AI takeoff tools
Estimateria vs Civils.ai for door, hardware and finish takeoffs
Civils.ai is the clearest version of a real idea: describe the scope in a sentence, and a takeoff comes back as an annotated PDF and an Excel file, linked to the source sheets. Its QA team reviews every result before it reaches you, which is why it is trusted and also why it is asynchronous — the vendor aims to return results within 24 hours. Estimateria answers the other half of the same problem. Nothing is delivered to you; you work in the set, the schedule comes off the page in front of you, and every suggestion is one you accept or reject on the spot.
What Civils.ai is
A browser product aimed at civil, groundworks and subcontractor scopes. You drag in PDFs — including scanned, historic and handwritten ones — pick an agent and type the scope in plain English, and the result comes back as an annotated PDF plus Excel that links to the source drawings. Six takeoff types are listed: areas, lengths, counts, elevations, volumes and opening sizes. No manual scaling is asked of you. A QA team reviews every result, and the vendor is explicit that this is not a fully automated takeoff. Issue and discrepancy checks, a borehole digitiser and free engineering calculators share the same login.
What Estimateria is
A workbench rather than a delivery service. You open the set, the pages are classified locally, and the door, hardware and finish schedules come off the sheet into an editable grid keyed by door mark. Detections on the plan arrive as suggestions with a suggested, accepted or rejected status that you decide. Nothing is queued, nothing is sent away to be reviewed, and the answer is on screen while you are still looking at the drawing.
How the same job goes
One door schedule on a set of architectural PDFs, from the drawings to a priced, exportable list.
In Civils.ai
- 1Drag the PDFs in — scanned, historic and handwritten sheets are accepted.
- 2Pick an agent and type the scope: 'measure all asphalt road surfacing and paving areas'.
- 3Wait. The vendor aims to return results within 24 hours, and notifies you when they are ready.
- 4A QA team reviews the result before it comes back to you.
- 5Open the annotated PDF and the Excel file; both link back to the source sheets.
- 6Request revisions from comments on the higher plan, and wait again.
In Estimateria
- 1Upload the set. Page classification runs locally and finishes without leaving the machine.
- 2Select the schedule on the page; the rows are in the grid in front of you.
- 3Run detection on a floor plan; doors, rooms and repeated symbols come back as suggestions.
- 4Accept or reject each one yourself, on the plan, where you can see it.
- 5Measure the rest on a calibrated plan: areas, lengths, counts and volumes, each with a condition that carries a cost.
- 6Hardware sets break into items, matched and priced from supplier listings.
- 7Export the estimating package to Excel, or the marked-up sheets to PDF.
1 · On the sheet
The schedule table on page 3 of A-601, found on the sheet and selected.
2 · In the grid
| Mark | Type | Size | HW |
|---|---|---|---|
| 101 | Hollow metal | 3'0" × 7'0" | HW-01 |
| 102 | Solid core wood | 3'0" × 6'8" | HW-04 |
| 103 | Hollow metal | 3'0" × 7'0" | HW-01 |
| 104 | Storefront pair | 6'0" × 8'0" | HW-07 |
One row per door mark, editable like a spreadsheet. Sample data.
3 · Back to the page
Door 102
Solid core wood · HW-04
A-601 · p.3Opens the page at the row it was read from
A reviewer checks the number against the drawing in one click.
Stay with Civils.ai when
- Your scopes are civil, groundworks or earthworks rather than Division 8 and finishes.
- You need civil-scale volumes, cut and fill, or formwork areas taken off for you from a typed scope.
- Your drawings are scanned, historic or handwritten and you do not want to install anything to read them.
- You would rather buy a reviewed result than do the review yourself.
- A per-takeoff price suits you better than a seat: it starts at $90 a month.
Choose Estimateria when
- The bid is the door, hardware and finish schedules, and they are tables on a sheet.
- It is bid day and hours of turnaround is not a thing you have.
- You want to see what the software was unsure about, and decide, rather than receive a verdict.
- You want the hardware priced as well as counted, and the measurements carried into a bid and recap.
- The drawings should not leave for review by a third party.
Side by side
| Feature | Estimateria | Civils.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Turnaround | Yes Extraction and detection run while you are in the set; suggestions appear for review. |
Partly Asynchronous. The vendor aims to return a reviewed result within 24 hours. |
| Human QA included | No You are the review step. There is no service behind it. |
Yes A QA team reviews every result before it is returned; the vendor calls human review essential. |
| Scanned and handwritten drawings | Partly Scans open, mark up and measure like any page, and a local image model classifies them. Reading their text needs the optional OCR add-on in the desktop app; handwriting is not covered. |
Yes Accepts scanned, historic and handwritten PDFs, with OCR on raster and vector CAD. |
| Schedule table read into rows by door mark | Yes Door, hardware and finish modules, one row per mark, with the hardware and finish hanging off it. |
Partly Outputs link to source drawings, schedules and notes; opening sizes are a listed takeoff type. Not a Division 8 schedule workflow. |
| Volumes, elevations and formwork | Partly Area, length, perimeter, count and volume (an area times a depth you enter), with an elevations filter on the page rail. No cut and fill from contours, and no formwork areas. |
Yes Six takeoff types including volumes and elevations. Cut and fill from contours is listed as coming soon. |
| Editing the result in place | Yes Everything lands in an editable grid and an editable markup layer. |
Partly The vendor's workflow does not detail editing after the AI runs; revisions are requested from comments. |
| Hardware matching and pricing | Yes Sets split into items, priced from supplier listings and selected. |
No Quantities, not prices. |
| Cost, assemblies and a bid recap | Yes Conditions, assemblies, labor rates, supplier quotes and a recap of contingency, escalation, overhead, profit and bond. |
No The output is quantities in a PDF and Excel file; pricing happens elsewhere. |
| Where a quantity came from | Yes Every row and accepted detection carries its page, region, producer and confidence. |
Yes Outputs link back to source drawings, schedules and notes. |
| Drawings stay on your side | Partly Classification and detection run locally. The assistant and some extraction refinement use one model provider. |
No Drawings are processed and reviewed by the vendor's team as part of the product. |
| Scale set for you | Partly The scale is read from the title block text where it is legible; otherwise you calibrate by two points. |
Yes The vendor says no manual scaling is required. |
Reviewed September 2026, from public information. Products change. Spot something out of date? Tell us and we will fix it.
What Estimateria does not do
If one of these decides the job for you, Civils.ai is the better answer and we would rather you knew now.
- No cut and fill from contours, no formwork areas, and volume is an area times a depth you enter rather than a surface model.
- No service behind the software: if you wanted the review done for you, this is the wrong shape.
- Schedule extraction needs a text layer. A scanned sheet opens, marks up and measures normally, but reading its text needs the desktop OCR add-on, and handwriting is out of reach.
- Outside door, hardware, finish and millwork, other trades are not modelled.
- Every detection accuracy figure we have is from drawings we generated ourselves; no real plan set has been measured.
What it costs
- Civils.ai
- Published as a subscription with a takeoff allowance: Starter $90 a month for 10 takeoffs, Professional $270 a month for 30, Enterprise custom with multi-user, API and SSO. A takeoff is counted per drawing sheet per trade. Review sites quote older and different figures, so check directly.
- Estimateria
- Sign-up is open and free while the product is being built, so there is no published price yet. The free calculators need no account at all.
Prices are what the vendor published when this page was reviewed, and they move. Check with Civils.ai before you budget.
Common questions
Is a reviewed result not better than reviewing it myself?
Often, yes — and if your scope is civil work, that is a good reason to use Civils.ai. The cost is the clock. A reviewed result arrives in hours, and on bid day that is a different product from one that answers while you are looking at the sheet.
How accurate is the detection here?
Unknown on real drawings, and we will not pretend otherwise. Doors, rooms and count-by-exemplar were built and measured on drawings we generated ourselves. Civils.ai publishes vendor figures of 97% accuracy and one third-party benchmark reports 0.18% gross error; those are their numbers on their scopes.
Do my drawings leave the building?
Page classification and floor plan detection run in a local process and send nothing out. Table extraction refinement and the assistant call one model provider. Civils.ai's human QA means a person at the vendor sees the drawing by design.
Could you do both?
Yes, and for a mixed civil and building bid that would be sensible: Civils.ai for the earthworks scopes, Estimateria for the schedules.
Other comparisons
- AI takeoff tools vs Togal.AI Press a button and the floor plan is detected, measured and classified. What that covers, and what it does not.
- AI takeoff tools vs Kreo A full AI takeoff workbench with an agent that acts inside the product, and where a specialist differs.
- Spreadsheets and general tools vs Excel The spreadsheet most estimates end up in, and how retyping schedules into it compares with extracting them.
See it on your own set
The fastest way to compare is with your drawings. Create an account and put a set through it.