Construction Quantity Takeoff Services
We measure your drawings and give you the quantities. No pricing, no markup, no assumptions about your cost structure — just counts, lengths, areas and volumes by CSI division, with a marked-up set showing where every number came from. If you already know what things cost, this is the half of the work you actually need.
Get a Free QuoteTakeoff or Estimate — Which One Do You Need?
This is the question most contractors get wrong in one direction or the other, so it is worth being direct about it.
A takeoff is measurement. How many linear feet of 4-inch pipe. How many squares of shingle. How many cubic yards of concrete, by pour. It stops before money.
An estimate is that takeoff with pricing applied. Labor productivity, material costs, equipment, general conditions and markup, carried on top of the same measured quantities.
You want a takeoff if. you have your own cost database, you buy at negotiated supplier pricing, your labor rates are specific to your crews, or you are a subcontractor who knows your own trade's costs better than anyone outside your company does. Paying for pricing you are going to overwrite is wasted money.
You want an estimate if. you are entering an unfamiliar market, bidding a trade you do not self-perform, testing feasibility, or need general conditions carried. A takeoff costs meaningfully less than a full estimate — if you are not sure which you need, tell us what you plan to do with it and we will say which one fits.
What a Quantity Takeoff Delivers
Measured quantities by division. Organized against CSI MasterFormat so they drop into your own estimating template without re-sorting.
Counts, lengths, areas and volumes. In the units your trade actually buys in — squares for roofing, board feet for framing, cubic yards for concrete placed, tons for structural steel and rebar, linear feet by size for pipe and conduit.
Quantities separated by condition, not merged. Slab-on-grade and elevated deck concrete are different pours with different costs; a takeoff that adds them together has destroyed the information you needed.
Waste and overage factors stated separately. We show the raw measured quantity and the factor applied as two lines, so you can apply your own.
A marked-up plan set. Every measured area shaded and labeled. Every quantity traces to a location on the drawings.
An assumptions and exclusions schedule. Listing every judgment call — every place the drawings were ambiguous and we made a decision.
The Units We Measure In
A quantity is only useful in the unit the work is bought and bid in. Converting everything into square feet for tidiness destroys the information you needed, so we do not.
Who This Is For
Subcontractors
Who know their own costs precisely and only need the measurement. This is the largest group we do takeoff-only work for.
General contractors
With an in-house estimating template and their own historical cost data, who need capacity rather than expertise.
Suppliers and distributors
Verifying a customer's order quantity before it ships.
Estimating departments at capacity
The measurement is the time-consuming part, and it is the part that outsources cleanly.
What You Receive
- An editable Excel workbook with quantities by division, formatted to drop into your own template
- Raw quantities and factored quantities as separate columns
- A marked-up plan set showing every measurement
- An assumptions and exclusions schedule
- A scope summary stating exactly what was and was not measured
- No pricing, no markup, and no opinions about your cost structure
Divisions We Measure
All forty-one trade scopes. Each division links to exactly what we quantify for that trade, in the units that trade buys in.
What We Need From You
Less than a full estimate needs, because we are not pricing anything. Send what you have and tell us the scope.
- The drawing set for the divisions you want measured — PDF, DWG, images or ZIP
- Which divisions you need, and in which units if you have a preference
- The relevant schedules — door, window, finish, fixture, equipment, panel
- Specification sections where material or assembly type affects the measurement
- Your estimating template, if you want the quantities delivered in it
- Whether you want waste factors applied, or raw quantities only
- Your deadline, so we can tell you honestly whether it is achievable
What Moves the Price of a Takeoff
Division count, not project value. A takeoff is priced by how much measuring it takes. A fourteen-division podium is a different job from a single-trade fit-out, and a $40M warehouse with two scopes can be less work than a $3M interior renovation with eleven.
How the drawings are drawn. A clean vector PDF with complete schedules measures quickly. A scanned set, a set with conflicting revisions, or a set where quantities have to be inferred from three sheets at once takes materially longer, and the quote reflects that rather than hiding it.
Repetition in the design. Forty identical apartment units measure once and multiply. Forty different units measure forty times. Repetition is the single largest efficiency in takeoff work and it is why unit-cost-per-square-foot pricing misleads in both directions.
Level of separation you need. Quantities split by floor, by phase, by pour or by unit type are more useful for procurement and scheduling — and more work to produce than a single building-wide total. Tell us how you intend to use it.
Turnaround. A compressed deadline costs more because it displaces other work, and we would rather quote it honestly than accept it and deliver late. If a date is not achievable at a quality we would stand behind, we say so at quote stage.
Why Takeoffs Come Back Wrong
Quantities merged across conditions. Slab-on-grade and elevated deck reported as one concrete figure. Interior and exterior painting as one area. Rated and non-rated partitions as one drywall total. Each merge destroys the distinction that carried the cost difference, and it cannot be recovered downstream without redoing the work.
Measured in the wrong unit. Ductwork in linear feet, asphalt in square yards with no depth, masonry in wall area rather than unit count. The number is not wrong arithmetically — it is simply not the quantity anyone can buy or bid from.
Waste folded into the quantity. When the factor is baked in, you cannot tell a measured quantity from an assumed one, and you cannot substitute your own crews' actual waste. We report both columns for exactly this reason.
Schedules never reconciled against plans. The door schedule and the floor plan disagree more often than not on an issued set. A takeoff that measures only one of them is internally consistent and wrong, and the discrepancy is the useful output.
Scale never verified. On a scanned or reduced-print set, a scale error produces quantities that look plausible and are uniformly wrong. Every drawing gets calibrated against a known dimension before anything is measured.
Ambiguity resolved silently. Every drawing set has places where the intent is unclear. The failure is not making a judgment call — it is making one without writing it down, so you discover it after you have already bid.
How It Works
1 · Send your plans. PDF, DWG, DOC, images or ZIP, up to 100MB per file. Tell us the scope you need covered and any format you want it delivered in.
2 · Get your quote. A flat price for the scope with a delivery date, confirmed in writing. There is no charge for the quote and no obligation once you have it.
3 · Approve. Nothing starts until you confirm. If we think a different service would suit you better, this is the point at which we say so.
4 · We measure. Digital takeoff in your platform of record, checked against the schedules, with every measured area shaded and labelled on the set as we go.
5 · Delivery. The workbook, the marked-up plan set and the assumptions schedule, with a walkthrough of anything that looks off to you.
How Pricing and Turnaround Work
Priced per project from the drawings. Takeoff-only work costs less than a full estimate for the obvious reason — you are not paying for pricing you intend to replace with your own.
What drives the quote: division count, project size, how complete and how legible the drawings are, how much separation you need in the output, and turnaround.
The price and the delivery date are fixed in writing before you approve anything. There is no hourly billing, no retainer and no monthly minimum, and we do not start work on an open-ended basis.
Tools and Standards
Quantities, rates and assemblies are read against the published references that govern this work. Where a project specification conflicts with any general reference, the specification governs:
- CSI MasterFormat — the division structure quantities are organized against
- Standard purchase units per trade, rather than a single convenient unit
- ASTM and trade-association measurement conventions as cited by the specification
- GA-214 finish levels where gypsum finishing is in scope
- SMACNA duct construction standards where sheet metal is in scope
- CRSI standard practice where reinforcing steel is in scope
- Your own template and unit preferences, which override all of the above
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between a quantity takeoff and a material takeoff?
A quantity takeoff measures work — square feet of drywall, cubic yards of concrete. A material takeoff converts that into a purchasable bill of materials — sheets of 5/8" Type X, bags of compound, linear feet of corner bead. Same measurement, different output. Contractors bidding want the first; contractors ordering want the second.
Can you deliver in our template?
Yes. Send the workbook and we will populate it. Matching your existing format costs us nothing and saves you an afternoon of re-keying.
Do you apply waste factors?
We show the raw measured quantity and the factored quantity as separate columns, with the factor stated. Apply your own or use ours.
What units do you work in?
Whatever your trade buys in. Tell us if you have a preference; otherwise we use the standard purchase unit for the division.
What if the drawings are incomplete?
We measure what can be measured and list the rest in the assumptions schedule with a note on what is missing. We do not silently guess.
Can you take off from a scanned or photographed set?
Often, yes — that is blueprint takeoff. Scale verification matters more on a scan, and we will tell you at quote stage whether the set is usable.
Do you do takeoffs for a single trade?
Most of our takeoff work is single-trade. Tell us the division.
Can you separate quantities by floor, phase or unit type?
Yes, and it is worth asking for if you will use the takeoff for procurement or scheduling rather than only for bidding. Tell us the breakdown you need before we start — restructuring afterwards means measuring again.
Will you tell me if I should buy the estimate instead?
Yes. If you are bidding a trade you do not self-perform, or entering a market where you have no labor history, quantities alone will not get you to a defensible number and we will say so rather than sell you the cheaper product.
Every Division, Priced the Way the Spec Is Organized
A cost estimate is only as good as the trade knowledge behind each line. These are the trades we quantify and price, grouped the way a specification is.
Project Types We Estimate
Cost drivers change with the building type. Each sector page covers what moves a number on that kind of work.
If You Need Something Narrower
A full priced estimate is not always what the job calls for. These are the adjacent services, including the takeoff-only options that cost less.
We Estimate in All 50 States
Labor rates, wage rules and material costs are priced to the job’s market, not to a national average. Pick a state to see how that works locally.
Send your plans and tell us which divisions
Upload your plans or tell us what you need. We’ll reply with pricing and a delivery date.
Need to add trades, ZIP code, target date or project state? Use the full quote form ↗