hand.
One trace, the whole material list
A condition is a named, colored layer you trace on the drawing. An assembly turns that one condition into every part it drives, each with its own formula, coverage rate, waste percentage and rounding rule. A 1/2in board, level 4 finish condition looks like this:
| Part | Unit | Driven by |
|---|---|---|
| Gypsum board | SHEET | wall SF ÷ sheet coverage, + 10% waste, rounded up |
| Joint tape | LF | seam LF from board layout + corner LF |
| Joint compound | GAL | board SF ÷ coverage per gallon |
| Corner bead | LF | outside corner LF — wall corners, jamb returns, soffits, bulkheads and columns |
| L-bead / J-bead | LF | termination LF at finished edges |
| Control joint bead | LF | run LF ÷ joint interval |
| Bead fasteners | EA | bead LF ÷ spacing |
| Screws | LB | board SF × fasteners per SF ÷ screws per pound, rounded to the box |
| Hang labor | HR | board SF ÷ hanging production rate |
| Tape and finish labor | HR | board SF ÷ finishing production rate |
Change a coverage rate, a waste percentage or a unit cost and every job using that assembly re-prices. You are not editing numbers in twelve places.
Openings deduct from their parent wall
A door or window is a deduction tied to the wall it sits in, so the square footage that drops is the square footage of that specific condition.
Walls and ceilings priced separately
Different board, different finish level, different production rate — traced as separate conditions on the same sheet so the labor hours are honest.
Bead comes from every outside edge, not just wall corners
Corner bead runs at wall corners, and also at door and window jamb returns, soffits, bulkheads, dropped ceiling perimeters and columns. Counting only full-height wall corners can leave you a third short on a house with soffits.
Every number traces back to a mark
When the sheet count is short on a Friday, you can see exactly which walls were traced, what sheet length was assumed, and which openings were deducted. The answer is on the drawing, not in someone's memory.
Every number on the report links back to a specific mark, on a specific sheet, at a specific place on the page. The marked-up PDF export draws every mark in its condition color with the quantity labeled — that is the file you attach to the bid.
Accuracy is held to a stated tolerance: linear measurements within 0.10% of true, straight-sided areas within 0.25%, and calibration repeatable within 0.20% across five separate calibrations of the same page. Geometry is stored in PDF units, never screen pixels, and rounding happens exactly once — at report time.
What it costs
A second delivery run to the supply house, priced honestly against the hours it burns, is most of what this tool costs.
$2,500, paid once. Nothing in year two. Nothing in year three. No per-seat bill and no renewal date.
| Estimators using it | A per-seat subscription, five years | Ours, one-time licence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | $8,745 – $10,000 | $2,500 |
| 2 | $17,490 – $20,000 | $2,500 |
| 3 | $26,235 – $30,000 | $2,500 |
| 5 | $43,725 – $50,000 | $2,500 |
Their column multiplies by headcount and then repeats every year. Ours does neither. Put a fourth estimator on it and the number is still $2,500, because you are not licensing seats — you are buying the software.
And it does not repeat
| Whole company | Per-seat subscription, billed that year | Ours, billed that year |
|---|---|---|
| Year 1 | $1,749 – $2,000 × seats | $2,500 |
| Year 2 | $1,749 – $2,000 × seats | $0 |
| Year 3 | $1,749 – $2,000 × seats | $0 |
| Year 4 | $1,749 – $2,000 × seats | $0 |
| Year 5 | $1,749 – $2,000 × seats | $0 |
What you actually receive
- The source code. Not access to it — a copy of it, running on your infrastructure.
- A one-time perpetual licence. It does not expire, it cannot be revoked, and there is no renewal date in your calendar.
- No seat count. Put every estimator in the company on it. There is no user tier to outgrow and nothing that counts logins.
- No dependence on us. Sixty days of support are included. After that you can hire any developer to change it, because you have the code. Most vendors cannot make that offer, because with them you are renting.
Subscription figures are publicly reported PlanSwift prices from software review sites, shown as a representative example of per-seat takeoff pricing. Check any vendor's current pricing directly before you compare. See the full PlanSwift comparison.
What is being built next
- DXF and DWG import is in active development. Today the tool reads PDF. If your drawings arrive as CAD files, ask on the call and we will give you honest timing rather than a guess on a web page.
- Auto-count symbol recognition — box a symbol once and find every match on the sheet — is a later release.
- Multi-estimator assignment, so a supervisor can hand work to specific people, is still being built out.