Best AI take-off software 2026: Togal, Kreo, Bluebeam, PlanSwift

The quick answer, as of October 2026:

• Best for a small UK builder who wants the quantities to turn into a quote, contract and invoice: EstiMate Pro, £39.99 a month per business.
• Best for UK quantity surveyors and estimators who measure all day: Kreo, £125 a user a month on its AI tier, billed annually.
• Best for teams already working in PDFs with architects and engineers: Bluebeam, from £264 a user a year, with the AI tools on Max at £588.
• Best for estimating on a Windows PC with a desktop tool: PlanSwift, $2,000 to $3,000 a seat a year.
• Best for estimating teams that want a dedicated AI take-off engine and don't mind US pricing: Togal.AI, $299 a user a month, billed yearly.

AI take-off isn't unique to anyone. Procore, Houzz Pro (on its UK Custom tier) and Simpro Takeoffs have forms of it too. So the useful question isn't "which one has AI". It's what you do with the quantities once you've got them.

Price and output, side by side

Prices checked October 2026 on Togal.AI pricing, Kreo pricing, Bluebeam UK pricing, PlanSwift pricing and EstiMate pricing. Kreo and Togal.AI bill those monthly prices yearly, and EstiMate is per business, not per user. We've left dollar prices in dollars, because exchange rates move. Kreo's prices exclude VAT; Bluebeam's UK prices include tax; we couldn't find a VAT basis for Togal.AI's or PlanSwift's dollar prices; EstiMate's prices are what you pay.

What three people would pay for a year

Illustrative, for a small office with three people doing take-offs, using the listed prices:

• Togal.AI Growth: $299 × 12 × 3 = $10,764.
• PlanSwift Core: $3,000 × 3 = $9,000.
• Kreo Pro: £125 × 12 × 3 = £4,500, plus VAT.
• Bluebeam Max for all three: £588 × 3 = £1,764. Or one Max and two Core: £588 + £330 + £330 = £1,248.
• EstiMate Pro: £39.99 × 12 = £479.88, but that's one business login, not three seats.

To be straight about that last line: if your three people each need their own login with roles, that's EstiMate Corp, from £249 a month (£249 × 12 = £2,988 a year), and on seat price alone Bluebeam comes in cheaper, though it won't write the quote. If one person does the pricing, Pro is the plan.

The tools, one by one

EstiMate Pro

EstiMate's AI take-off reads architect PDFs and shows which sheet each quantity came from, so you can check it rather than trust it blindly. Then the quantities don't sit in a spreadsheet. The AI quote writer drafts scope, materials with quantities and prices, labour packages and a programme from your own day rates and quote history. You review and edit everything, and it never sends anything on its own. From there the same job becomes the quote link, the contract, the variations and the invoices.

Pro also compares drawing revisions and raises scope-gap RFIs, and lets you mark up drawings for the site. For tendering contractors, EstiMate Commercial (from £99 a month, early access) reads the client's drawings and spec and produces a take-off, costings and a draft tender.

Best for: builders and contractors who measure in order to price. More on how AI take-off from drawings works, or see the take-off feature.

Where it's not the pick: EstiMate doesn't claim 3D model take-off (Procore's AI works from 3D models as well as 2D drawings), and separate team logins are on Corp, not Pro.

Kreo

London-based, founded 2018, and built for quantity surveyors, estimators and contractors. All plans are per user, billed annually only, excluding VAT. Essential ($100 a month on the US-dollar price list) has no AI. Pro, at £125 a month (£1,500 a year), adds AI take-off, automatic symbol counting and an AI assistant, for up to 4 users. Business is £210 a user a month for 5 to 20 users. There's a 7-day free trial, and pay-as-you-go is no longer sold to new subscribers.

Capterra and G2 rate it 4.4 and 4.5, from small samples (25 and 32 reviews). Recurring complaints: it's cloud-only, so it struggles when the Wi-Fi drops, the AI is hit and miss on dense or scanned drawings, and moving between drawings can be tedious (Kreo on G2, Kreo on Capterra).

Best for: UK QSs and estimators who want a proper take-off tool priced in pounds. We couldn't confirm client-facing quotes, and we found no contracts or invoicing on Kreo's site.

Bluebeam

Bluebeam Revu is PDF markup, measurement and collaboration for architecture, engineering and construction teams. UK prices per user per year, billed annually, including tax: Basics £264, Core £330, Complete £438, and Max £588 (an introductory price), which brings the AI tools. VisualSearch auto-counts symbols on Core and above. Max adds AI review, overlay and "Magic Markups", and Bluebeam says measurement itself still runs through Revu's takeoff tools (Bluebeam Max launch). Max is free for 14 days with no card.

It's strong on punch lists placed as markups on the PDF and on Studio sessions with the design team. It isn't sold as a quoting or invoicing tool. Capterra gives it 4.7 from 978 reviews; price for small teams comes up in G2 comparisons.

Best for: estimators and contractors who work in drawings with architects and engineers every day. We go deeper in Bluebeam vs AI take-off for small builders.

PlanSwift

Desktop take-off and estimating from ConstructConnect. It's Windows only; Mac users need Boot Camp or Parallels. Essential is $2,000 a year for one seat, with AI Auto Count and Auto Scale. Core is $3,000 a year for one seat, with the full Takeoff BOOST including an AI first-pass take-off. There's a 14-day trial with no card, and estimates export to Excel.

Capterra gives it 4.3 from 396 reviews. Reviewers mention slow support and a steep learning curve, and one says perpetual licences bought in 2017 stopped being supported in 2025 (PlanSwift on Capterra).

Best for: trade estimators on a Windows PC who price in Excel. For the switch, see our PlanSwift alternative for UK builders.

Togal.AI

Miami-based, founded 2019. AI take-off that detects, measures, compares and labels spaces and features on plans. Growth is $299 a user a month billed yearly, with unlimited automated take-offs, chat prompts and image or symbol searches. Business is a custom price for teams of 4 or more. We found no free plan or self-serve trial: smaller teams start with a demo, and larger teams typically with a paid pilot of about three months. We found no UK presence.

G2 gives it 4.8 from 53 reviews, with glitches and large files as the summarised cons (Togal.AI on G2).

Best for: estimating teams who want a dedicated AI take-off engine and will price the job somewhere else.

Also worth knowing

• Procore: AI take-off from 2D drawings and 3D models, symbol counts and floor-plan areas, priced on annual construction volume (Procore Estimating).
• Houzz Pro: AI take-off for areas, lengths and counts, but on the UK pricing page it's in the Custom plan, not the £139 Pro plan (Houzz Pro UK pricing).
• Simpro Takeoffs: reads PDF blueprints, sets the scale, and counts and measures with symbol recognition, aimed at fixtures like lights, wiring and piping (Simpro Takeoffs).
• Buildxact: on-screen digital take-off and an AI assistant called Blu (Buildxact). We couldn't confirm AI auto take-off.
• Others we came across: Beam AI, STACK, and ConstructConnect's On-Screen Takeoff with its Takeoff Boost add-on.

Measuring isn't the job. Pricing is.

Say your take-off tool tells you there's 38 m² of flat roof on a rear extension (an illustrative number). Good. It doesn't tell the client the price, get the contract signed, price the variation when they add a rooflight, or chase the stage payment.

If you're an estimator in a busy QS practice, a dedicated take-off tool is the right call, and Kreo, Bluebeam, PlanSwift and Togal are serious products. If you're a builder doing your own take-offs on a Sunday evening, you need the quantity to land in the quote, and the quote to land in the contract. That's the gap EstiMate is built to close.

What to do next

1. Pick a drawing set you've already measured by hand.
2. Run it through two tools on trial: Bluebeam Max (14 days, no card), PlanSwift (14 days, no card), Kreo (7 days), or EstiMate Pro (free trial when you upgrade).
3. Check the quantities against yours, then time how long it takes to get from drawing to a quote the client can accept.

When you want to try it, start free and upgrade to Pro for AI take-off.