The problem: waste is not one number across the job
- Carpet off a roll, plank in a box and tile in a carton all waste differently, and a diagonal or herringbone layout wastes more again.
- Coverage per carton is a real number printed on the box, and it does not divide evenly into a room.
- A house is a dozen rooms with three or four materials between them, and the transitions between them are their own line item.
- Base and shoe follow the room perimeter — the same perimeter you just traced for area.
Take off a house room by room in a spreadsheet and the totals are fine until the client changes the material in two rooms. Then every downstream number has to be found and fixed by hand.
How the tool handles it
Each room is a traced area assigned to a material condition. The condition knows its coverage per carton, its waste percentage and its rounding rule. Square footage totals by material across the whole job, waste is applied once, and the result converts to cartons once — the way the material is actually bought. Reassign a room to a different material and every number that depends on it moves with it.
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 Luxury vinyl plank, glue down condition looks like this:
| Part | Unit | Driven by |
|---|---|---|
| LVP | BOX | material SF + 10% waste ÷ SF per carton, rounded up |
| Adhesive | GAL | room SF ÷ coverage at the specified trowel notch |
| Demo and haul-off | SF | existing floor SF |
| Moisture test and mitigation | EA / SF | slab area |
| Skim coat / patching compound | BAG | prep SF ÷ coverage |
| Transition strip | LF | at each material change |
| Base and shoe | LF | room perimeter less door openings |
| Install labor | HR | room SF ÷ 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.
Waste per material, not per job
Plank at 10%, a diagonal tile layout at 15%, carpet figured off roll width — each condition carries its own waste percentage.
Cartons total by material, not by room
Square footage rolls up by material across every room, waste is applied once, and the total converts to cartons once — because offcuts from one room finish the next. A per-room breakdown still prints for the crew.
Perimeter drives base
The outline that gave you room area also gives base and shoe linear feet, with door openings deducted.
Every number traces back to a mark
When a room comes up a box short, you can see which room was traced, what coverage per carton was used and what waste percentage was applied to that material. Nothing has to be re-measured on site.
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
One box short on install day means a return trip and a dye-lot risk. That is the arithmetic this replaces.
$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.