The problem: half the tile is not on the floor plan
- Wall tile lives on the interior elevations. A four by five foot shower is 20 square feet on plan and roughly 130 square feet of wall tile at eight feet high. Measure the plan only and you have missed most of the tile, all of the waterproofing and every inside corner.
- Trowel notch swings the thinset count by a factor of three, and tile size chooses the notch. One manufacturer publishes 90 to 100 square feet per 50 pound bag at a quarter-inch square notch and 34 to 47 at a three-quarter U-notch. Same bag, same floor, three times the material.
- Carton coverage is not predictable from tile size. The same maker ships 12 by 24 porcelain at 9.5, 11.57 and 17.02 square feet per carton — nearly a two-to-one spread on a nominally identical tile.
- Waste follows the pattern, not the area. A straight grid in a rectangle wastes little. A 45 degree diagonal turns every perimeter tile into a triangle whose offcut fits nowhere, and herringbone does it on both axes.
Underneath all of it sits a second takeoff nobody sees on the finish plan: membrane, waterproofing, backer board and levelling, each driven by substrate and wet-area extents rather than by the tile schedule.
How the tool handles it
Floors come off the plan and walls come off the interior elevations, into the same estimate but as separate conditions, because they take different tile, different trowels and different coverage. Pick the tile size and the notch and the bag count follows the published coverage for that notch, with a back-butter allowance when the tile crosses into large format. Grout comes from the manufacturer's chart for your exact tile size, thickness and joint width.
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 Porcelain floor over uncoupling membrane condition looks like this:
| Part | Unit | Driven by |
|---|---|---|
| Field tile | CARTON | (SF × waste) ÷ SF per carton, rounded up, dye lot kept together |
| Thinset — tile bond coat | BAG | SF ÷ coverage at the specified trowel notch, + 15-25% if back-buttered |
| Thinset — membrane bond coat | BAG | SF ÷ coverage at the membrane's own notch — a second bond coat, not the same one |
| Uncoupling membrane | ROLL | floor SF × 1.05 ÷ roll SF |
| Waterproofing sheet | ROLL | (shower wall + floor + curb + ceiling SF) × 1.10 ÷ roll SF |
| Backer board | SHEET | substrate SF ÷ 15 (3x5) or ÷ 32 (4x8) |
| Grout | BAG | SF ÷ chart coverage for tile size, thickness and joint width |
| Edge trim and profiles | STICK | exposed edge LF × 1.10 ÷ 8.21ft stock |
| Corners, end caps, pipe seals | EA | counted, never derived from area |
| Thresholds and transitions | LF / EA | every doorway and material change |
| Set labor | HR | SF ÷ production rate by tile size |
| Movement joints | LF | perimeter and field — interior 20 to 25ft, 8 to 12ft exterior or in sun and wet |
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.
Elevations, not just plans
Shower walls, tub surrounds, backsplashes and wainscot are traced off the interior elevations and land in the same estimate as the floors, as their own conditions with their own tile and their own trowel.
Trowel-aware mortar
Change a floor from 12x12 to 24x48 and the notch changes, so the bag count changes. Published coverage for the actual product drives it, and back-buttering adds its allowance instead of being remembered later.
The membrane needs two bond coats
An uncoupling mat is bonded down with its own mortar and then tiled over. That is two thinset lines off one traced floor, which is the line most hand takeoffs carry only once.
Every number traces back to a mark
When a mortar quantity is questioned, the marked-up plan shows the floor and each elevation traced separately, with the tile size and trowel notch labeled on the condition that produced the bag count.
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
Thinset figured at the wrong notch is wrong by a factor of three. That is not a rounding error, it is a different order.
$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.