Free tool
Free takeoff software: measure the plan PDF, price the result
Open a drawing, set the scale by tracing something you know, and measure. Lengths, areas with their perimeters, counts. Then send the quantities into the estimator, where the trade assemblies turn them into a price. The file never leaves your machine.
This is free takeoff software in the plain sense: no download, no trial clock, no account, and the PDF takeoff tool works on any plan set your browser can open.
Measuring is not the expensive part
The hours in a takeoff go on transcription: reading a measurement, writing it on a pad, typing it into a spreadsheet, then looking up what that assembly costs. Measuring the wall takes seconds. This tool is aimed at the transcription, which is why the handoff into the estimator matters more than the drawing tools do.
Measurements sharing a label are added together, so ten rooms traced separately arrive as one line. From there the estimate builder prices them against ten trade packs — or against your own rates, once you have some history.
Frequently asked questions
Does my drawing get uploaded?
No. The PDF is opened by your own browser and rendered locally — it is never sent to a server, ours or anyone else's. That matters practically as well as legally: it means you can take off a plan set you are under contract not to distribute.
How do I set the scale correctly?
Prefer calibration over presets. A preset assumes the sheet was plotted true to scale, and most printed or re-exported sets have been reduced somewhere along the way. Choose 'set scale', trace something whose real length you know — a grid bay, a door, a dimension string — and type that length. Everything measured afterwards inherits it.
What can it measure?
Lengths as polylines (walls, trim, curb, trench), areas as polygons with the perimeter reported alongside (rooms, slabs, roofs — the perimeter is what you need for edge work), and counts by clicking fixtures. Area measurements handle concave outlines, so an L-shaped room is one trace rather than two rectangles.
Is this automatic AI takeoff?
No, and it does not pretend to be. It removes the tedious part — scaling, adding up, transcribing — while you decide what to measure. Tools that claim to read a drawing set unsupervised are still wrong often enough that checking their output costs what doing it would have.
Does Bluebeam do takeoffs?
Yes. Bluebeam Revu includes length, area, count and volume measurement tools and is widely used for takeoff, though it is a PDF markup suite rather than an estimating tool, so quantities are exported and priced elsewhere, and it is licensed per user. The browser takeoff here measures the same way and passes quantities straight into the estimator.
Is STACK free to use?
STACK offers a limited free takeoff tier alongside paid per-user plans; the free version is a way to try the tool rather than run a business on it. BuiltSum's takeoff is free without limits on projects, runs in the browser, and keeps the drawing on your computer.
Estimate it once. Bill it every month.
Unlimited projects on every plan. Free field users. 14-day trial, no card.
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