A contractor who needs quantities off a plan set has four options: DraftTakeoff, a typical estimating service, a freelancer marketplace, or doing it in takeoff software. Here is how they differ on the things that decide it.
On your phone? Paste a link to the plan set instead of a file — any link that opens without signing in. Your drawings stay on your device until you order.
| DraftTakeoff | A typical estimating service | A freelancer marketplace | Doing it yourself with takeoff software | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Price, and how it is set | One flat fee set by your drawing-sheet count, shown free before you pay and locked when you order — the fee table is below. A Trade Draft Takeoff Pack, only the trades you name, is from $149. | Typically quoted job by job. Published prices are often about $150–250 for one trade and $1,200–2,500 for several trades. | Often a fixed-price listing, roughly $15–380 a job. | Varies by product, plus your own hours. |
| First step | A free Plan Check in your browser counts your sheets and shows your fee. No account, no call, no quote request. | Typically a phone call or a quote request before you see a price for your set. | Typically you buy the listing and pay at once, then send the seller your requirements. | Varies by product. |
| Delivery time | 48 hours from when payment clears, weekends included. Rush is a 24 h delivery date for an extra 40% of the fee. | Varies. | Varies by seller. | As fast as you can measure it yourself. |
| Refunds | No reason asked until your first download, unless the checkout told you before you paid that the order does not carry it. A date we miss, a set we cannot read, or a package our checks stop is refunded in full without asking. The rules are in the Terms of Service & Refund Policy. | Varies. A full refund before you download is not typically offered. | Varies. | Varies by product. |
| How far you can check the work | Every quantity is traced to the sheet it came from, with the calculation behind it. Every line carries a grade, and a Confidence Report lists what to confirm and what the drawings did not show. | Varies. A grade or a stated assumption on every line is uncommon. | Varies by seller. | Fully — you did the measuring. |
| Who does the work | Software measures, and the result is checked against the sheets. There is no phone, chat or support inbox. | Varies. The site typically shows years of experience, a count of past projects, named customer reviews and association logos. | An individual seller, typically with buyer reviews on the listing. | You, or your own estimator. |
The three right-hand columns describe each option in general, from public websites and listings we read in October 2026. Any one provider may differ — check its own terms before you order. Where we had nothing to go on, the cell says “Varies”.
If you want a person to call, a typical estimating service usually puts a phone number at the top of its site, and a marketplace shows buyer reviews on each listing. DraftTakeoff has no phone, chat or support inbox. What you can check instead is the work itself: a full sample takeoff and the public bid record, misses published too.
Built by a project director with 25 years running multi-trade construction. Measured by software, checked against the sheets — every quantity links back to the page it came from, so you verify the work, not our credentials.
The Full Draft Takeoff Pack covers every trade in the set. The fee depends only on how many drawing sheets the set has.
| Drawing sheets in the set | Full Draft Takeoff Pack |
|---|---|
| 1-8 drawing sheets | $199 |
| 9-15 drawing sheets | $299 |
| 16-30 drawing sheets | $399 |
| 31-60 drawing sheets | $499 |
| 61-100 drawing sheets | $599 |
| 101-150 drawing sheets | $749 |
| 151-220 drawing sheets | $899 |
| 221+ drawing sheets | $1,099 |
One flat fee, locked before you pay. Quantities only, or with reference rates — chosen before you pay; the questions below say what that costs.
A takeoff is the list of quantities measured from the drawings; an estimate adds prices to those quantities. We deliver the takeoff as an Excel workbook, so you can check it and put your own prices on it. It is a first draft to check before you bid, not a final takeoff and not a sealed engineering document.
No. It is a first draft provided as-is, with no warranty of accuracy, completeness or fitness for purpose. Every line carries a grade and its basis to confirm, so you know what to verify. Apply your own contingency and judgment before bidding.
By drawing sheets, in eight bands from $199 — a 600-page submission with 34 drawing sheets, two of them a cover and a general-notes sheet, is priced on 32. The fee is shown before you pay and locked when you order, plus applicable sales tax. The sheet count it is set on is counted in your browser by the rule our intake uses. The count shown before you pay is the count you are charged on — fixed to the files you upload. It is a fixed price for the whole job, both ways: never raised afterwards, and never lowered - if our reading after payment finds more drawing sheets, we measure them all at the fee you paid. Above 300 sheets a published per-block surcharge applies, shown the same way, never invoiced afterwards. A Trade Draft Takeoff Pack is your trades' share of the Full Pack price for the whole set: that price × your trades' billed sheets ÷ the set's billed sheets, rounded up to a price ending in 9, from $149 and never more than the Full Pack - tick every trade and it is the Full Pack price.
Full Draft Takeoff Pack: a guaranteed 48 hours from when payment clears, weekends included · Trade Draft Takeoff Pack: the same 48 hours · Rush: a guaranteed 24-hour date for +40% of the fee, rounded to the nearest $5 and shown before you pay. Our system keeps a measuring lane reserved for Rush orders, so a Rush order goes to the front of the queue and never waits behind standard work. The work, the method and the checks are the same; what Rush buys is the guaranteed date. · Miss the date: refunded in full without asking
No reason asked until your first download, unless the checkout told you before you paid that this order does not carry it: open your order on the status page with your order code and ask. Polar, our merchant of record, returns the payment in full. Once you download, the package is yours and is not refunded on request. A date we miss, a set we cannot read, or a package our checks stop is refunded without asking.
You choose before you pay. Quantities only leaves every unit-price cell blank for your own costs. Reference rates (Beta) — $0 now, +$60–$350 by set size from 2027. Our rate library is still growing, so coverage varies by project; check and replace every rate. If the library is not ready by then, the Beta is extended and announced, and the add-on is only ever charged from a date shown before you pay. Tick the words that go with your choice: · Quantities only — every unit-price cell blank; every formula and the draft quotation still built. · Quantities with reference rates — published rates we can defend, each with grade and source, which we take no responsibility for. On recent orders about a fifth to a half of the lines received a rate — about a third on a typical set, and some sets get fewer; the rest stay blank. Either way you check every price, and your own cell always wins. A reference rate that differs from your own price, a supplier quote or a bid result is not a fault in the package and is not a ground for refund.
No one needs to be: every quantity shows its source, its basis to confirm and its grade, so the workbook answers what a call would, and a date we miss, a set we cannot read or a package our checks stop is refunded in full automatically. There is no phone, chat or support inbox — that is how the fee stays low.